Come Into My Parlour*

So! Here are some "during" and, well, since it's still not totally done, "during" photos of our living and dining rooms, which I've been painting. Today I had a girl from our ward come over and play with the kids so I could - and did! - get a bunch done. It's just lucky for her that I ran out of paint, or I might have been tempted to keep her here all day while I finished the job!

This is the used-to-be red-accent wall behind the piano. I started taking pictures off the wall and then decided to pull out the camera - and I'm ever so glad I did! I don't think I would have been able to put the pictures back on the wall in the right places otherwise.

This one's in the dining room, and you can see the ever-so-slight-but-all-important difference between the old beige and the new beige. You can see up in the corner, that we're painting the ceiling, too. I just don't really dig white ceilings if I don't have to have them to brighten up a room. The beige is light enough, and our ceilings are high enough, I'm putting the two together!

Here's another one of the red wall, for context. You can see in the upper-left corner the old/new, and our paint sample swatches in the middle-right. And also our overnight bag, sitting there since last weekend, and the dining room blinds, and a box of office files (don't you like how I said that - as if we had an actual office!).

Speaking of office, here it is, such as it is. The window on the right is in the entryway and looks out on the porch; the window on the left is a sort-of three-way bayed wall/window at the front of the house. Earlier in the week I ordered this computer armoire for this corner:


Sweeping to the left, here's the front window. The orange chair really belongs in Charlotte's room, but we're short on seating until I find the perfect upholstered cushy reading chair for that space. Anyone have any suggestions for how to hide the outlet the lamp is plugged into?

And finally - here's the un-accented wall! I thought it was going to take some getting used to, since this wall has been that deep red ever since we moved in. But the light just reflects off the wall now, instead of getting sucked in, and I think our pictures look so much nicer hanging there - they don't disappear into the red, I just love it already.

Hooray, we can finally hang Robert's cuckoo clock from Germany! I have been resisting putting it there, because that corner has been so crowded and dark. But now I think it couldn't go anywhere else (of course, it's only decorative for now - the chains are just way too tempting for little hands to grab and pull).

Sofa, naturally, and into the dining room (that window way back there is the kitchen sink window). I just love books in a dining room.

And another dining room-from-living-room shot. Blue tape on the windows = I'm not done painting yet! That wall is still the old beige until I make my next trip to McLendon's for paint!

So that's it. It's coming along. Come visit for real anytime! (Next step for these rooms, I think, is to pull out the carpet and put in hardwood - so it'll be in all of the downstairs - which I think will be really nice with the new paint. Lucky me, I often see the previous owner of our house at the library with her two kids, so I was able to ask her who she hired to do the hardwood in the first place!)

*Oh, and can you guess the song I have had running through my head since I typed that subject line? The British spelling should give you a hint.