Big Basement Reveal!

Finally it is here: the after shots of the basement. These are a little belated because I have been taking my time getting everything organized and reorganized to make a fresher and more functional space. Since this is basement week (okay, it’s a loose interpretation of week) you will remember seeing the full before basement tour and the basement shelving redesign that gave you a sneak peek of the new color in the basement.

So let me tell you my process in picking a paint color, that I may revise based on what I termed a “paint emergency” later on in this project. My process begins with this:

I find all the paint colors or color families that I am interested in and lay them all out on the floor (or bed or table depending on which room it is). Then I stare at them for a long time; meaning sometimes they stay there for weeks. I go in and look at them at random times and different lighting. I reorganize them depending on my preference. Sometimes I use painters tape to put them on the wall. I also move them all around to compare them to all the furniture/curtains in the room. After that ridiculous process a color usually speaks to me and will jump out of the pack. I thought that had happened this time. So I took my color swatch and picked up two gallons of paint the night before my scheduled painting weekend. As soon as the paint was mixed and I had it in my cart, I knew something was wrong. But it was too late. Duh duh duuuh! So I went home, ripped open the can and splashed some on the walls. ALL WRONG! I hated it! I had wanted a blue grey and all I got was white. My plan for tackling this big project was to do it a weekend Eric was gone to keep me busy. Since he was on his way out the door, I needed to call in backups to help me fix the paint calamity. Who else would I call? My friend and painting helper scheduled for the next day, my wonderful friend Clélie.

She came right over, helped me pick a new paint color from my many swatches, and after an ice cream break headed to the store to change it out. Fun fact here: you can’t return paint. After many amusing minutes at the customer service counter, we were headed back to the paint counter to attempt a re-tint. Since it pretty much came out white I thought that was a pretty good plan B. It also resulted in a very amusing half hour with our new friend Rick who hooked us up with my new tint of paint. Also anxious to see this on the wall I once again ripped off the top and splashed some on the walls. Perfect! My blue-grey (well mostly blue) paint color was perfect. Here you can see the two colors, the original (left) and then the tinted (right).

So we were all set to start on Saturday morning! Oh yes, but prior to that, I had tackled painting the trim.

Here is a tip if you are painting trim next to a textured ceiling (meaning painter’s tape would not stick with all the texture): take an old magazine cover or piece of card stock and stick the edge between the corner of the trim and the ceiling. Wah-la! It gives you a guide. And if you are lucky (sarcasm here) someone would have done a DIY job and there may be spaces you can physically stick it and not have to hold it!

So with the trim all done, I just had to unscrew all the outlet covers, vents, etc.; tape a few places; and move the furniture away from the walls (no small task!). Here I am ready to go!

Chaos! Which is why I wanted to get the whole room done in one day so I could restore order to the house.

Next, we cut in all the corners. We actually decided to do one half of the room first and then the other, so the furniture could be shifted to the side not being painted.

Now, here goes the first coat!

So much brighter already! Here is the first coat done. The paint color went on so well, it almost didn’t need two coats, but it my opinion a paint job done well is with two coats.

Coat number one done! While that was drying a lunch break, buy another gallon of paint break, and another ice cream break was done (yikes! we eat a lot of ice cream together!). Then came coat two. By the end of coat two, we were exhausted, so I sent Clélie home to get some R&R.  But two doing a paint job made it so much faster! There was still the other half of the room left. Being the stubborn person I was (and hey – I didn’t want to have to wash off the brushes) I started on the second half of the room pretty late at night. Hence the darkness in the pictures. There it is with all the coats on the wall!

Then Sunday was all about putting everything back together. Sunday then turned into all week, as I didn’t want to just slop all the piles and furniture back in its old places and piles. I actually want to think about design and place items where they should be. So my goal was to use only things we had and to make the room look a little more “done up”. It is by far from finished, as there are a lot of projects and furniture needed, but oh it does make me happy.

Just as a reminder here is the before (you can see extensive before photos here):

Here is the after!

Yay! SO many pictures (sorry!) but I am just so excited! This is by far the biggest room in the house and now it is painted! Now it is just time to play with the decorating!

What do you think? Favorite part?