O.K., this is NEVER going to pan out. In case you aren't familiar with what's going on in my old house here, you can read my original post from last week entitled Every Room Makeover Begins with Inspiration and Frustration.
In hindsight I now realize that post should have been titled "LOLOLOL. You'll never believe what an asshead I am. I'm sooooooo f*cked." Or something like that.
I have serious, serious issues with my imagination and my brain in general. I can imagine doing ALL SORTS of things in a week. Probably I could walk to China and still have time to get my hair cut and highlighted.
In a nutshell (a small one, like a hazelnut) I planned on redecorating and painting my house in the spring, moved the task to the fall and now have precisely 10 days to get everything done before I host Thanksgiving. As of 14 days ago I had done precisely nothing.
I got to work on the trim right away but it ended up taking me over a week to do because I'm having to squish it in after work.
I've been wanting to paint the original trim in the front portion of my house since I moved in over 15 years ago but honestly I just didn't have the nerve. I had to work up to it, so I trained by painting all of the other trim in the house. The upstairs, the kitchen and the dining room all have painted trim. The only trim that was left untouched was the trim in the foyer and the living room (the oldest trim in the house).
And it wasn't even all that nice.
But I never painted it because I was afraid that if I painted the trim my 180 year old house it would lose all of it's character.
As it turns out it didn't lose its character. It lost its ugly.
Everything looks cleaner, bigger and more open with the trim painted and strangely ... you notice the beauty of the trim more. I don't know how that works, I'm not a brain scientist. It's just the way it all panned out. Paint the trim ... trim shows up more and looks way better than it did before.
Plus the rooms look twice as big because the painted trim makes the walls look bigger instead of having all that wood chop up the room at every window door and entryway.
There were 2 things that precipitated the trim painting. The first being a house I went through last November on a Christmas House tour in my area. There was an old, old, house similar to mine but sightly grander, and all of the trim was painted white and it was beautiful. The second thing that precipitated the trim painting was, I grew a pair.
So I painted the trim.
Bad photo courtesy of me. Sorry.
I used:
A Purdy paintbrush. (I had a regular handled Purdy paintbrush but the Purdy Blue Heron with the Beavertail handle is the BEST because the shorter handle doesn't gets in the way when you're painting in tight spaces like corners)
DAP Latex Caulking (a whole post on how to load and use a caulking gun coming up)
Benjamin Moore Latex Aura Paint in "Simply White", Satin.
Benjamin Moore Fresh Start Primer
The painted trim even makes me like my ugly gold Costco mirror. The trim only has one coat of primer and one coat of paint here and the walls haven't been painted yet.
I like THIS shot a lot better.
You'll notice I've Photoshopped out my old programmable thermostat with a fancy Nest thermostat. Why?
Electricity rates in Ontario, Canada (where I live) are the most expensive in North America. How expensive? Well, imagine living in a communist country where you're forced to line up to buy bread and have to blow your nose with Kleenex that has no Aloe. It's like that only instead of those things you can only do laundry during the hours you might encounter a bat, Stephen King, or drunk barfing college students returning from a frat party. From 7 at night until 7 in the morning is the only time electricity rates are even moderately affordable. Mainly you can't do anything that involves electricity any other time unless you want to pay an insane amount for it. So no dishwasher, no unnecessary lights on, no laundry, no nothin'. Which is hard when you're home all day because your home is your office.
Since your furnace and air conditioner are the biggest hydro suckers you own, regulating them is the best way to cut your electricity costs. You know all of this. I have no idea why I'm telling you this. Other than to say I'd really like a Nest thermostat and I've wanted one since they debuted a few years ago.
I decided to leave the doors wood for now. Old habits (and fears) die hard. I can start moving furniture around now, so whatever ends up working in the foyer will dictate whether I paint the doors black, leave them wood or paint them white.
Everything has been mashed into the centre of my living room and foyer for weeks now and I hate it.
This is where I find out how observant you are. Did you catch a glimpse of this Empire chandelier in the previous photo? As soon as I committed to trying to get this whole lower floor makeover done by October 10th, I spent the night on the couch browsing Kijiji (It's like Craigslist) for things I need like carpets and lighting. I found this BEAUTIFUL antique chandelier in the first hour and and picked it up by the next morning. The rest of the crystals for it are in box off to the side of the room. I paid $100. Which is otherwise known as a score.
I'm not liking my chances of this coming together in the next week because well, I don't think it's even possible, but stranger things have happened. I mean I found my dream chandelier for $100 on Kijiji.
Anything can happen!
In my imagination.
Have a good weekend!
Nancy Blue Moon
OK..why did you buy the huge mirror if you thought it was ugly?...The white looks so much nicer...I have a problem here with my living room..It is all done in knotty pine which is such a pretty wood but I would really like to paint it too as I am sick of all the wood in this place..I'm afraid I will paint it and then have regrets..guess I really need to grow a pair too and just do it like you did..lol..I have the same problem with a red brick chimney in the next room (its all open between these two rooms)..there is a partial stone floor below the brick where a wood stove once sat...It has been years that I have considered painting these..If you happen to have an extra pair please send them to me..lol..
Nancy Blue Moon
P.S...I really like the black painted window trim in your kitchen so I think the doors would look great in black!
Jan in Waterdown
Knotty pine? Paint it!! Or, if you can't quite get there, have you considered a transparent white stain that looks like a pale whitewash? I have seen that done and it gives the room a cool beachy cottagey look but then that would depend on your house style.
Jan in Waterdown
Oh, and paint the chimney too!
Nancy Blue Moon
I just looked the white stain up Jan...I like!
j
hi nancy blue moon-
i ripped a photo out of a magazine a year ago of a woman meditating in a room with white washed hard wood floors. Stunning! I'm thinking of using the idea on my badly stained oak floors--i would love to hear if the idea works for you. I also have a red brick fireplace that could use a face lift,,,,
Allison
We have the Honeywell wireless thermostat and it's great. The Nest is cool because you can connect everything in your house on a network, but we didn't need that in this house.
I am pro-painted trim. I also think you should try painting the doors black. I think it would be lovely!
Mary Edmondson
I installed my Nest thermostat myself (I'm a 77 year old female, so I'm pretty proud of myself). Absolutely love it and my next change will be to a Nest compatible door bell with video camera, then whatever else Nest compatible gizmo I can change out. I also want to paint out all my wood trim to white, a job I haven't had the nerve to tackle yet. I hope you take us on a video tour of your whole house once it's "done" - not that you won't find something new to change out, being extraordinary genius YOU.
Gretchen Sexton
LOVELY!
Love your house. Love your taste.
Love the white!
It is looking so good.
If anyone can pull it off, it's YOU!
(I have faith...)
Go get'em!
And I can't wait to see the results!
PS Also love a NEST thermostat and would like to get one--my brother did and it's fantastic.
maggie van sickle
love white anything, sheets, dishes towels, cars etc and TRIM. Looks great Karen.
jainegayer
The trim looks great! When we moved into our 1981 house 2 years ago I decided to leave the natural wood trim, the wood pocket doors, the stairs, etc. on everything. We even spent $$$ on new windows with a vinyl wood trim and window grids to match the trim wood work. And now I wish I had it painted white. Our neighbors had their trim, doors, etc. painted white and their house looks so much bigger than ours and our house is actually bigger. I was just too afraid to do it. Kudos to you, Karen for the balls to do it.
PS- Black doors
Wendy W
Hi Karen, I have faith in you! A couple of hints and I'm not being paid for endorsements, I promise! We got a Vivint alarm system recently and it's pretty cool. It has a thermostat with it that we can monitor from our phones just like a Nest. It is also monitored by Vivint. So far, so good. Of course, if you don't need the whole alarm system then it may not be for you because you have to sign a contract, yada, yada, but wanted to give you an alternative to Nest. As well, I recently discovered Behr Marquee paint and it has changed the game! I'm an experienced painter, have painted almost all of our 2 story house, finished basement and then some. It covers EVERYTHING, most times with one coat. And even if you have to do 2, you won't have to do the cuts twice, just roll on another quick coat. It saved me SO much time and effort, I had to tell you. Good luck with your renovations, I'm sure you'll do great!
Karen
I've used Behr paint before and really like it but hadn't tried Marquee. Thanks Wendy. ~ karen!
Liz
aww. love the little painting of your house :) I'm trying to do one of mine/learn watercolor. Was it a gift, project or Etsy buy ?
Karen
Oh! I got that from my real estate agent when I moved into my house. It was my gift from them. He painted it and it was one of the first things he ever painted. He's reallyyyyy good now and a totally different style. ~ karen!
Julie
Did you have to "un-paint" your trim at all? The trim in our house is so thick it's like someone nailed an extra 2x4 to the frames and I'd love to get rid of it. Do you have any preferences as to paint removal? Heat gun? Chemical? Burn the house down and start again?
Karen
:) I used to use Circa 1850 Julie, but I have something I have to strip and I'll be trying a natural product a product from Lee Valley. I'd like to try Citristrip but I can't find it in Canada. ~ karen!
Mindy
I vote, lead everyone through the side yard and host dinner in the backyard.
Karen
If it's nice out then that's exactly what I will do Mindy! ~ karen
Meredith
Looks really nice. Open and bright. When I first saw the picture with the wood door in it (before reading any text), I thought "what a beautiful door!" Don't paint it. Can't believe that mirror is from Costco. Love it.
Diane Amick
Painted all my interior doors "wrought iron" (very dark charcoal grey) four years ago and I love them still. Inspired me to paint my lower kitchen cabinets the same color. Now plan to paint the white trim around my dining room triple window to better frame the beautiful view of my garden. Go for it!
UrbanFarmKid Marti
All terribly fascinating to my renter-self who is never allowed to paint anything. Ever.
But I am questioning why the cuckoo clock is at ceiling level? Wow, that sucker is up high. What's up with that? I can see you didn't want the door banging into the weights, but still? Unless that door is about 5'2", I'm a bit confused.
Of course I'm generally confused. What's on the T-day menu this year?
(I'm a bit excited for Thanksgiving this year. After five years of eating dry turkey with my beloved friends, I get to bring the bird this year. Whew! Salvation! Thank heavens they had the second baby and decided they were overwhelmed.)
Karen
Cuckoo clocks have to be as high as their chains are which are really long, lol. They always hang up high. And in this case it looks higher because that door is little. It leads into the basement but is probably only about 6' high or so? Good luck with the turkey and don't do anything stupid like putting sausage in the stuffing. ~ karen!
Mary W
My dusty chandelier is still dusty and the replacement is still sitting next to it - a small round flat disk that is Not dusty. I keep buying things other than an electrician to so the deed. Good luck with the dust! Love the black door idea for one door. Just think, Thanksgiving will be here soon and you will be done and we will have a great blog post to look upon. Can't wait for all your hard work to be finished. Please tell me you will sit back and relax for a bit just drinking in the beauty - before you start another big project. Be good to yourself. Play your guitar and peace out, man!
Anne McCarthy
I had an ugly costco like mirror too and was ready to ditch it and then I painted it and now I love it!
Leisa
Total score on the chandelier! I like black doors A LOT, but I really love all the white with the wood doors, kinda classic. Amazing transformation!
Tracey
Hi Karen,
I love the white trim!
When we moved into our house al the walls, big trim, wide baseboards were all painted harvest gold. We have wide pine floors. Maybe the previous owners thought it would all "blend", but it looked horrible! And, it made the pine floors look orange. I painted the walls BM Linen and the trim in White Dove (supposedly it's the same colour as ikea white). The pine floors look so nice now, and the house looks bigger.
I still haven't pulled the trigger on the painting the doors yet
I was also thinkin a soft black.
My house is small though, so I think I'll do white as well...
I just need to grow a pair myself.
I'm so looking forward to all the changes you are making. I know it will be fabulous!!!
Alice
Btw, Ontario's electricity's rates are not nearly the highest in North America. See, for example, https://www.bchydro.com/news/conservation/2016/how-our-rates-compare.html
or google "compare electricity rates North America" and see the document Hydro Quebec puts out annually (sorry, couldn't figure out how to link to the pdf)
Karen
Hi Alice! I did see the Hydro Quebec report when I was researching this post. It's out of date by a year I believe. :) When you factor in delivery and time of use and all of that stuff Ontario really does have the highest rates in North America. They have increased in price over the past few years exponentially and then there was another increase in our last bill that was so huge there are now people living without power and protests are happening all over the province. It's crazy! ~ karen
Jan in Waterdown
AND they had the unmitigated gall to raise our rates because they said we weren't using enough!? wtf? I don't even know how to explain that beauty especially since they were trying to get us to use less. Don't get me started. Oh. Too late. grrrrrr
Su
Purdy brushes make painting anything easier and Benjamin Moore paint rocks.... there are Aps you can use where you take a picture of a room and apply a paint color to see how you like it before you even buy it! I used it when trying to determine what color I wanted on a huge wall with a vaulted ceiling....might make determining whether to paint your doors easier..... LOVE your chandelier!
Katie C.
I have an easy solution that'll buy you another 6 weeks.
This year tell everyone that you're changing things up and celebrating US Thanksgiving!
See problem solved. ;)
Karen
Ha!! ~ karen