After Mike hung the drywall, (I helped carry the drywall pieces upstairs, but Mike is definitely the drywaller in the family), I forgot to take photos before he taped, mudded, and did the texture of the ceiling. I love how drywall finally makes the room start looking like an actual room.
Last Monday, Mike and I decided to make a goal to finish the walls for paint to be able to move all the cabinets upstairs, (and finally out of the dining room), by the end of the weekend. Every night Mike would do a coat of mud on the walls and by Thursday he had done his third and final coat and was able to sand everything on Friday. He was on a shorter time frame than I was because he went out of town over the weekend to a beer festival/competition where he was judging.
So, the plan for me was to clean everything up and paint all weekend. Well, I got a call Friday night around midnight telling me that he made it down there safely, but his motorcycle broke down and I would have to come down to get him, (three hours away!), and he wanted me there on Saturday night so that we could leave early Sunday and still have time to get things accomplished before Monday. That meant I had to buy everything and paint Saturday and then drive three hours if we wanted to make our goal. And you know what? I kicked ass and got it done! One coat of primer on everything, two coats of white on the ceilings, and two coats of color on the walls. Finishing all so this damsel could go save her prince in distress.
Okay, now that you know what a crazy weekend we had, let's get back to the actual paint. Like the color I chose on my mood board from April of last year, we went with Glidden's Gentle Tide.
I usually stick with Sherwin Williams colors, just because that's the paint I always use but, I have been seeing this color on the internet for years. It's discontinued so I couldn't grab any paint swatches but I had my Home Depot make me a small tester size with the intention of going home and painting a small piece of drywall and making sure I liked it with all the lights throughout the day. I also grabbed some other testers of Martha Stewart's Rainwater (a greenish gray) and Glidden Dusty Miller (darker gray with some blue undertones), and some other swatches for good measure.
Of course that didn't happen, and even if it had, we had no lights in the bathroom yet and blue and green drywall which cast some weird hues on all the swatches I brought in there. So I did something I've never done before and bought the paint without being able to see it in the room. I'm sure if I hadn't had to make the drive down to Southern Ohio I wouldn't have done this, but I wanted to get this reno moving!
I bought one gallon of primer, one gallon of extra white semi-gloss latex for the ceiling, and one gallon of egg-shell latex color matched to the Gentle Tide. I took the little tester container to the store hoping they could use the color codes on the label to match, but the guy ended up having to color match to the dried test spot on the lid, (not something that I would usually allow since the computer can pick up the wrong color very easily), but again I was rushed. It came out looking a tad bit lighter on the little spot he dried for me, but I figured it was different material, one was completely dried, I had t-minus 8 hours to paint this bia, and it was good enough for me.
Other than it was freakin' hot on Saturday, the painting went fine. Until I got to the color coat. I painted the half-wall behind the door first and had a mini freakout moment when the color was a little too mint ice cream. I might have gone crazy and stopped to grab all the testers I had and quickly threw the paint onto a couple sections with my hands so see if I liked them better, including the original Gentle Tide. Turns out the Sherwin Williams color-matched GT was darker than the original, (and looked better in my opinion), the Rainwater was way too green, and the Dusty Miller was way too dark gray. So I felt marginally better and continued on painting like I didn't just lose my mind and have paint covered fingers like a little kindergartner.
After I was done with my second coat I was still leery of the color and had yet to figure out what the real color looked like. As I moved throughout the room, the color changed. Like not just a little "now it's a little darker" like one minute it's green, then next blue, then gray. I finished up around 8:00 pm and decided I didn't want to die driving down to meet Mike so I walked away from the room.
When we came back on Sunday I was pleasantly surprised to find that I loved the color!
During the day it looks light greenish blue and changes to a gray in the shadows. Every time I go to check out the room (which is quite often now that it actually looks like a room and I've swept it within an inch of it's life to get all the dust out) it looks different, which I have to saw it pretty cool.
Later in the evening I convinced Mike to install the outlets and covers as well as the lights and fan. We bought the vanity lights online and I forget which site we ended up getting them from, but they have them at Home Depot as well as Amazon.
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We chose to flip them upside down and have them pointed down towards the mirror and sink. I got so excited that I took some crappy photos at night to show you:
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Mike then installed the recessed light/fan in the ceiling, the outlets for the vanity, and the outlet behind the door.
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| (I'm deciding whether I want to paint the access panel or not. I think I'll wait until we add a laundry basket and towels to see if it's necessary.) |
The ceiling light was added in our design because we never got enough light in the shower. We found this recessed design that also has a fan in it, but when the lights on, you would never know.
And the coolest part of this hook-up task was installing the light and fan switch. We have a switch for the vanity lights, the ceiling light and the fan. Mike actually found the fan switch which has preset timers for the fan. We have 30, 15, 10, and 5 minute switches. I've never used one before, but we never got to use the fan before, (it vented into the attic, damn you previous owners!), so I'm looking forward to having clean mirrors when I get out of the shower.
We're really moving at this point, and hopefully in a good week or two we'll be finally done. Next step is installing the cabinets, (which we already hauled into the room), and then tile! I'm looking forward to learning how to tile, but I'm sure Mike is less excited to slow his production rate down to teach me!
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