One Shade of Gray

So like 85 things have happend since our last post before Christmas. We celebrated one graduation, three Christmases, missed one Christmas, traveled to Kansas City twice in 2 weeks, celebrated NYE in OKC and now we are finally back home! Oh and we painted the living room. This is what the post is actually about. Warning, loooonnnggg post.

After spending weeks and weeks talking about and researching what color to paint the living room we were finally able to get it done after receiving a Lowe's giftcard and paint accessories from my mom for Christmas (with the promise of her help of course). Our LR is tricky because as you can see with the three pictures below that all of our rooms except our kitchen all share one wall with no divider. So we had to pick a color we really liked since it would travel to multiple rooms. 

See how the LR is really only the middle wall with the big picture window and the wall directly across it? But in the pic above it shares the entryway wall because of that funky half wall? Well we do have plans for separating that so we can paint the entry and dining another color. But that will be later. And see how toward the fireplace there are two columns on either side as well as one on the ceiling that kind of separate this space? Well we use that area as part of the LR so we wanted to keep them together. Now see the bookcase towards the right? 

It leads to this room which we use as a mudroom/bar/eating area but it's so close to the LR that we wanted to wrap the color around to that area as well. These shots also show you the color that we had when we moved in, I'm not sure what the actual color name is but I like to call it slab-o-butter yellow. Seriously I feel like I could walk up and dip a piece of bread in it. It also didn't help pop our crisp white trim and doors that we have and kind of just overall dulled the space down.

So after reading blog after blog (and later getting reassured by Nate Berkus) we decided to go with Moonshine by Benjamin Moore in satin. Yes, we've heard that flat paint is best for LR because it's easy to wipe down. However, not only does this color go into an eating area and we didn't want to mix finishes but I absolutely hate flat paint. It's easier to wipe down, yes, but that's because it shows dirt ten million times more! It feels like chalkboard paint and kind of dusty. So no we did not go flat. 

We chose Olympic Premium no VOC interior latex and I got this neat rim lip pourer thingy. It kept things super clean and helped me save a lot of paint from pooling in the rim, which was good because we barley got all three areas covered with one gallon. 

There were also many tricks and prepping that had to go on with these spaces. First of all the two actual LR walls are textured so they needed a nappy texture roller to get into all the grooves. Second of all the fireplace area and nook area have flat bead board walls so they needed a smooth foam roller and caulking. And boy did I caulk. Caulk is my new best friend. Seriously as I was caulking the bead board and gapped trim I took this shot to remind myself that it would all be worth it. Our bead board had these deep grooves and our trim wasn't flush in most places so I wanted to caulk the space so the paint job would look more professional, clean and we would use less paint since it wouldn't have to fill deep crevices. Here is a shot of the bead board above the nook where the lines on the right are caulked and the ones on the left are not. 

 And a close up shot of what I mean. Hello clean lines good bye dark holes.

And yet another shot. I think I'm doing this more to prove to myself that a week of cramped hands was worth it. But it was!

Before Caulk

 After Caulk

And here was my weapon of choice. A 1.49 tube of Alex white paintable caulk. And I was able to use the caulking gun that was left behind, yay!

Oh and here's another shot at some areas that need caulked. To caulk the space it was pretty simple but messy....but worth it. I'll keep saying it to block out those bad memories. Anyways, to get started I just trimmed a small hole off the tip and squeezed that caulking into either bead board crevices, trim gaps or brick meets wall inconsistencies. Once I would squeeze out a strip I would take my finger and run it down to get off any access and to kind of press it down into where it needed to go. I did this for every. strip. of. bead. board. That's well over 40 strips. Then the two sides of the fireplace. Then the base boards. Then the frames around the windows and bookcase. Then the hardest part, the place where the bead board meets the crown molding. ugh. 

  

But, bad memories aside, here is a final shot! A moonshine and caulked bead board wall. Lovely!

And a moonshine coated textured wall! FYI this is probably the truest shot of how the color actually looks, well I guess depending on your monitor. Just believe me when I say that it's the best gray ever. Not too purple or white or anything. Just gray. I mean, or you can believe Nate Berkus when he calls it the "perfect gray".

I love how our white frames pop against the gray, the wood tones look warmer, and the entire space just feels softer.

Alas, we still have work to do. Remember above I said we would be taking care of the divider to the entryway? Well this is that area. We have this weird little half wall that used to have spindles (cute!) but those have been taken down but we still have the weird jut out of a wall. Ideally I would love to see if we had wood flooring underneath the wall and just take it out. But until then we are just going to build a column out from the wall just like the other two we have leading into the fireplace area.

Here is the shot from underneath the nook. I like how we are kind of bringing down the total number of colors we have around the space. I like doing pops of color but against a neutral background. So like before we had butter yellow, gray, walnut, white and then our pops of teal and greens. But now it's just gray, walnut and white (all neutrals) and then our pops of colors.

See what I mean? Before these colors all kind of competed with the butter yellow background, now they stand out.

Oh and we also hung a sheer and some hooks for my everyday goodies for easier access. Hey, it's a mudroom/bar/nook we can do whatever we want. 

And finally (not really) here is the moonshine paired against our crisp white brick fireplace. I am in love. This is my absolute favorite space in the house right now. Our distressed rustic mantle + avocado mirror + white brick + moonshine = love.

Here are some shots of those lovely mantle toppers. My lovely ceramic horse head that my bestie got for me for Christmas, a teal sand hourglass from Ross, a white antler from Vintage Trade Days sits on top of a cool patterned box I got for .99 from Ross. 

Neighhh.