3 Shades of Grey

We decided we needed to finally finish painting our main level.  We did the living room one year, the kitchen the next, now it was time to do the entry way.  We looked at renting scaffolding or different options, but several of our friends hired "Mike the Painter" to come paint their house.  He gave us a great quote so we scheduled our paint job.  Then he fell off his snowmobile and broke a few ribs... Ouch!  So fast forward another month and he came to paint.  He did our front room, toy room, both hallways, entry way, and ceiling in our half bath.  Walls and trim.  All the painting took him ~4 days!  What a bargain!  Before Jake left to Chicago he helped me take down all the big furniture.  We piled all the junk in the middle of the rooms and used our 800 baby gates to block everything off.  The girls were soooo sad that they couldn't go in those room *boo hoo*.

We picked 3 shades of this neutral grey (with hints of blue).  The lightest color for the front room and toy room, the mid shade for the entry and hallways, and the dark shade for the huge accent wall in the entry.  Then we picked BRIGHT RED for an accent wall in the front room.  CRAZY!  Jake and I love it (you might think that it's all me, but I married a funky fresh dude)!  It's such a fun way to add our style to the room, especially cause I tend to buy a lot of black and white decorations.  Mike had to paint the light color next to the mid tone so I could see the difference.  The lighting sometimes makes the two rooms look like the same color (cause the entry gets so much sunlight during the day).  Scarlett really wanted to paint while Mike was painting...

Mike was awesome!  He was kind and didn't ever make me feel uncomfortable (being home alone).  The baby gates on the stairs pulled out of the dry wall when we were moving stuff around.  So the next day he brought materials and built new anchors so the "little girls can be safe".  

Here are the before/after photos.  I didn't get the same angles for all of them, but you'll get the idea.

The half bath ceiling (I didn't do a great job painting the turquoise)...

Upstairs hallway... 

Entry way... (I love that dark grey wall!)  Mike put white caulk along the ceiling to give it a razor sharp finish.

Front Room...

 Toy Room...

I will post more details about a few of the new craft projects tomorrow...