Final Answer? Before and After

Thanks for all your comments with the beams. I loved hearing the different perspectives and Hyrum was thrilled that his thoughts on the beams won out! Wednesday was an awful day! I really have lost all shame to post a picture of me and my house looking like that, but welcome to a day in our real life. I drilled my finger, I ran out of paint, Spencer only took a one hour nap, and I repainted the faux finish by the fireplace 3 times! I had done the one above the piano on Monday night and when I went to do the other on Wed, I could not get them to look even closely the same. Lesson to be learned: if you do the faux paint finishes, do them at the same time!

Another question that people love to ask: how do you paint with 4 kids? Spencer's naptime and from 8:30-midnight are our magic transforming times, my friends. This is a painfully slow process. In blog time, it looks like it happens overnight, but mostly it' s just an hour here and hour there. Wherever I am painting is always just in shambles...sheets everywhere, paint supplies strewn all over, furniture pushed to the middle. But when people come over, you just say, excuse the mess, we're remodeling. What am I going to say now?

Okay, rambling! My final answer for the beams right now? Drumroll........(like you haven't already scrolled down and seen the pictures!)

We are leaving them! Because quite frankly, the work of painting them makes me want to cry! I really want to be done with this room, so we'll see how we feel about them for the next year. Now, come winter, I may get the itch to peel the popcorn ceilings and who knows what I'll decide when I'm up on that ladder.

But for now, here are the before and after, and as always, bear with the comments with each picture:

Oh, I kind of miss the gold scalloped countertop and the fridge in our living room. We had a new ceiling fan installed before we moved in~the other one was a fire hazard. Seriously~it sparked when we turned it on!

And After:

I feel like we just moved in! We hadn't put anything on the walls because we wanted to wait to paint~it feels so good to get everything off the floor and on to the walls!

Paint colors: I started off with Duron Plantation Beige, but it was too light! So, I took it back to Lowes and asked them to darken in to the next color on the strip, Tobacco Road. They couldn't make it into that exactly, since it was a lighter base, but they got pretty close. So, it's an in-between color of plantation beige and tobacco. I really wish the green behind the bookcases wouldn't look so minty in the pictures, they're actually SW Svelte Sage ( told you I love that Nester girl!) The color wash above is just glaze and brown paint. We painted the brass on the fireplace an oil rubbed bronze. The tv cabinet is from craigslist.

piano from Craigslist, we re-stapled fabric over the torn up piano bench.

window "mis-treatment" and fringe pillows ala Nester style! The curtains are actually from Wally World! I loved the stripes and they were lined so I couldn't pass them up! I got the fabric for the topper and fringe from Hobby Lobby. I got the bird cage at a yard sale last weekend, and the lamp I have had since Nampa. I got the pair for $3 at Liquidation World because they were missing the finials and one was chipped at the bottom. I love those lamps..is that place still there?!?

Here is a better picture of the window mis-treatment during the day:

Below: Target bargain wall! I got the clockfor $25 on clearance. I was walking in a couple of years ago and saw a lady walking out with one and she just looked like she had gotten a really good deal, so I asked her and she said there was one left. I ran!! It was silver, but then I spray painted the edge with oil rubbed bronze spray paint. The matted picture frames~clearanced down to 4.74 each in February! I was doing the happy dance in the middle of the aisle! I just took black and white pics of the kids out by the back tree. I have given up on JcPenney Portraits or Kiddy Kandids. Hauling four kids to get pictures is pure torture and they never turn out the way I want them to. I love the candid shots of the way they look every day.The chest of drawers was from Global Bazaar for $30. You already heard the story of the lamp..

old trunks from yard sales and lamp from Target Global Bazaar clearance

Thanks for putting up with all of my ramblings...Hyrum's got finals tomorrow, Monday and Tuesday, so this was my Friday night fun! Later gators!