We Have Color

In the beginning, the color was red. Very, very red.
After many hours of inhaling paint fumes, the red was covered by primer. Zinsser gets the red out!


Next came the task of finding the right topcoat color. I thought Earthtone brown might be nice, but the shade was more dark terra cotta (DD said it looked like poop). It wasn't much different from the red clay shade that lives under the red paint. Egyptian Nile was my other choice, but samples painted on poster board looked a little bright. I wasn't sure I'd like it on an entire wall. After much fretting, frowning, eyeballing, and trying to imagine which color would look best, I finally opened the can of Egyptian Nile (Behr paint) and slapped it on the wall.

I rather like it.

DD says it looks like split pea soup. Teenagers.

The little triangel-shaped wall under the stairs is painted Pot of Cream, my choice for the rest of the walls. I don't know if I'll leave it under the stairs, or use green instead. The stairs, baseboards, and facings will be white.

Yep, white.

I know, I had grand illusions of unearthing that gorgeous dark brown wood underneath the grubby ivory latex paint. Several things are stopping me from doing that...  DD has spent a considerable amount of time picking paint off the door frames (you can see in the photo) and most of it comes off nicely, but some of it doesn't. To get the paint all off, I'll have to strip it bare, stain, and varnish. Sounds like a fun project in my head. In reality, it would bore me to tears. The baseboards have been patched in spots where walls were removed during the '70's remodel. I have no idea what kind of mess I'd have to deal with when I stripped those patch pieces. Could be scary. Despite my passion for dark wood, it would look awful with the clacking yellow fake wood floor that's in the house. I'd have to replace the floor in both rooms.... not in my budget.

End result: Pot of Cream walls, Egyptian Nile accent walls in each room, sparkling white baseboards and trim.