Love, life and Mommyhood: The joys of painting

Five years ago S and I were recently engaged with the wedding fast approaching in a few months. We both had full time, well paying, jobs. So we did what any reasonable young couple, with enough money, and in the current economy, would do. We bought our first house. We bought a foreclosure in great condition and moved in quickly (like within a few weeks). It's a fairly big house (4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, a loft, front room, and TV room) and we literally didn't even have enough furniture to fill it. But, we figured, it would all come in time. We also didn't paint, figuring once things settled down a little bit we would pay someone to come in and change all of the starkly white (and soooo boring) walls.

But one thing led to another and suddenly we had a wedding upon us, and then a few months of settling into being newlyweds. I quite my current job about six months after we moved in and found one with better hours but a slight pay cut. Then, the next thing you know, we are pregnant. (L was a very happy surprise). Suddenly, withing a nine month period, we went to being a young couple with disposable income and no real responsibility to being new parents and me going down to working part time. Then L2 came along and suddenly we had two little ones and one income. Needless to say, while we did eventually fill every room in our house with cribs and rockers and toys, toys, toys, the days of having someone come in to paint our house were far between us.

And for five years it has driven me crazy. I hate white walls. I felt like it always felt so cold, and also felt like we were renting, not owning our own home. I didn't feel any character in our house, and of our own personality poured into it. Well, we still can't afford to have someone come in and do the job for us, but we finally hit home depot, moved all of our furniture and went at it.

Here's the thing: painting is not fun. It's just not. It's seems like it might be fun. In fact, it sounds like a great idea at the beginning. And then you get about three hours in and every muscle in your body is screaming for mercy and the kids are going crazy and you realized you've barely made a dent it one room. But regardless, we soldiered on. We literally spent almost eight hours every day of our three day weekend painting. And we only got the downstairs done (three good sized rooms, but still). And despite the fact thing it was exhausting I love love love the end result soooo much. Our house feels so much more homey now. And we steered away from the basics light beige's that are popular in Phoenix and took a bit of a risk by using a darker "greige" color called puddle on all the main walls, and a deep chocolate color for the accents. Have I mentioned I love it. I love it enough that the thought that we still have to do the stairwell, the loft, and the upstairs hallway this weekend is kind of OK with me!

So here's some picture of our work! Sorry, I know a lot of them are blurry, the were taken with my iPhone in a hurry!!!!

We will start with the "before" pictures. Of course, I didn't think to snap any before while our house looked normal! So, no, in case you're wondering, our furniture does not usually sit in the middle of the room and our kitchen does not usually look like a tornado hit (except some night after dinner!) But do you see what I"m talking about with the blinding white walls!