True Neutral

Well, we had some big jobs this weekend. As you know, we had the mold in the hall bathroom upstairs to deal with, so we got to work on that. We also painted the living room, family room, staircase and upstairs hallway with what we're calling the "Whole House Neutral." It's not actually in the whole house, but it's darned close. I'll make a list of colors that we used here for our own records and in case you like what you see wand would like to know how to get hold of it.

Here's the list:

Ceilings in the bedrooms, inside of all closets: Killz Flat Ceiling White
Whole-House Neutral - Kilim Beige (Sherwin Williams Color) in Behr Premium Plus Ultra flat enamel
Colonial Room - Cornflower Blue (Killz Casual Colors) Flat
Office - Belgian Waffle (Not sure who made the color) in Behr Premium Plus Ultra flat enamel and Admiral Blue (ColorPlace) in Killz Casual Colors Flat
Hall Bathroom - Misty Surf (Killz or ColorPlace color) in Killz Casual Colors Semi-Glass
Bathroom Ceilings - Olympic Kitchen and Bathroom Ultra White ceiling paint
Hobby Room - Basketry (Behr) and Plateau (Behr) in Behr Premium Plus Ultra flat enamel
Ceilings in the living room, family room and kitchen - Dover White (Sherwin Williams) - Flat
Woodwork - Dover White (Sherwin Williams) - Semi Gloss

Whew! I think that's almost everything. We haven't decided on some things yet, like the master bedroom or the master bath, or even the powder room on the main floor. When we get those picked, I'll post those colors as well.

Now, for some pictures!

Remember the mold?

Mold no more! I started sealing with the primer before I remembered to take a picture of the floor, but you can see right around the drain how it's dramatically lighter in color. That's from me painting the whole area several times with undiluted bleach. I wasn't expecting a significant visual change, but it was huge. It was as if the bleach literally dissolved the mold, leaving only wood. Kind of amazing, really. I started painting the floor with a cheap roller, thusly:

And used this paint:

So we're thinking the issue of moisture getting into the subfloor again should be pretty minimal.

Here it is all done:

I had to chip out some of the floor that had been softened by the mold so the area around the drain is a little rough. We were planning to use the thinset mortar that goes under the tiles under the cement backer board as well, but my friend Erick suggested the self-leveling epoxy instead. I think that's a really great idea and we're going to try it. Hopefully we'll be laying tile at some point and I can get into that whole thing with you all.

Here are some pictures of the painting process for the main areas of the house:

That power roller is truly amazing.

This is a good picture of the fresh paint and the dry paint. You can see the dry paint at the top and bottom with the fresh paint in the middle. The paint went on sort of yellow but it dries to this really nice beige. The red/purple walls in there before made it stay looking like that yellow color even after it dried, which is why we didn't like it. It dries so much darker and the yellow leaves almost completely, just leaving a nice neutral color.

Here's one of the other rooms we got painted yesterday. We chose a bright yellow for the office, since it's on the north side of the house and has a smallish window. The wall with the window in it is going to be a really pretty blue color.

There's my lovely wife working on the room, too. I didn't get pictures of the blue since it needs a second coat to avoid being splotchy. I should have some of that for you guys tomorrow, though.

My mom and my wife also got the hobby room worked on. The ceiling and walls used to look like this:

And now look like this:

It took a coat of primer and two coats of ceiling white to cover the dark blue ceiling they had in here but it makes the room so much nicer. We've got the color for the walls for this room, so it'll be next to get the paint.

We also had a lot of visitors this weekend, which was really fun. AJ came over on Saturday to see our progress, then Neil and Melissa came by on Sunday (Neil had been before but it was her first time) and got the tour and all. My friend Steve from Wyoming was down for the weekend and stopped by on his way back home. He also hooked me up with some books on home wiring and a multimeter that will certainly come in handy. My cousin John and his wife Michelle came by too, which was really cool. We've had to keep ditching out on them to work on the house so it was nice to get to see them again. Erick and Kristen came by as well to drop off a toilet drain plug which will definitely come in handy. They're also going to help us with the tile in our place, since they did a really beautiful job at their house. All in all it was a great weekend since we actually got to see some friends for the first time since we bought the house and we still managed to get a lot done.