Paint Colors Used in House #2

I love a good paint job to tackle because it really does change everything! But I’m sad and happy that I haven’t had to paint a thing in this house. I picked colors that I have been happy with, but it’s mainly because we already did the trial and error at the last house.

Now, just because it worked in the last house does not mean it would work in the new house. I learned that lesson when I used the master bedroom paint from my condo to paint the master bedroom. I loved it in the condo, but not in the new house. I’m pretty sure it was because the trim color was not the same.

Condo Master Bedroom

But I used the paint color in our old living room as the color for the entire new house (living, halls, playroom.) Valspar – Fairmont Penthouse Stone. It is a great color that I have really loved. I've lived with it a while and not have not grown tired of it.

Old House Living Room

Current Living Room

All of the bathrooms were the same color, and the color was also used in our Master Bedroom. Benjamin Moore – Revere Pewter. This color is popular for a reason! It is a chameleon and changes with its surrounding. Very versatile color.

The boys’ bedrooms were the color I used at the old house for the spare bath. I used the color again when I changed Little JCrew’s room. It’s a fun grey that is warm. Bonsai

The Office was my bold color choice. I picked the darker shade of blue from our old bonus room. I really like blues and this one was my favorite. “Antique Tin” by Behr. I love seeing the deep blue color from a distance. It is such a moody color that I love so much that I want to put it everywhere, but then that would take away from it's magic.

The kitchen was the only color choice I wasn’t sure of. I knew the color of the cabinets and that decision was set and I did not want to change, but I didn’t think my ‘Fairmont Penthouse Stone’ color I chose for the whole house, would go with it being right next to the cabinets. I pulled the swatch that had the color of my cabinets on it. Since the swatches have the “family” of colors on it, I knew if I picked one from the swatch, it would go with the cabinets. However, I still have to go with the “whole house color” as some walls would be touching. I ended up with 'Barren Plain' on the kitchen walls. It’s a barely noticeable transition to the ‘Fairmont Penthouse Stone’ color.

That’s it for all the wall colors. I tried to keep the amount of colors down but did not want to be limited. When you buy a spec home, the builder usually only allows you to pick two colors. If you build a spec home, the builder has a budget for two colors and you are charged for each color change. I get it! It’s a much simpler task to just have one color to paint everywhere.

Now I can’t stress how important the trim color is. It can make or break a color for you. I learned this the hard way. I ended up choosing 'Simply White' by Benjamin Moore after seeing it used by Young House Love. It wasn’t stark white, but looked like it. Our old house had an off-white trim color, but it really was off from being close to white. (Sherwin Williams 'Pacer White.') It was like a dirty white. Nothing wrong with it, but it limited my choices in picking coordinating colors.

We used Simply White on the ceilings, trim, plantation shutters, closet walls and the laundry room walls. The laundry cabinets are also Simply White.

The fun color on the ceiling is Cooled Blue. I almost used it as the interior of the closet that is now Pfitzer’s, but decided against it. I’ve really enjoyed it being somewhere I see every day. 

As for paint colors on the outside, this decision scared me the most. I could repaint an interior room with no problem, but if I messed up on an exterior paint color, it would be an embarrassment all would see until I hired a painter to fix it. And who knows if my fix would be the final fix?

I had seen the color “Dragon’s Breath” painted on an interior door in a picture on Pinterest. I loved the color. It looked black, but had brown undertones in it. I loved it so much that I hung on to that picture and knew I would use it in the new house some how.

Inspiration

I went to the store to get the swatch and see the family of colors that coordinate with ‘Dragon’s Breath.' I then came back with my brick sample to make sure it went with the brick.

I picked Gargoyle for my exterior trim color (columns, facia, door trim).

Plymouth Rock was used on porch ceilings and siding.

Dragon’s Breath was used on the exterior doors, shutters, and lapboard siding.

I am so lucky that it worked on the first try. It could have been a disaster.

There you have it! Our paint colors at house number two.

Laundry Drying Racks

It appears that my laundry room is my favorite hangout between Christmas and New Year’s. It’s not because we are home and I get to do all that laundry!But I have extra time that I can start and finish a project in one sitting.

Recap:

2016 – Backsplash the wall behind the sink in the laundry room

2017 – Backsplash behind the washer and dryer

2018 – Add a drying rack (this post)

All of my laundry projects have been at the top of my favorites list, but this year’s drying rack is really my favorite!

All the projects are making my laundry room more enjoyable, but this one really added function. We purchased and hung a drying rack based on recommendations from YoungHouseLove. It works great and we love it, but I was scared of hanging too much on it and being too heavy to handle. Plus, the bars are so close together, that I felt the clothes didn’t have enough room to breathe and the bars were actually starting to rust a little.

We still use the rack a lot, but not for heavy items.

In Mr. JCrew’s wardrobe, he has a lot of items he does not dry. He is fearful of shrinking clothes. But pants and sweaters are heavy. We were using the appliances to drape the pants over to dry. But then the whole room was covered in clothes. It looked messy. That’s when I went searching for options. And when I do that, I don’t find what I want and end up making it.

Sure enough, that’s what I did. I looked at the space in my laundry room and found very little. I then looked at the cubby that houses the laundry baskets. I could make pull-out racks.

I then measured the space to see the biggest I could make it and bought supplies. But then the supplies hung out in my garage for four months until I found time. I actually was slightly stalling this project because I wasn’t confident. On paper it worked, but I knew there would be a hiccup.

I finally tackled this project after Christmas. I wanted the front flush, so it didn’t stand out. Because there was a lip on the front of the cabinet, I had to build out the inside to attach the sliding drawer hardware to. I used wood glue and screws to attach scrap pieces of wood to the side of the cabinet, but I also used the drawer hardware to attach it to the back of the cabinet for extra strength.

I then built the box frame and then cut the dowel rods to fit.

The dowel rods are 1-inch diameter. I wanted large so that it didn’t create a crease in the clothes, but also allowed the longer pieces to not be touching themselves when folded and could dry faster.

The project ended up being easy! I put multiple coats of polyurethane on it to protect the wood from water. I then waited a few more days before use. And my first time using it was awesome!

The drawers open and close so smoothly with just one hand.

And with both racks in use, you can still open the door plenty to get in and out of the room.

Soooooooo, excited about this project and its function. I think I love the laundry task just a little bit more now!

Laundry Room Backsplash

I shared how last Christmas I put up a backsplash in the laundry room and the kitchen. I finally found a tile I liked and was certain I would get tired of. I also had the time. I shared at the end of my post that I had leftover tile and was thinking of using this Christmas down-time to put it to use. I just had to psych myself up, and I did!

I didn’t calculate exactly how much tile I had before I started, but I would start at the top and work my way down until I ran out of tile.

I had my setup crew get the room ready.

I did not start in the center like I did on the other walls. I just started on the far side of the room and went from there. It ended up being perfect spacing. 

I did make sure that my first row was level. I placed a long level under the tile already on the wall and the tile I was placing.

Because I didn’t know how far I was going to go down, I back-buttered the tile. I used the smooth side of my trowel to put the adhesive on.

And the notched side to make the grooves needed.

The adhesive I used was by mapei.

I used the 1/8 inch spacers.

After placing the tiles on the wall, I’d hit them with my mallet.

The hammering is usually needed more for when you are applying tile to a wall that already has adhesive on it, but this step made me feel better, so I did. But the hammering would knock the spacers out.

My method was not the fastest way, but I was letting my perfectionist side come out and I was okay with that. I cleaned off every tile and the area around it after I laid the individual tile piece. I was trying to lighten my load at the end.

I was okay with having 3-4 rows of tile. I wanted enough that it disappeared behind the washer and dryer. When I got to the third row is when I counted how much tile I had and how far it would get me. I had enough tile I could make 10 rows! Obviously, I miscalculated how much tile I needed for the first project if I had this much tile leftover!

I only have a tile cutter and not a wet saw, so I could easily cut straight lines in tile, but not cut out spaces for the outlets, etc. I ended up marking all the tile and continued tiling and just left spaces.

I don’t recommend this. I was pretty good at marking the wall and picking the pattern back up, but there is one spot that I got off quite a bit. And it’s a spot that was not hidden! 

When I marked the tile, I used a special pencil. I put the tile in a position to mark one line.

Then I moved the tile to get the other line needed.

I then labeled the back of the tile with where it goes in the lineup so that I did not have to play too big of a guessing game when it came to installation.

I ended up having a large pile of tile that needed to be cut. Our local Lowes will cut your tile for you. They will only cut 10, but they offer this service and it is great! Our local Home Depot does not have this service. All you have to do is bring in the already marked tile. 

Lowes and Home Depot are not close to us, so I couldn’t just drive there every time I needed to cut a notch. That’s why I continued on laying tile so I could figure out all my cuts needed. Now, you do run into the off chance that you get a non-expert cutting your tile. They know how to operate the machine, but that’s it. Our guy kept saying he would not be perfect and I said I was okay with that. The only down side, is he was not cutting on my lines!

Now, to do the cuts out of the middle of a tile for an outlet, you make “Slivers” within the area you want to remove and then you break those slivers off. This is where our tile cutter did not follow my lines. His slivers went PAST my marked line. Oh well. I told the Lowes employee he did not have to remove all the slivers. I have the tools to do that, so I did it myself. I just needed the wet saw capability.

My sander would have taken a long time to smooth out those edges, and I was at the point that I didn’t care. I got it pretty good and I was okay with it.

Part of why I gave up, was while I was sanding, I broke a tile! I used too much force and just chipped off an edge. I still used the piece and it was fine. No one will be staring up close. But I didn’t want to risk messing up more tile for the sake of perfection.

I got all the pieces installed and finished for the night. Before you can grout, you need time for the adhesive to dry. I was ready for the grout. Having the dark shadows where the grout is to go, is not a look I like. I like the same color on the same color look. It makes it look the same, but adds texture. That’s currently my style.

The next morning, I got up ready to grout. I thought this would be a thirty minute task, but ended up being a bit longer. Again, I was being a perfectionist and fixing all the little things. I also did a third of the wall at a time as I wanted to make sure the tile I started with wasn’t too dry before I went back over it for the first wash.

As I explained in my other backsplash post, I made sure my tile around the electrical outlets was cut in enough so that the outlets had tile to rest on and did not need the special spacers.

The normal outlets were raised onto the tile, the huge dryer outlets were not. I did not want to mess with them, since they are foreign to me. The look bugs me, but I will live with it. And now that I edit the photos and look at them, the rough edges really are rough, but thank goodness they are hidden behind the appliances. This is not my typical work, as you can tell, I was just glad to have it done!

Now the washer hookups got no special treatment either. I just tiled right up to them. I also did not caulk around them. I was unsure if the plumber would ever need to take the stuff off and if caulking would prevent it. So I left it alone.

I ended up not going all the way down to the floor. I had enough to go one more row, but not quite enough to go two rows (what I lacked). It ended up being perfect just resting on my newly trimmed dryer vents.

Mister Pfitzer loves to mimic all we do. He was in the laundry room several times offering his help. He was really good at cleaning. I'd spray a spot and he'd scrub it.

The backsplash definitely gives a finished look to the laundry room. The tile is shiny and the light that comes in from the window bounces off the tile and out through the glass door and into the hallway.

And speaking of window, we got plantation shutters installed in the laundry room the day after Christmas. I had lived without it because I thought it didn’t need one. And it doesn’t; but from the outside it looked unfinished. You saw all the other windows with the shutter and this lone window without them. From the inside, it really finishes the room as well.

The laundry room is now the fanciest room in the house. It has a backsplash on both walls, double the washer and dryer, cabinets, sink and a fun color on the ceiling. I definitely enjoy the time I spend in there.