A Pretty Painted Parlor

So let’s keep this parlor refinishing project steamrolling shall we?!  Before I fill you in on this weekend’s painting project, I should probably fill you in on why we call our second living room, essentially a living room extension, a parlor.  I’m pretty sure I haven’t shared that with you yet.  If I have, consider this a refresher course.  It originated in our old apartment, which was this huge, old 1800s home with a cascading staircase and this amazing dining room that we called the parlor.  It was too fancy and too big for a dining room and it was at that point that Colby and I deemed every home deserves a parlor.  Thus, when we moved into our first house we immediately declared the second living room the parlor.  Great story huh?!  Maybe I should of added “and then I found $20” to make it slightly more interesting.  Actually, I should probably find a $100 bill to make up for those 30 seconds you won’t get back.  But back to the parlor.  We’ve recently refinished the old, oak floor back here and here so next up was the painting process, which I tackled this weekend, first by cutting in a couple coats of Valspar’s Bay Waves:

And why yes, that is a Goose butt in the background.  Somehow, Goose always ends up in my pictures and more often than not it’s a butt shot.  Anywho, we decided to paint the parlor the same gray that we used in the hallways and in the dining room.  Remember the whole “is it time to go gray” debate back here?  Since we’re on a roll with those refresher stories, essentially we were both sick of the cream color we initially chose to paint the walls back when we first moved in.  It felt too apartment like and we were ready for a change.  Thus, we decided to paint the open spaces gray.  And I must say, it is starting to look super sharp.

Colby asked me the other day, “Why is it you want to paint all the rooms down here (on the first floor) all the same color but upstairs each room is a different color?”  Good question Colby.  Upstairs, the four rooms are closed off from each other.  The different colors in each room are okay (in the paint color choices according to Angie official handbook).  However, downstairs, the living room is open to the parlor which is open to the dining room which is open to the hallway.  Thus, to make our small house seem bigger, the gray color brings all the open spaces together with easy transitions between rooms.  So I painted the parlor gray and I’m already loving the consistency between the parlor and the dining room.

In the pic below you can see the gray color in the parlor and the old cream color that used to be in the parlor, but is still in the living room.  This pic made me realize how much more I love the gray color than the cream color.

As much as I love the new, gray color for the parlor walls, I absolutely hate how it looks with the cream trim.  Good thing priming and painting the trim was on the to-do list!  And the trim gets even nastier when you get up close and personal, especially with the baseboard.

So let’s check in with the good ol’ parlor re-do to-do:

• Sand down the parlor floor
• Stain and poly the floor to make it super pretty and super durable
• Paint the parlor walls gray to create cohesiveness with the hallway and the dining room
• Install missing pieces of trim
• Sand down, prime, and paint all the trim in the parlor
• Install a new light fixture
• Finish the his/hers desk and move it into the room
• Move the internet cable to the other side of the room
• Organize the INSANE number of office related computer/equipment cords
• Create a super functional office storage system using some long shelves on the wall above the desk
• Find a rug for the desk space
• Refinish the old Target cubes or build a new bookcase

We’ve got our work cut out for us in this space but we’re definitely motoring right along on it.

Pssst…Anyone notice that we checked one thing off our list but added two more since the last time we posted the parlor to-do list?  Typical.  Anyone else have that problem?  It can’t just be us?!