Saturday, March 6, 2010

Family Room- Before and After Paint

I mentioned before that we were going to try and paint as much as we could before we moved in. Two rooms were successfully painted, but all but two were coated in primer. Of course that made short work of the painting later on.

The biggest room to tackle with paint was the finished part of the basement. The rough measurements are 44 feet by 11 feet. (I have the exact numbers upstairs, but I'm finally sitting down for a bit and not about to go find them.) The room is divided in two parts by a change in carpeting and two short shelving units topped with counter tops.

The larger of these sections is what FH and I chose to become our "family room," where the TV lives and where we would entertain more intimate friends and family.

Here it is on the evening of our final walk-through. I'm certain you recall the retro-styled fireplace.And here is it is with the main walls painted. (I haven't painted behind the bar yet. Getting the furniture in place was a bigger priority and nothing big is going to set back there. I can paint whenever I feel like it.)
And this is also the room where 'Bert, Tempie, Ada, and Alana are residing.Once I find my really strong scissors I will be trimming that vinyl a bit so it no longer hangs over the ends of the couch.

In case it's harder to see in the other pictures, here's a close up of the colors meeting in the corners.We chose the blue and brown combination to give the space feelings of both warmth and cool. Because the room is so large, we opted to use both short walls as accent walls with the brown and that works well since the other portion is really it's own space. The blue is nice and bright in addition to being a relaxing color. The added bonus is the original window treatments match perfectly and are great now that I've cleaned them. We also opted to keep the mirror because it makes the room feel less cramped. (I loathe mirrors btw. They unnerve me to no end. So far I'm successful in ignoring the stupid thing.) And for the record, my thoughts on taking the mirror down to paint that wall are forbidden by the FCC for foulness in nature. Many unlike things were said throughout the process of taking it down and even more while putting it back up.

The other main color in this space is a medium toned cream. Currently the only place painted with that color is inside the big window. It warms up the sunlight even more than the original color did, which is good since we're in a basement room. The walls behind the bar will eventually be the same color.

I can hear some of you pondering our color choices in relation to the fireplace. The answer is simple... The fireplace is going away to be replaced with a cast iron, wood-burning stove that has the ability to heat the entire house if the power fails during the winter. The decor in this area will be more rustic, which will compliment the stove nicely and suit our tastes. Once we decide where the main piece of art (a painting my grandmother gave us) is going I will have pictures. If inquiring minds want to know, we have already found a home for the old fireplace. It will live on in an addition a friend is adding to their house which is great since it is a really fine piece.

5 comments:

Debbie said...

You've done loads already Kat. Glad your settled in. Can't wait to see the rest of your new home..

Caseymini said...

Thanks for the guided tour, Kat. Love what you have done so far.

Jo Raines said...

Everything is looking good. I hope before I die to clean out my large basement which is my studio/storage/throw everything down there you can't find another place for area. I like your color choices.

Jody

Sans! said...

So nice to be able to see your place. I envy you the size of this room :). So big and airy, it's a real sunshien room!

JDayMinis said...

How wonderful, so nice to paint and fix it up before you move in, looks really great! It is going to be quite a change for your bunnies.