As per usual, what started as one project has blossomed into many projects all at once. A common occurrence with our house. I had decided to try to tackle the bonus room off our living room and realized the entryway needed the same type of work, and it’s so small so why not just do them at the same time? All of you who have renovated a house before are snickering, I can hear you and I don’t blame you. This is just how renovations go.
Like a lot of mock-tudors built in the 20s and 30s we have a small entryway that separates the front door from our living room, and also has our little half bath off of it. It’s nice to have this dedicated little spot to stick our shoes, coats, and what-not, but it was painted this dark brown-green color that really sucked all the light out of the space and left it feeling even tinier than it is.
On the left you can see how it looked when we did our first walk through of the house. A tiny space crammed with more furniture than it could realistically handle (which was a theme throughout the house). The right is a photo I snapped in natural light before I started work. It’s crazy the difference between the photo in natural light and the one with the overhead light on, but honestly that color kills me either way. It might not be too bad if it wasn’t both the walls AND the trim, and it didn’t run all through the living room too, but it has been so overwhelmingly dreary in our house that I’ve been super excited to say goodbye to it for good.
So let’s talk about the major change I’ve been working on in this room…
Smoothing out the walls. I actually liked the textured walls that run through the entryway, living room, and bonus room, but there are some huge wall repairs that need to happen and I don’t have faith I could match the texture in a way that would blend seamlessly (the previous owners clearly tried to and also failed, the texture is hard to match perfectly).
The other rooms downstairs are smooth plaster anyway, so we decided it would be best to match that instead and go smooth walls everywhere. I skimmed the walls with joint compound to get that smooth look. I’ve had to skim coat other heavily damaged walls in our house, so this wasn’t my first rodeo, but it’s never my favorite task.
But of course, for any of you that have done this yourself you know it’s not as simple as just skimming the walls and then painting. One of my least favorite parts of the process is the hours spent sanding them down and then cleaning. It’s tedious, and to be honest, I just hate sanding in general, but I got it done!
Then I finally got down to primer! I know a lot of people hate painting, but it is my absolute favorite! Finally seeing everything come together and transform with a gallon or two of paint is so satisfying that I don’t even mind the endless hours and blisters on my hands (I apparently hold my paint brushes very intensely…). Being able to say goodbye to all the brown-green trim that’s been taunting me all these years was a little extra satisfying too.
So here we are – ready to paint! But of course, what home project is complete without some debate on paint colors, right? Here are the two inspirations:
Should I go all-white or do a soft grey trim? I fell in love with the grey trim Joanna Gaines did in this little Tudor cottage on the right. The home she renovated is similar in style to ours and really spoke to me. On the other hand, we have a lot of really lovely wood work and I think it could be great to just let that speak without any color distraction.
Currently I’m leaning towards the white-on-white. We often leave the door to the entryway open into the living room, so I plan to paint both rooms the same colors to make them feel like they’re all the same space, so that’s been another consideration when choosing colors in here. The living room has a lot of really beautiful wood work, and even though I love that grey trim with the wood doors, it does distract my eye more than the white on white does.
What would you do – all white, or grey trim?
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