Step 18: First Coat of Paint

October 2018

The contractor wanted to do a first coat of paint before the floors go in and then finish up after the floors. We wanted a calm, cool feel for the main part of the house so for most of the downstairs, we chose a soft blue/gray and bright white trim and cabinets. There were like 47 gazillion options for light blue:

Sooooo hard to decide. I read so many blogs about finding the 'perfect' blue color, which only made it more confusing. Except that I found it very helpful when people said you want to go more gray than you think because once it's up on the walls, it will be like "BAM! BLUE!" if you don't. So, keeping that in mind, and because I couldn't decide otherwise, I went by the name of the color. Very professional, I know. But the one I was leaning towards anyway was called "Sleepy Blue" and since the name of the lake is Sleepy Creek, thought it must be some kind of a sign.

I also knew I wanted our bedroom and the office downstairs to be a darker shade of the same blue and when I went down a few notches on the Sleepy Blue color chip, I found one called "Refuge." Perfect.

Apparently, I'm a sucker for paint color names. Good job Sherwin Williams marketing people. You wonder why there are people whose entire jobs it is to name paint colors? 'Cause of people like me who can't choose a color otherwise.

So, here's the first coat of Sleepy Blue. Note how different it looks in different lighting:

and the stairwell:

See how gray it looks here. It's just different in different light. If you really want to see what it looks like, you'll have to come visit!

"Sleepy Blue" in the foreground and "Refuge" in the background in the downstairs office:

Office ("Refuge"):

Upstairs Master Bedroom ("Refuge"):

We let the kids pick their own colors, whatever they wanted. Except Abby really wanted a super dark hot pink and we talked her down a few levels on the same paint strip, to a more reasonable pink.

Boys' Room ("Aquarium"):

(the black tape is where the drywall guys broke the new window bringing in the drywall)

Caleb when he first saw his room color:

Girl's Room ("Azalea"):

Abby when she first saw her room color:

I thought this was kind of a fun picture - looking through the side-by-side doors into the boys' room on the left and the girl's room on the right, blue and pink. So cliche:

The cabinets and trim all went the same color. "Pure White" because that's what the Sherwin-Williams website recommended to go with Sleepy Blue. It was interesting to see the way he covered the inside of the cabinets when he sprayed them.

I literally do not know how he got this plastic to stick to the inside of the cabinet. It wasn't taped on from the outside. Professional painters' trick of the trade, I guess.