Almost Makes Me Want to do Laundry...

Probably about a month ago I wrote about my wishlist of things to do for the laundry room (read about it here). And the first thing that needed to be done on that list was to paint. It was in desperate need of a face-lift. It was looking sad and lifeless. It was clearly the only room in the house that wasn't even touched before the previous owners put it on the market.

 When we bought the house, we knew this room would be needing at least a paint job. We weren't looking to do anything fancy since it was just the laundry room, but at the same time, it is our half-bath. It also happens to be the bathroom closest to our family room, which is where we spend the majority of our time and where we spend time entertaining guests (even though they are few and far between). I hated even suggesting that bathroom before, but even with an simple pain job, there was already an improvement. And it now isn't quite as embarrassing for anyone except Stella to walk into the room.

So off we went to Home Depot to get some paint and I could get to work.

I learned something interesting about myself and painting. It turns out I'm the kind of person that shouldn't just tape the woodwork. I need to tape the ceiling, and then cover every square inch of a room that I don't want to paint because I am an extremely messy painter. I kid you not, I still find paint on the side of the washing machine or heck, just look up when you walk into the room and you can see where the ceiling now needs to be touched up. Or on second thought, don't look up.

When I picked the color, I decided to stick with a tan/brown color much like what was already in there. Only I was going for a slightly richer, deeper color. The color on the right is the new color compared to the color on left which is the old one. Rob walked into the room and told me he couldn't tell a difference, but once he looked at the old and new against each other it was much more obvious. It's not a huge change but a much needed one.

It didn't take me long to paint. Probably three days total to do the entire room in two coats, which I'm pretty pleased about since I do have a 9-month (or at the time 8-month old) who wouldn't let me work while she was awake, not that I wanted her around the paint anyway. Luckily, she is a good napper and I was able to get a lot done in that time period.

Doesn't the room just look sharper? But like I said it's hard to really see the difference unless you're looking at it side-by-side:

Told you? It's not a huge difference but it definitely looks better.

But this wasn't all I was planning to do with the walls. I wanted to put a thick stripe horizontally around the room. I had no idea how to accomplish straight lines but that's why I married my husband. Okay, so maybe not why I married my husband but this is just another reason why I love him... :) I might have attempted to use a hand level and try to do it that way, which would have never worked.

While I was waiting for the second color to be mixed, the hubs and the kid set out on a mission at Home Depot (we used Behr paint by the way - love it!) to find a laser level. It was the only way we knew to actually get level lines and not take all day trying to tape them off. They managed to find one for only $20 or so, and we could now begin taping off my stripe.

We had decided to line the bottom of the stripe up with the wood at the bottom of the shelf, so that meant we only had to chose where we wanted the top of the stripe. After just randomly choosing a height, we started taping off the stripe. Rob ended up doing most of the taping after taking over the task from me. No other reason than I think he wanted to play with the laser level.

Although he did probably accomplish the task faster than I would have, and probably straighter. Despite the fact I would have been using a laser level, I could probably still find a way to make it slightly sloping down or up. And once again after the room was taped off, I could start painting again.

With the darker stripe color I ended up doing three coats to make sure it was well covered because there seemed to be a lot of the lighter color coming through. After painting the ceiling more times than I would have liked, I was extremely nervous about painting the stripe. I was so worried I was going to go outside the lines. Coloring was always a highly-tense activity for me. I was strictly a stay inside the lines kind of girl, even if I wasn't exactly the best at it all the time (but really who is?). Well, this was one moment of my life I really needed to stay inside the lines. I really needed things to go exactly as planned. And luckily, it did. I was a ball of nerves the entire time I was painting this stripe but it turned out exactly how I had envisioned, with no outside the lines coloring. Whew!

Personally I loved how it turned out. It's definitely not the same laundry room it started out as. The room took on a whole new life. It had more character. It was much more us. And it turned out exactly how I had pictured in my mind, which rarely happens so I was seriously pumped.

Like I said a whole new room! Crazy what a little paint will do!