Paint-a-palooza, part 4.

Colour me tired.

This painting kick I've been on rivals any work-out at the gym I've ever done, including the kick boxing classes. Which is great-- don't get me wrong-- because not only am I getting in shape for the hell that is Bathing Suit Season, but my house is starting to look better, too.

Today, the dining room was finally checked off the list. The walls have cured, the base-boards and wood work are a fresh, sparkling white, and we've moved the furniture back in. Tomorrow, the living room "goes down", and then I'll be moving on to the upstairs...

I know I've been gassing on a lot about all the changes going on around here, without providing much detail. However, it's difficult to take photos that do the work justice, until all the "little things" in the rooms are just right, you know? I've got to have some pictures framed, run up two new pairs of drapes (for which I have not yet even chosen fabric), and re-configure some furniture... And all of it is going to take time.... most likely a LONG time, because gardening season is right around the corner (**suppresses glee**). And, so long as I don't fall down dead from exhaustion after all this pallooza-ing, THAT'S what I'll be attending to next. So, with apologies to those of you who have very kindly emailed and asked me questions...

I've got an idea. Here is a "representation", if you will, of some of the new colours I've chosen for our home. This'll have to tide you over until I get the remainder of my act together!

Our mud room is muddy no more! After a thorough (and much-needed) ceiling-to-floor scrub, I painted the walls a lovely, fresh china blue. All of the doors and wood-work received a coat of my favourite white, Benjamin Moore's "Decorator's White", which is a great all-purpose shade, and compliments everything you can possibly imagine (except maybe my hair). All the wood-work in my house will soon be this colour, and it will be easy as pie to just whip a can of paint out of a closet and do any little touch-ups that inevitably need to be attended to, without worrying about "WHICH WHITE???" I had previously used. The interiors of all of my closets are now Decorator's White, too. God, how I HATE painting closets... And, barring all disasters, I will never have to paint one ever again. Well, maybe not for the next few years or so, anyway.

The kitchen, which we gutted and re-modelled a few years ago, is a yellow ochre colour, called "Artists Studio" from the Paint Cafe line of paints. Our appliances are all black, which makes a nice contrast to the cream-coloured cabinetry, and helps to "ground" the room, a bit. I have always loved having a bright, sunny kitchen, and this ochre colour is a more "grown-up" version of the butter yellow I was partial to in my younger days.

Our main hallway is a soft grey-green. Our entrance way faces north-west, and so it's a good colour to make the space look light and airy, even on a dark day. It's more grey-ish in the light, but mellows to a lovely green in the evening. It also makes a good transition colour, when you look in towards the other rooms that branch off of it. The colour is (rather horrifyingly) called "Sharkskin", from the old Benjamin Moore colour deck.

Now, brace yourselves. I have broken with my long-held belief that it is best if the colours in my home all figure around the same value (the strength of a colour-- the "lightness" or "darkness"). I went slightly nuts this week, people, and painted the dining room "Pomegranate", from the new, more environmentally-friendly line of paint from Benjamin Moore, which is called "Aura". It's a spectacular colour... I love it. Child Number Three wandered in while I was rolling it on, and said she "liked the OLD room better..." But, when I asked her what colour the room had been before, she couldn't tell me. Hah. MORE proof that a dramatic change was long overdue. The former room had been the exact colour of chocolate milk... which sounds delicious, but in actual fact, was rather a bland pinkish-brown. I always felt the room was a bit cavernous, whenever we ate in there... But not anymore. The space has warmed right up, and become more elegant, but a bit more "intimate", too. I'm thrilled, even if my family members are still a bit scared. One good meal in there, and I figure I'll have them converted...

This week, the living room is set to "go down". Currently, it is the same shade as the hallway, but it will soon be a lovely robin's egg blue, accented with light brown. This is the paint that was inspired by those cushions I found, and I can't wait to see how it turns out. This is also the room in desperate need of two pairs of drapes... I'm going to have to "suffer" a trip to my favourite fabric warehouse downtown (!!!!) to find some lovely raw silk... Whether I'll actually get them sewn up before Christmas is another matter altogether.

The last project will be the girlies' bathroom... and they all want purple. I've settled on a pale, fresh version-- much like this wisteria-- and then I'll have to turn "handywoman" and replace a few light fixtures... This is a bathroom in desperate need of a complete renovation, especially since we've got one child teetering on the brink of adolescence, and two more following up the ranks... but until I've got the bucks to re-model and put in some MAJOR storage space (and a few more sinks-and-mirrors), a quick-fix will have to do.

There you have it, folks. Paint-a-palooza Plan for Spring, 2008.

The weather has been so gorgeous, lately, it's been haaaard to keep my mind focused on the INSIDE of the house... especially when little green shoots are starting to jump up out of the ground outside... but so far, it's been well worth the effort.

And, when it comes right down to it, it beats the hell out of spring cleaning.

THAT job will DEFINITELY have to wait till fall.