As we were preparing to host our Vow Renewal at our home, there were a lot of little home improvement projects going on.  Not the thorough, detailed, complete make-over type, but the “agh, quick just cover up the worst of it!” type.

This wall below had been driving me crazy since we moved in.  All of those scuff marks and scratches?  They do not come off, not matter how much you scrub.  On the other hand, the paint itself does start to come off, if you scrub hard enough.

This is the first thing you see, once you’ve walked through the mud room, as you are entering our house.  It’s the view at the end of the hall.  When we moved in, there was this weird bracket/brace thing sticking out of the wall that we would often stand around regarding, wondering what on earth it could be supporting.  Turns out it was just a random thing, sticking out of a hole in the wall, for no apparent reason.  Which left us with an oh-so-appealing hole right at eye level.

This wall was not on the original to improve list.  But one day I woke up and decided I couldn’t live with it anymore.  The boys and I came up with a plan, if we timed it just right, we could have this little wall totally made-over before Steve got home from work and surprise him.

  One coat of primer and two coats of Yolo Imagine .04 later…

And I managed to hang a picture of the two of us, right where that hole had been, about 15 minutes before he walked in the door.  And…he didn’t notice.  Any of it.  And this my friends if why Steve does not get to pick paint colors…because what difference would it make to him?  After much laughter, all the kids drug him back and he finally realized why we were all laughing.  This isn’t how I intend to keep this wall long-term, but it’s much, much better for now!

Remember that litttle his and hers series I posted a while back?  There was also supposed to be a “theirs”, I just never got around to it.  The two big boys were looking for a way to earn some extra money, so I hired them to paint the hallway.

It started out this bright tangerine color.

When we were in the process of moving to this house and thinking, thinking, thinking on paint colors, dear Kyrie was also moving to a new home and in the process of picking out paint.  She was on this kick wanting to try something somewhat daring.  She was thinking of painting most of their space a sort of an antique gold color.  The color of beeswax was her inspiration.  At first I didn’t like the idea at all.  But here is the thing…Kyrie’s taste is impeccable.  She creates the warmest, most beautiful and homey spaces, without fail.  Because of that, I keep thinking about it and eventually I think I started obsessing about it.  And finally decided it was just what I was looking for to paint the hall.

I never actually picked out the exact color I was looking for.  When the paint we ordered for Galen’s room came, it wasn’t at all what we expected (another quirk of our monitor), but it was awfully close to my planned hall color.  So the Yolo Grain .03 moved to that hall and we ordered a fresh can of Grain .01 for his room.

The hall color has many different moods.  It’s generally kind of a honey brown.  At night under artificial lighting it looks like coffee ice cream (as seen in the photo above).  During the day, when the sun is shining bright it takes on a golden wheat hue.  I’ll have more photos in more areas and more types of light, as we finish the hallway more completely.  The trim in this space is also Imagine .04, an old-fashioned linen white.

We also replaced the dull recessed lighting with a fixture with a bit more character and (I think anyway) a bit of vintage charm.

On to the porch…

remember the porch?

Due to time constraints, we gave up on the idea of re-screening the whole thing and decided to concentrate on just cleaning it up, painting, replacing light fixtures, etc.  It’s a good thing that we opted to devote a considerable amount of time to this, as our garden ceremony was moved to the porch, at the very last minute, due to unexpected rain.

The ceiling is BEHR Premium Plus Ultra in “Vintage Linen”, further proof that paint color names totally work on me.  All the trim is the same brand in “Ultra White”
(Iain is Irish dancing us back down the aisle here, in case that wasn’t clear)

And the homeschooling room/reception space as shown below.  The walls were seriously mangled and the parts that weren’t striped bare were painted a bold yellow-green.  Since the ceiling and trim wasn’t in bad shape, I just painted the walls, a mellower color; “Soft Celery” by Mythic Paint.

In person it’s not quite as soft as it is in there pictures and it leans just a tiny bit more to mint then I’d like, but overall, I think it’s rather lovely.

All of the before/during pictures above are by me.

Most of the “after” pictures pictures are by Dawn Joseph.