Wicked!

Wow, it only took up about 3 months of my thoughts, but I've decided on an exterior paint colour.  13 colours tested which I'm very glad I did as what you see on a paint chip can be very different in reality.  Last week walking the kids to school there was a newly renovated house on the different route we took, what a beauty!  I went up and rang their doorbell on Friday to see if they would mind me holding my paint deck up, but no one was home.  The colour I had pre-selected that I thought was it turned out to be darned close so I didn't need to stand there giving myself a colour consultation.  Good match, I was happy.


Went to General Paint yesterday and got a test pot of "Wicket" a lovely greenish gray or grayish green, depends how you see it.  I plan on doing that with white trim and a sill detail in either darkest colour from that shade or with a British Racing Green - hey it'll match our Austin Mini :)  hmmm, with our white wagon and our green Mini I wonder if we'll look like we're matching our house to our cars.  Give your head a shake Essy, that's a bad road for you to go down!


So here it is, what do you think?  


Oh and with any luck the garage interior demolition will commence tomorrow!  That means we have to bust it out and finish emptying it.  So close now just those few bits we don't know where to put left.

Left chip is a British Racing Green and the right is chocolate brown which might be nice as detail

The rest is General Paint's "wicket"  

Wicked!

Garage and Colour!

It's darn real now... handed over a pretty sizable cheque today for the go ahead of our garage conversion.  We are reluctant to sign off for the house since the hazardous materials test and permits haven't been completed yet, so we've got an amended contract which basically says we're going ahead with the garage now, but will go ahead with the house when those items are settled.  We're finding our Contractor and Designer to be very willing to make things work for all parties, couldn't be happier.


Now the fun part is to completely empty our garage and get rid of any bits laying about by Monday (should happen then or abouts).  Since we nixed the U-pak idea the kept contents of the garage have been moved to the sun room, shed and the kids playhouse!  Still some big items to go, but we'll make room...someplace.


Boy, we should build a bigger house :)


Oh yes, I also found the house colour combo of my dreams today so I'll head out once again to get some sample tins finalise it.  So excited now as that's been really weighing on my mind.


My only disappointed lately is that I went to head over to Ikea on the weekend (4 hr trip away including ferry ride), but a friend luckily noticed their add that they were moving locations.  Phoned to see what kind of stock they had and she said they were down to liquidation.  As hugely fun as that would be to poke through deals, I really did want some particular items.  Try again next month.  Boo.


This post looks lonely so I'll add some photos of my colour choice as soon as I can.  

...Testing

Still at it.


This time I headed to Home Depot for their Behr sample pots and brought home six new ones including the 'Tea Bag' colour I thought I wanted, now not so much.


I am really liking 'Granite Boulder', 'Pewter Grey', 'Ashwood' and still 'Gray Horse' from Benjamin Moore.

First is 'Gray Horse', fourth is 'Pewter Grey', sixth is 'Ashwood' and seventh is 'Granite Boulder'

That second one is 'Tea Bag' is very straw coloured

Nothing to do with anything, but our Magnolia, although giving me wicked allergy attacks, is looking so stunning right now.

Testing

Well I'm zeroing in on a exterior paint colour.  Went and purchased six sample pots from Benjamin Moore to try out, two of which I liked.  I also tried out the trim colour we currently have which is a dark army green.  I think I'll have to nix that idea as when I looked over at the shed painted in the same colour I noticed that it was quite faded compared to what I freshly tried out.  No good.


I really think I'm heading in the gray direction now.  My husband says the gray I like looks like concrete, but done correctly it will look very classy with white trim and black details such as wrought iron here and there and planters.  I would love a glossy black front door, but I don't have the heart to paint over our fairly nice oak door  we currently have.  I can be a bit of a purist in those respects - I like original woods and brick.  


I'm going to head over and pick up a sample of Behr's Tea Bag just in case though and I still haven't excluded the thought of keeping it the same colour we have now - very practical if we're only doing stucco patch work on the garage conversion rather than siding.  It's a constant!

The inspiration...

Photo taken from blog site www.theimpatientgardener.com

I really like the idea of that whole porch window detail being in white, as well as all other trim then the body painted gray

Could one of these be the winner?

The testers

I like the end one and the darker gray (I do really like some of these for the garage interior paint though)

The 'Gray Horse' on the left is pretty good, picture it all with white trim and black accents.

The greenish gray on the right is reminding me a of a McDonald's Shamrock Shake so that simply won't do

...or do we just go with the Montana Tan we're currently sporting, but with white trim, that's a must!

The Kid Test

Boo, another surprise cost - a hazardous material test for the portion of the house coming off.  They'll need to take samples from the walls, floor and structure at the point where the section will be removed.  Here's hoping for no asbestos :/  Doubtful, but with these things you never know, safety for all comes first!  The front half was built in 1912 and the second half (that's coming off) is circa 1980 so it's hard to say what will be found.

In other developments...
I've decided on a carpet for the stairs and second floor!  The best one seems to be Fabrica's 'Denali' in colour 'Ovation'.

I had all my carpet samples out and matched up the right one to all the other selections I made for finishings so far, then narrowed it down to two, then decided on this colour solely for it's kid resistant factor.  It's remained the exact same colour all week while I had it lying in the most highly kid trampled spot in the house.  I'm happy - not that I won't vacuum and clean just as often, but it's nice to know that if I miss a day when company is coming, I don't have to be embarrassed!

Thanks Fabrica!

Fabrica Denali in Ovation DN12

I'm at it AGAIN!

Update - still waiting on permits...still trying to pick exterior paint colour.

I had every intention of going to the paint store today to get some sample colour paints tins, really I did.  Instead I walked by the wall of colours and found myself, once again, looking through them all to see if I like one just that much better.  Well I guess I did as I walked away with another hand full of chips.  Now I know why people hire decorators (like myself) to choose for them.  I can choose a colour for another person in a heartbeat and they turn our very successful, but picking for myself has proven to be very tricky.  I think my problem is that I like so many colours but at the same time find it hard to commit since an exterior paint colour is not something you can't easily change once a year.   This needs to be a 10 year commitment so it better be good!  My husband keeps saying just go with the colour we have now but I'm finding it just too tan, needs to go either a bit more gray or a bit more green. 

While I do have several brands of paint decks I seem to have better success choosing from a store's wall of colour....well maybe I have more success, we'll have to see about that.

The ones I don't really like

The ones that I  like...today.

I use a white sheet of paper to represent the trim since I'll be going white for that for sure

The two above the white piece of paper are looking pretty good to me, below is the 'tea bag' that I liked last week, but now it's looking tan! 

Headache...oh, I mean Headboard

Since the fabric wasn't wide enough to go the width of the board I had to do some match up and sew together work.  All was going so well and I had thought to myself that everything was going so swimmingly then...RATS!  I had cut to size the wrong chunk of fabric.  I didn't have enough extra to correct the problem and I'm too cheap to buy more so I just went with it and decided that I would really be the only one to care about my mistake.  I may always think of that mistake every single time I look at it forever on out, but hey, worse things can happen.

Overall though I think it looks pretty nice and around about October I'll be able to install in onto the bed rails.  No point doing that now as our bedroom is slowly becoming storage space for all that's being moved around for this project.  I'll just wrap it up and store it someplace.

Another day I'll post about the master plan for the Master, but today is just too nice and sunny out to be thinking about that. 

Hope I don't have wrongly cut bird upholstery nightmares tonight :/

1984 Glam Headboard

Sort out where the fabric should go

(those birds really fought with me)

 Remember, I'm frugal so this is an old mattress pad I saw peaking out of the cupboard that I used for some padding for just a little comfort and poofiness

The mistake. 

That wrong side is the piece I should've cut, but I did the main bit underneath by accident.  Anyway, whatever, I sewed these together - one panel on each side

Staple, staple, staple then voila, done!

I reckon those two off center birds will be covered up by shams so I'm not too worried about their position (normally that would make me crazy).  When I've decided on wall colour then I'll paint out the legs so they disappear a bit or else just let the skirt and nightstands hide them.



Headboard Idea

I'm thinking to maintain my sanity while I wait for things to get going I should really start on some projects that will be used in the new house. 

I have this dream of a bedroom retreat that the kids will only be allowed in with strict rules applied to their visit.  With our house being so tiny right now, our master seems to be the destination hiding spot for hide 'n seek.  Makes me nuts.  Especially when the freshly washed laundry is in a pile to be folded.  Somehow that pile ends up in a mass on the floor once they're done.  Grr.  Anyway, the new master will be a grown up woman's oasis (my husband will be allowed in, but it'll be all ME).  I see fabrics of all sorts of patterns and textures, real furniture (not random hand me downs that we just have just cause), soothing paint and white where ever it can go.  I need to be practical and know that may not all happen right off the bat, but I'll see what we can do about that!

I've had my parents circa 1985 headboard for a while now.  It's been with us for a while, then a friend used it, now it's back to us as of today.  I reckon tomorrow's job will be to head to the fabric store for some batting so I can reupholster it.  I ordered the fabric from Tonic Living some time ago so now is a good of time as any to ger 'er done. 

It's a pretty simple job, but I'll do a before, during and after shot so you get the idea.  I'll post that once complete, hopefully sooner rather than later.

Here's a teaser of the fabric I'll use.  Too bad it'll have to wait about 5 months to show itself off. 

Tonic Living's 'Vintage Blossom in Jade'

$20.95 USD/YD