The Living Room, Pt. 1

I've been mega motivated lately to get my house in order. I like to take advantage of the motivation while it's around because every little bad night's sleep or weather change can make it disappear. Heh.

After finding some good people to live in one of my dad's houses, I handed them to the keys early so they could get some painting done & I could worry slightly less about the pipes disappearing. And man, did they get some painting done. And fast. I went by to check the mail one day and 2 days later, the kitchen & bath had both been repainted. It takes me many days to paint a small room. And months to work up to it. I got all depressed about my lack of painting awesomeness but then quickly perked up when I noted some things.

1. They didn't prime the walls but instead used a paint w/primer in it. That's cool & I'd recommend it when possible, but a lot of my walls need drywall repairs after removing the wallpaper. So, I can't usually skip the stand alone primer step. Also, the paint w/primer trend wasn't really a thing a couple of years ago when I bought a lot of my paint.
2. Both rooms had been renovated a few years ago & so the trim / ceilings didn't need done either. That's a massive time saver. 
3. There are 2 of them. There is 1 of me. 1 person cutting in & prepping & cleaning up & painting takes (duh) 2x as long.
4. Empty houses make for quicker painting jobs. No moving the furniture / excess junk out of the way.

I cheered up and got to work. I had a day off & a wall color in our new office was inspiring me to change up the plan for my living room walls a bit. My giant living room is (blissfully) one of 2 rooms that was not covered in wallpaper. My giant living room is also giant. Big enough to spilt into 3 distinct areas. They are called: Lounge in Front of the TV / Fireplace, Reading Nook, and That Big Space Behind the Couch where I'm Thinking of Putting a Desk. Right now, of course, it's more like: TV space and 2 other spaces that I want to make cooler.

This day's project was going to be accenting the future reading nook. I knew the color I wanted but neglected to get the name before my day off. But I was sure (positively sure!) that I could pick it out of the Benjamin Moore paint chips at Ace Hardware. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! No. I grabbed about a million dark gray colors and stared in panic. Finally, I admitted defeat and called my coworker to ask. She gave me the name of our hallway accent wall (I hate the term accent wall) and I wrote it down. Then I looked for it in the chips I had gathered up. Not there. Huh? I looked around for other dark grays. Nothing. Finally I spotted the name on a paint chip in the Historical Colors line. The chip looked not gray at all to me. Let alone this deep charcoal gray that I knew our office wall was. Blargh!

I contemplated calling my coworker back and complaining that she'd given me the wrong color name. I contemplated picking a color that I thought looked more like what I wanted. I contemplated giving up and doing something less stressy on my day off than staring at paint chips & having a panic attack in a hardware store. Then I walked that paint chip around the entire store and held it up to everything until I convinced myself to just go with it. Then... I went with it. I put my trust in Kendall Charcoal. I purchased a gallon of Regal Select (paint & primer in one - Yea!) in Matte finish & a couple of other painting things (good brush, roller cover, etc). I went home. I painted. And painted some more. Then I impatiently took a photo before it was done drying. Then I mashed that photo w/a before photo and here it is:

I will take way better after photos when I am truly done with the space. But this is all your getting right now.

P.S. It was totally the right color.