Easy peasy, after one trip to Home Depot and Lowes who assured us carpet could be delivered in three short weeks.
Oops...want NEW carpet BEFORE taking up residence downstairs.
Headed over to a local carpet company, found just the thing, and dragged a sample home, just to be sure.
It was PERFECT!
Great price, great color, great texture, love how it feels...so happy are we!
Jeff dropped by.
"You are getting that carpet? Everyone has that carpet."
(No Jeff, actually everyone does NOT have that carpet. We don't have that carpet...yet. After we get it, THEN everyone will have that carpet.)
The carpet folk will measure on Tuesday and the new carpet will be deliver on Friday.
That means we've got to get the downstairs painted NOW!
$75 per hour interior decorator suggested very dark grayish green.
(Dark grey green for a basement room with one window???)
This is the pit of heck where I am trying to get the "naughty pine" to give up it's nearly black brown bottom paint and white white top paint.
We went ahead and painted the rest of the room a color called Friendly Beige.
Or maybe it was named Light Beige.
Whatever.
Something fairly blah.
You can see it on the wall beyond the fireplace.
It really made the room look great, except where The Paint That Will Not Be Stripped lives in the corner.
Today I made progress on it using a hair drier and sand paper with grit the size of bird gravel.
After painting the walls and the rest of the panelling, we needed to paint the baseboards some color.
White seemed too pure next to the fireplace, so we dropped down three tone on the seven chip paint sample stick to stay in the same color grouping.
Bought a sample jar, and B. painted up the baseboards and door casing.
I was very suspicious of the color which was called Toasty. It looked like baby poop golden brown to me, and oddly it clashed with the somewhat pinkish Friendly Beige.
B. said he needed to see more of the baseboards painted to decide.
After two more hours of painting down on his hands and knees, he was sure he didn't like the color either....
12 comments:
Hello, Pam from RetroRenovation.com here. I have been following your travails with interest. My suggestion for your walls: Wallpaper. Or, blue - kind of dusty, just light of medium. But - wallpaper! Also, paint the ceiling Sherwin Williams Suburban Modern Palette Beige.
Good suggestion Pam! 50's wall paper is fun, but when I mentioned wallpaper to Bernie, he just about had a heart attack. I'd love to paint the ceiling, but in the basement it is a weird product that apparently defies paint. Dusty blue will go into the discussion though.
Well...your posts are always good for a laugh! I like the hot tub solution...just soak for awhile and it will all become clear.
I like wallpaper...in showhomes and magazines...but not on my walls. Paint...you can change it whenever you are in the mood. Wallpaper...not so much!
Our Benjamin Moore gal is the answer to all my colour questions...wish I could send her your way.
How about a Dusty Rose? It would go good with the mortar. I've never heard of dusty blue, so I googled it. I think it would be the blue complement of rose. Myself, I would go with the dusty rose, but make it just a tinge bit warmer than normal so that it would reach out to both the brick and the mortar. I think anything dark would be a disaster, unless it was a warm maroon or burgandy. Dark grey-green would be a no-no. Is there something about grey colors that they keep getting suggested?
My grandmother's walls from the 50s were absolutely my favorite. They were a flecked dusty rose. There was a dark color of sand(?) or extremely fine pebbles actually mixed in the paint. If you could find someone to make up a paint like that, it would go perfect. I just haven't seen it since the 70s--she kept the color until she sold the house.
Good luck on you search for the perfect basement. Just don't throw up your hands and paint the entire thing black or white! I detest all white walls.
As for the carpet--who cares if everyone has that carpet. Obviously Jeff does not have that carpet. Sometimes it is okay to have what everyone else has. It's what YOU like that counts. You are the one who will be living everyday with it. Go for comfort and feel. It's yours.
Okay . .new suggestion.
We have painted the brick in both of our last two renos at the kids houses. It was a great success.
We of course followed the steps very closely and I dapped with a stiff brush all the tiny little crevices. . .but what a difference in both homes..
The brick and mortar became one color and then the wall color could be whatever I wanted it to be.
I enlarged your brick. . woo boy. . that is quite the combo.
I believe we did breathable paint. .because of course brick is so porous. I did a special base coat. ..and then 2 or 3 top coats of paint. . .I should try to look for pictures. . hmmm. I take zillions of pictures but how much you want to make a bet. . .not of those fireplaces.
Lin: Actually that sand in the paint idea is pretty cool, especially for the living room. I think paint with sand over knotty pine would be a bit much though.
The dusty rose color on the basement walls makes the bricks look really barfy. Apparently the original "look" was the white/dark brown compo, with beige and dark brown dappled asbestos tiles on the floor, which are still (safely) under the carpet. A real old fashioned church basement look!
Oh, I'd be scratching my head at that mortar-and-brick combo, too...and I'm laughing at the "church basement" description! That would describe it perfectly with the brown colors.
I know this is TOO MUCH WORK, but I'd be so tempted to try to chunk-out some of that squished-out-looking mortar...perhaps then it could be lightly covered with a different color-stained mortar...just a TOO MUCH WORK thought! ;)
You could always do what Doc and I did. I ended up buying a dozen or so quarts of paint of varying colors and painting large swatches on the walls. We lived with that until we figured out which color really made us happy. (I gave the leftover quarts to a friend who used them to custom mix her new living room paint color.)
Oh, I forgot to say...the hot tub is the perfect solution to your befuddlement and the perfect observation point to consider all your options.
Vicki: The mortar is actually neatly tooled inside the brick line. The close up photo did make it look weirdly squished out in what is technically called "weeping mortar" style.
Lovella: I've thought about painting over too. We are being very careful about not doing anything that would permanently change significant details that are from the '50. The house and the neighborhood could be up for historic preservation believe it or not...and tax credit happens when that happens if you meet the criteria.
I only have two things to say:
Dusty blue might be the perfect suggestion.
Hooray for hot tubs!
Sara
I think a green or blue with the bricks would be great. Something cool for contrast, but I'd need to look at chips to know. My kids painted their last livingroom dark grey in their last home. I thought I would hate it - but it was a slightly warm grey and with art and lamps - I liked it. So, even in a basement, I think it could seem warm and cozy.
Funny, the pinkish mortar!
I will stick to my original suggestion and oppinion and I think the beige (whatever shade the beige is) looks great. You can always accent with fun colors when you pick out your pillows and rugs. Have fun! :-)
Post a Comment