Our 3 Day Living Room Fake-Over

Living Room Make Over, Part 1

It took me a full year of being in this house before I FINALLY KNEW what to do with the hideous Living Room. The room was wallpapered in an 80’s textured cream with light blue flowers. It was top notch, too. Hung PERFECTLY. It was kind of sad to cover such perfection, but like I said: 80’s cream with light blue flowers… totally not the look I was going for. I wanted  some texture and because it has fantastic southern exposure, making the light sometimes overwhelming, I knew I wanted to use a darker paint. I also knew I wanted to plank the East wall.

My long term vision for the ENTIRE MAIN LEVEL is to have wood flooring throughout. With the 3 Bedrooms each having their own color of matted down, gross flavored carpet, complete with the smell of “layered past.”…..  Yep. “Mom of the Year” right here. I am letting the world know that I am more than aware that my kids’ bedroom flooring is totally nasty. The only reason why I’m okay with it and don’t care is because kids are nasty. They Pick their nose and wipe it on anything but a tissue, they pee and poop wherever. In fact, we added another “layer” in Little Man’s room 2 short nights ago when a stomach bug hit at midnight. The point is, if you are renovating little by little, keep in mind your long term goals when picking your paint.

The adjoining porch walls were all done in pine board. Fingers crossed, I took one off and found the backside to be raw wood. Yes!! Future renovations involve the North wall of the porch being cut into, which meant I could strip the pine boards and stain the back to repurpose into a plank wall for the Living Room! The Hubz was on board with look and we both thought hanging the boards would be fun to do with the boys.

When we finally had the time and money to take on the Living Room, I was about 6 months pregnant with Princess and working full time in the wedding world. I decided to ask a good friend of mine to help me paint. He has helped me on plenty of projects, so I knew we worked well together and I trusted him to be in my house should I have to leave for any reason.

The Plan Was Simple: Pick a Paint Color and Paint. Add a Plank Wall. Easy-Peasy.

Off to our local hardware store I went! I came home with a few sample colors, slapped some color blocks on the wall and sat back. I am now a HUGE fan of doing this. Our current bedroom is not exactly the color I expected. I didn’t sample the color in the room; I relied on the color swatch. In our old house I made the same mistake, wasting a lot of time and money repainting freshly painted rooms. Learn from my mistakes: Test a sample block on YOUR wall. With YOUR lighting. Trust me.

We chose Benjamin Moore’s Smokestack Gray in Matte. It’s funny because the Hubz and I really liked this color, but we both thought it would be too dark. See? Sample Block your paint, people!

Day 1:
We decided to paint over the wallpaper. I wanted this room done and I didn’t want to wait. Maybe it was the pregnancy hormones or maybe it was my natural impatient personality, either way we were painting it today. Worried about the seams showing, we dug them out a bit and spackled it. Once dried, we sanded and primed the room. We also primed the window; bye-bye brown wood.

Day 2:
Time for color! Cutting in is a pain in the ass, but very important. I like to cut in thick, so I don’t have to do it again. This works great for me. You may have to watch out for drips more. If it does drip, smooth it out as soon as you notice it. If it drips onto a surface you are not planning on painting, wipe up with a damp cloth immediately.
Because the painting was going so fast, thanks to my good friend, I decided that I needed to redo the TV stand. I asked my friend to help me move the oversized screen off and grabbed some tools. He gave me a sideways look when I came back with the saw. I laughed and said the Hubz should expect this from me by now. At the end of the day, the stand wasn’t done. It needed a shelf and I needed help from the Hubz. In all truthfulness, he wasn’t that impressed with the timing. He had gotten home late, the Living Room was turned upside down, and all the kids were due home the next day. I gotta say, this man LOVES ME. He stayed up super late, muttering swears under his breath the whole time. I’m not sure if his true goal was to finish the stand for me or to get the TV hooked back up for the kids. HA! We all know it was both.

Day 3:
The only painting we had left to do was the stairwell, which I wanted no part of. Thank God for friends! While that was being finished, I had to touch up the drawers on my stand and paint the window. The trim color we are using throughout is called, Classic Gray by Benjamin Moore. It’s a favorite of mine. I really love how it looks white until a true white is next to it. For trim, this provides you with the classic look of a clean white, but with a softer feel.

Once the painting was done and cleaned up, I had just enough time to throw the Living Room back together before the kids would be coming home from school and I would have to shift gears to dinner. Of course, I had to rearrange the entire set-up! The main reason was winter was coming and I couldn’t leave my plants on the porch. The 2nd reason was, Little Man had created a Masterpiece on the cream colored carpet in oil pastels. Yep, that didn’t come up. The easiest solution was to shift the couch to the center of the room and switch the TV to the opposing wall. It fit perfect!

Painting this space changed the entire feel of the upstairs. We still have our 80’s fan, several brown doors, and the dreaded cream carpet to replace before this “fake-over” turns “make-over”. But it is one of my favorite spots in the house. Every time we watch a family movie, I can see the finished room and it’s perfect.