Warm Welcome!

We've been in our home now for a little over a year and most of you have noticed that there are still a lot of white walls! If you know me well and you were at our last home, you know that I am not a fan of white walls. After we moved in, I promptly started painting. My mom and dad helped paint Addy's room the weekend we moved in and from there I slowly painted all three bathrooms and the other two bedrooms. However, the main part of our house, pretty much the whole first floor where we spend most of our time has remained white. There are two reasons... 1- the front living room, entry way, stairwell, and upstairs hallway are all united so will need to be the same color, a more neutral color, and 2- the kitchen-dining-family room are one big room as well and I haven't been ready to commit to a color yet! I've had this idea in my head for quite some time but haven't had the guts to take the plunge yet... And then I realized, worse case scenario either I hate it or get sick of it right away and then I can hire someone to repaint it all for me.. And so the plunge begins.. phase 1- Warm Welcome. The main body of the family area has been painted Warm Welcome which is also the color our last basement family room was painted. Its a warm yellow, not too bright, not too light, just perfect.

Pre-Painting....
I realized as I emptied the room on Friday night and started the prep that the room was much bigger than I had thought! I feared I may have gotten in over my head. On Saturday, Jared took the kids to play, to lunch, and then to his dads so that I could paint and not worry about who was going to get into the paint (minus the cats... when I painted at our old house, delia fell into the paint tray and tracked Boston Tea Party all over the living room carpet... lovely). I finished the prep which wasn't going well as I had AJ help clean all the baseboards with Pledge the night before and well Pledge makes it so tape won't stick... As I started the first layer of edging, my fears were confirmed! It took a whopping 1 hour and 50 minutes to do one layer of edging! I had splurged and got the paint with primer in it thinking it would cover better... WRONG! It didn't even cover up pencil marks with the first layer. So note to self, stick with Dutch Boy next time. As I continued, something happened. I was relaxed and enjoying the quiet time. Painting started to go faster once I started rolling it. Jared brought me lunch after I finished with the first layer of rolling so I took a break and then continued. It took about 4 1/2-5 hours to do all the painting which wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Then I cleaned up, reinstalled the fixtures, reloaded the room and Voila! It turned out GREAT! I LOVE IT!
The picture totally does not do it justice! I did sneak a few more toys to the basement and rearranged where a few others were kept. I realized something.... White walls stress me out! As I sat in our newly painted family room, I felt a sense of peace, of relaxation, a sense of home. I am enjoying my newly found happiness in the room where we spend the most time! Even the kids love the new walls. It's inspired me to continue on painting although I won't start the next color for a while due too needing blocked time without the kids to be able to paint! Hopefully in the next month or two I can get the dining room and kitchen done and get my artwork up on the walls finally!