We Are Going Gray! (And We're OK With It)

The weatherman was forecasting cold, wind and rain for the upcoming weekend - which meant Brent and I were going to have to put our outdoor projects on hold.  With all the beautiful weather we have had as of late, it's been easy to push some important indoor jobs to the backburner.  Mostly I'm referring to this little snafu.

Yep, that's our basement shower floor.  I'll go into much more detail later on about what's happening here...but what you need to know at this point, is that it has looked like this for about 2 months now.  We weren't incredibly motivated to repair it right away because there were other, much more exciting things to work on.  So the four of us just moved into the main floor bathroom and we've been there ever since. 

But four Kruse's can barely fit in one small bathroom at the same time, and yes, I did say at the same time.  Those of you with small children understand that for whatever reason, if there's one person in the bathroom (for WHATEVER reason), the rest of the family will soon follow.  And it's tight, guys.  There have been many evenings where all four of us are trying to brush our teeth around the same tiny sink.  It's borderline comical.  Fact is - we really needed to get that basement bathroom done - if even just for our sanity.  

Problem is, fixing the shower floor is a one person job, and by one person, I mean Brent.  Which meant I was going to need to find a way to stay out of Brent's hair for an entire weekend.  Not easy.  There was only one thing I could think of that I could do with complete independence and would keep my focus for two days straight - PAINT!  

For months, I've been toying with the idea of changing the paint color in the living/dining room.  It was becoming more and more evident that everything in the room was brown.  Brown floors, brown furniture (dining room table/buffet), brown paint.  It was a nice, cozy color, but my heart ached for more contrast #firstworldproblems.  So with $50 bucks in my pocket, I wasn't planning on poppin' tags - I was gonna buy some gray paint.

It took me a few days of deliberation to decide between Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter and Edgecomb Gray but in the end, I went with Revere Pewter so I could have a little more contrast between the walls and the white woodwork.  Home Depot color matched it for me with their Behr paint.

Of course, the before and after is the best part of any transformation, so I'll break this down into immediate before/after photos so you don't have to scroll all over to detect the changes.

The colors from this photo I took in my backyard, would tie in well with our living room.  

I think the dining room underwent the greatest transformation - that heavy brown paint below the chair rail weighed down the room.  Painting it white made it feel lighter and a little more cottage-like.  To cover the semi-gloss brown, I first applied a coat of white primer and then two coats of semi-gloss white paint, the same that I use on all of our trim.  It's called Cotton White by Diamond Vogel.

 A rug under the dining room table would look fantastic - but until Owen can manage to get the majority of his breakfast and dinner into his mouth, a rug is just not practical.  His chair, the one closest to the camera, is literally stuck to the floor most of the time.

I also like the contrast of the oil-rubbed bronze hardware on the gray paint, as opposed to the brown.

 

 Even my beloved Kirkland's clock looks amazing with this paint color!

In short - we absolutely love (lets be honest, Brent could probably care less either way) this paint color. Everything feels lighter, fresher and a bit more modern.  It was $50 and weekend well spent.

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