Paint!

The house is nearly painted! We've only got three little corners to go -- one wall in a bedroom and the downstairs linen closet (both because we ran out of paint) and one wall in the upstairs hallway (because we had so little paint we needed a different kind of roller so we wouldn't run out).

So here, without further ado, are the rooms in their newly painted glory:

Here's the downstairs bedroom, in "Evening Hush" blue, with the stripe of "Heavenly Blue" at the top. It's a little dark, but we'll have white curtains and a white bedspread. It will work.

The east wall in the downstairs bedroom is "Soft Suede."

The living room, dining room and kitchen (which are really all one room) are all in "Soft Suede."


... Well, that is, with the exception of one wall in the kitchen, which is a vibrant "Chinese Porcelain" blue.

This little wall, dividing the kitchen and dining room, is "Soft Suede," which contrasts nicely with the "Heavenly Blue" of the high ceiling and walls.

Here's the view looking up. The color itself is fine, but what I really like is how it's going to look with the artwork that's going to be on the straight walls on either side -- it's silhouettes of prairie plants, in brown wall decals. (I'm still working on the design.)

Here's the west bedroom -- "Bahia Grass," "Soft Suede" and "Queen Anne's Lace." It's going to be the project room for a while, till either Sofi or Erik move up here. The colors aren't all that thrilling for that, but we'll decorate with some red, and I think it will be nice.

There's a little more of that "Chinese Porcelain" color in the upstairs hallway, though you won't see much of it -- we're planning on having bookshelves running most of the length of the hallway.


Here's the Swedish room, also known as the "Tribute to IKEA" room. OK, I love IKEA, but that's not really why I went with these colors -- I had both of these colors left, and I think they look nice together. I like the striping, but if it gets to be a bit too much (if we start feeling like we're in a Swedish jail) I'll continue the blue paint around the bottom third of the wall.

Here's the other wall! It's so bright, no one is going to oversleep in here!


Here's a nice view of the striping from the hallway.


And we must give credit to Walt for all of this getting done as quickly as it did -- he not only knows the tricks for getting the paint to look good, he was willing to clamber up and do the high ceiling. (We decided not to post this picture until we were all done with this, so Karen wouldn't worry.) And he made it seem like it was no big deal. Phew! A lot of worry off our shoulders!

So, what's next? Well, cleaning! I'm really excited to get all the drywall dust up, not only because we can then move on to other projects, but because it means I can put Erik down to walk in the new house sometimes, which he desperately wants to do.

On the immediate horizon are floors and kitchen cabinets.

Please, share comments on paint colors! Even if it's to make bad jokes about the Swedish jail. (That's going to be the guest room for the immediate future, by the way.)