Part 2: the great paint debate

In my last post, I told you that last year we had our entire house repainted. Every square inch, all 5 bedrooms, top to bottom, even the ceilings! It was quite the task. Hence the reason we paid professionals. But before any of that could happen we had to pick paint colors.

Oh.my.lord. I hate picking out paint colors! Seriously, my eyes cross just thinking about it. I just wanted someone to tell me what colors to pick! Who doesn’t?!

The painters we hired, exclusively used Sherwin Williams paint only. I had no prior experience with the brand, so I had to trust their professional opinion. Before picking colors, I googled “most popular Sherwin Williams paint colors”…about a million websites popped up. I came across a real estate home staging website, and on their message board a few realtors were discussing the most popular colors found in model homes. Ding, Ding, Ding! That’s exactly what I wanted!

The two most discussed colors were SW Kilim Beige & SW Latte. I used Kilim Beige in all of my common areas such as the entryway, stairway, hallway, etc. I was looking for a neutral color to match any accent wall or any type of decor and this color was perfect for me! Then I used Latte for my kitchen and kitchen island. Latte & Kilim Beige transition perfectly together! I love, love, LOVE these two colors.

Here are some photo examples {brace yourself for the “before” pics, they are horrifying}

the BEFORE:

the AFTER {SW Kilim Beige}

 

 

Formal Dining room BEFORE

 

         

AFTER {Kilim Beige next to burgundy accent wall}

   

View from and into the formal living room

 

Kitchen BEFORE

Up-close of SW Latte in kitchen

Kitchen walls & island are in Latte

 

After looking at all of our BEFORE pictures it really makes me want to blog about all of the other rooms that received a face lift! But I’ll stick with this for now ;)

FYI: All of the paint we used was in an eggshell finish. This may offend you, so I apologize in advance, but I really dislike glossy or semi-gloss paint! I do not like my walls to have “shine” or “glare”. So everything has a flat or velvety finish to it.

I was extremely impressed with the quality of SW. It was affordable and so far I love the richness of the colors. Also – SW did a great job matching colors. In our master bedroom & master bath, we wanted specific Restoration Hardware brand colors {love RH!} so we provided swatches and WAH-LAH!! Perfect match!!

So there you have it! Hopefully this post helped a few people out there that are paint color challenged like myself! Happy painting :)

oh for the love of paint

I hate to paint. I loathe it. I have vowed to never.ever.paint.again.

When we bought our house last year, we had to have every square inch repainted. Oy. Prior foreclosure, nuff said. {So we hired professionals to get the job done}

I recently came across a home decorator blog trying to gain inspiration for some holiday ideas, and I noticed they did an entire post on why you should never ever paint over oak wood. And several people commented about how it repulses them to see people paint oak and it’s a “no-no” in the wood/paint world. Hmm…I disagree.

Case in point:

Check out our OAK kitchen cabinets when we first closed escrow on our house.

Blah. This pictures makes me want to vomit. In my opinion, the oak makes the kitchen look so outdated. The house is just barley 6 years old, and the kitchen looks 20 years old! Yikes.

So we decided to give them a little makeover with some white paint….cheap & easy {well, easy for me since I didn’t lift one paint brush}.

 

I think this AFTER picture trumps the blog post that says never to paint over Oak. I don’t regret this makeover for a split second. Gives so much life to the kitchen.

So there you have it…if you’re in need of some home improvement inspiration, here you go.

Stay tuned for my follow up post on some popular paint colors that will eliminate the painful process of picking out that perfect shade…just thinking about picking out paint colors makes my skin crawl. So if you feel the same way, check back later this week ;)

it’s a shoe thang

Head over to Nordstrom.com and you can get free shipping on all shoes if you purchase before 10/25/10 and use the promo code SHOES at checkout.

They also have some good sales going on….I have been looking high & low for some sandal-type shoes for my son since he grew from a size 4 to 6 literally overnight. And even though it’s raining here all week, it undoubtedly will be back to 85 degrees shortly. NO stores have any sandals in stock…I’ve looked everywhere.

Well lo & behold, I found that Nordstrom has some GREAT sale prices on kids Stride Rite shoes. I got my son the below pair for $25.90 {40% off the original price of $43.95}.

 

If you’re interested in Stride Rite’s, check out Amazon first. They actually have this exact shoe for $4 cheaper with free shipping, however they didn’t have my son’s size.

Happy shopping!

It’s tough

So I’m not exactly a domestic goddess when it comes to laundry. Oh lord do I hate doing laundry. Biggest pet peeve ever. Especially since the boys in my family are stain magnets. My hubby comes home with practically an entire football field smeared on his clothes and my son, well, he’s just a walking mess.

I have always used Shout stain remover. Why I have never tried anything else, I have no idea. In my personal opinion, Shout sucks. It just doesn’t do a good job, especially for the stains a 16 month old can acquire.

So I finally decided to try something else and picked up this OxiClean stain remover:

 

 

This stuff just confirms my love for all OxiClean products. This stuff rocks! Completely removed the evidence of an entire oreo cookie all over my son’s white polo shirt! yahoo! Oh and it smells really good too! I also used it on my carpeted stairs after our cat got sick all over them the other night…it worked like a charm!

If you go to the OxiClean website you can print a $0.75 off coupon for this product! Happy laundry goddess day ;)