The "Library"

  On the last couple days we were all up in PT, Missy picked out colors (as a surprise) for the Library/Office.  This is a small room located in the very back of the first floor, connected to the kitchen.  It's not a huge room, it was added later on and was not part of the original house design.  It tends to be on the darker side, as it only has 1 window.

   Originally this room had carpet, which my Dad and Missy spent our first days up together tearing out.  Missy spent hours on the floor, hand removing every carpeting staple they'd placed in the floor.  My Dad and I tossed the old rolled up carpet through the window, and it felt really good to be rid of that old thing.

   The room itself is painted in the same drab taupe that the entire kitchen is painted in.  The moldings were also painted, so instead of keeping them, Missy decided to just remove the moldings and start fresh.  She set to work removing the old ones and preparing the room for new paint.

With the moldings all down, and the paint procured from Home Depot, Molly and Missy worked together on painting the Library.  Missy decided on Martha Stewart Geyser for one wall and part of the ceiling.  The opposing wall was done in a much darker almost teal blue called Washed Denim.

  At first, my Dad and I were both suspicious.  My Dad always hates having ceilings painted, and almost all the ceilings in this house were painted!  We spent majority of our first few days here painting over that awful rose color the entire parlor and great hall were painted in.  So a compromise was made, only one small portion (pictured to the right) of the ceiling was painted, the rest will be in our classic Behr Cottage White.

   The Geyser color seemed a bit too bright at first, but luckily it dried into a nicer calming tone.  My personal favroite, is the Washed Denim, it's such a fantastic color, it really pops.  Wish I'd done the upstairs bedroom with it!

  After a few weeks, my Dad got the baseboards all in, he went with a white baseboard.  Just to give us a better idea of what it looks like in there he sent this pic to me via his iphone.  It's of the library with what little future we have up there at the moment.  One of the two patio furniture they bought, and the new rug (which is actually going in the dining room), but it was great to see it against the new blues.

The new rug pictured with some random furniture (temporarily in the library), but meant for the Dining Room.

Barn Red?! More like Barn Magenta!

   Molly continued to work on the dining room all day Tuesday, it was discovered that one coat of Martha Stewarts' "Barn" over a grey primer, creates a sort of magenta look.  Which was not what Missy wanted at all.  We were all beginning to think this was possibly a wrong color choice, but regardless, two coats were going to be needed, ugh (Guess the primer wasn't enough).

     We'd only bought one gallon and that pretty much covered the room, so once one coat was on Molly set to work on other projects.  She did however come back to paint one section with a second coat so that we could all get a feel for the finished/dry color.  It did still have the effect of a slight pinkish undertone.  But my Dad and I had decided it was due to the blue tinted plastic the exterior painters had tapped over the windows.  That light blue hue was just enough to create a difference in the color.  Missy decided to sleep on it, and make up her mind in the morning whether or not a new color choice was in order.  Either way, another gallon of some kind of red would need to be purchased from Home Depot in the morning. Which is a journey onto itself as the nearest Home Depot is in Pulsbo, nearly 50 minutes from us in PT.

   By morning the paint had fully dried and the section that had received the double coat was looking perfect.  It dried into the red Missy was hoping for and we all had a huge sigh of relief.  That morning Missy and my Dad took a trip down to Home Depot to pick up more paints (including colors for the "Library"), and check out some area rugs for the house at Macys.

Molly Arrives, Woo-hoo! (By Mary)

   Molly is my 20 year old step-sister, and Missy's eldest daughter.  She recently graduated from Vancouver Film Academy and spent her first days in the north-west in Vancouver visiting old friends.

  She arrives Monday morning, fresh and eager to begin painting the living-room (a room we all saved for her upon her request).  The living-room will be the only room done up in a more Gothic Victorian style.  Dark colors, a new dark chandelier, darker furniture, and a beautiful deep navy, gold, and red area rug.  It has definitely been the room everyone has been waiting to see come together.  The paint choices were Behr Cottage White on the top (ceiling included), and from the Martha Stewart Collection, Missy picked Barn (a deep red).  The paint guy at Home Depot recommended we do a grey primer first, as reds can take several coats to appear their desired color.  Reds apparently, are notoriously difficult, as we found out as well.

   By late Monday night she had finished her first coat of the grey "gripper" primer.  I was truly amazed, she worked throughout the day without any breaks!

Day 2: Happy EASTER!

   After a slow start by me, I awake to Missy and my Dad discussing furniture placement and paint colors.  I have some breakfast and get them to agree on some colors for the downstairs bathroom so I can get to work painting it.  The floor is a black and white checkerboard pattern and since it's not in bad shape they decide to keep it and pick colors to go with it.

The old colors were a light powder blue on the main lower portion, darker blue trim, and a off-white for the top/ceilings (see picture below).  Looks like there was some water damage in here and pieces of drywall were cut away and replaced.  Not to mention some water damage stains on the ceilings.  I got to work taping everything off while Missy and my Dad head to Henry's Hardware to pickup the colors.

They picked out a Gunmetal Gray for the bottom, black for the trim, and a brighter white for the top.  Since there was so much to paint, and a lot required my waiting on it to dry before taping off for the trim, I didn't get as far as I'd have liked.  I finished the top and the ceilings, finished all the dark gray, just waiting on everything to dry before I can finish up with the black trim.

Working on the baseboards, day 3 of painting this bathroom.  We weren't sure if we wanted the baseboards also in black, but as you can see the black is much cooler looking!

Update: 4/27/11

  By Monday I had completely finished the trim work.  However the touch-ups required were insane!  I spent the next few days with tiny brushes fixing where paint had leaked through the tape or tape removal had removed some paint!  Ugh.  It's finally complete though.  I highly recommend using Frog Tape for any and ALL painting endeavors, the difference is incredible.

Our Final Day

Woke up this morning and looked out our kitchen window to these lovely visitors in our front yard.  Of course, seeing deer in Washington is like seeing trees...they're everywhere.  But it still gets some getting used to this early in the morning.

      Today is our last day, we've been up for over a week now and it's time to get back to the ranch in California and regroup.  Next visit Missy will come and our daughter Molly to help with more painting, and more odds and ends.  But for now, Mary and I are down to the wire.  Yesterday Mary spent the day painting the second bedroom upstairs.  She picked the color and went with Behr Ultra, Rejuvenate (light sage green) for the body, and Cottage White for the trim.

                                                                     (Bedroom 2)

      I helped her roll on the body paint while she ripped through the trim.  All the while Andy was putting on a second coat of sealing downstairs and our painters were still grinding away on the outside of the house.  After the main body paint was all rolled, I left Mary to finish up the trim and I started in on the master bedroom finally.  Missy had asked me to pick out a "cool blue", and with Mary's help we chose a great light blue called Cumberland Fog, with a dark blue trim (color name is lost on me at the moment).  Though I am usually not a fan of blue for a bedroom, once the paint dried and the trim was being painted it really came together, I was sold.  It definitely had more of that nautical seaside vibe to it, which fits in with our new PT lifestyle.

(Master Bedroom)
Unfortunately this picture was taken with Mary's phone, so it's not the best quality, and the trim is still all tapped off.  More (and better) pictures to follow once I get my camera unloaded!

    Tomorrow Mary and I are set to leave at 5am for our fourteen hour journey home.  Can't wait to get back home to share all the pictures and ideas with Missy to plan for our next trip.  Hopefully we'll be back up in a couple weeks.

Our main goals: 

1) Get the exterior painting finished. 

2) Get Andy to work his magic on the hardwood floors upstairs. 

3)  Pick paints for bathrooms, kitchen, and den area. 

4) Paint dining room, and the aforementioned rooms.

5)  Get 1 large pine tree obstructing views from one side of the house cut down.

(not an old tree, don't worry, it was planted from previous owners) 

6)  Work on getting a quote for fencing in the yard (got to keep our ranch dogs at bay)

Interior Paint ~ Upstairs

This picture is of the largest room upstairs, the one that faces the front of the house.  Both bedrooms upstairs were a light pink color, with matching carpet (guess the previous owners really loved pink).  After much deliberation and confusion on colors to match a Victorian style bedroom set Missy had in the family, we finally ended up with a truly accurate Victorian tri-color scheme.

Unfortunately you can still see the mauve carpet in this picture (soon to be torn out), but this is almost the finished product.  Mary spent 3-4 days on this room alone.  Tapping off all the intricate molding around all three windows and trim around two doors (entry and closet).  We went with Behr Ultra again, using Fossil Butte for the body, Quiet Veranda for the upper portion and doors, and Japanese Maple for all the trim.

Update: 5/10/11

Slightly saturated picture here, but you can see the room now with it's baseboards in and NO more mauve carpet!  Andy did a wonderful job buffing and sanding down the original Hemlock.  We were so happy with how well they turned out.  Johnny spent last week working on painting the baseboards and installing them himself.

First Week ~ The Interior Paint

      The colors of the inside parlor and great hall were all this rose/pink color (see bottom portion in the picture above).  Not only were all the walls this color, but the ceiling as well!  Mary and I spent days tapping off the wood stained trim, and partitioned the walls into a tri-color scheme Missy had chosen before hand.  Using Behr Ultra paints, we went with Cottage White for the upper portions including ceiling, Quiet Veranda (soft yellow) for the middle, and from Martha Stwart Collection, Feather Duster (greenish/gray) for the bottom.  We loved how it turned out.

We did rip out all the old (not original) baseboards.  They were too thick and seemed to make the room look smaller to us.  So finding new baseboards and then stain-matching is yet another project added to the list.