Basement kitchen, concrete patio, cabinet, and doors

Sorry it's been so long. With Easter, and spring weather, and yards, and bees, I haven't had time to blog much. But we have been working on our house. This is the outside walk-out basement area.

We're going to have a cement patio poured and we want it colored.

We're thinking terra cotta.

From the bottom right of the above chart, go over one, and up one. You'll see a little pencil mark by it. That's the color we're thinking of. What do you think?


And I don't know if you remember this cabinet, but my friend and I found it a few months ago. It was sitting by the road for 75.00, but when Dave went to look at it, the guy was mowing his yard and gave it to him. It's real wood.

So Dave did some reinforcing, and took it apart,

and prepped it for paint.

Then I painted it white.

We put the original hardware back on it because the newer hardware in stores don't fit the holes in this older stuff.

We brought home a few laminate tops to see which one would look best witht he floor.

I went with the lighter colored one. There isn't much counter top left after we cut the sink out anyway.

A farm sink like I have now.


And there you go. It looks done...it isn't. There's plumbing to do.

And this next project....I cannot tell you what a rotten horrible mood I was in doing it! You see, we ORDERED olde mustard simulated milk paint and the bargain price of $19.00 a quart. We thought it might be nice to have some color on the closet doors. Never having used "milk" paint before, be it simulated or not, I started on the inside closet door. Pretty nice. I like it. Kinda looks like stain.

But, by the time I got to the second door, I noticed the paint started getting darker by the bottom of the door. And if it weren't for Dave watching me shake and stir that paint, you would have thought I never stirred it.

This is the front of the closet door, and it's the other side to the first door picture. Quite a HUGE difference. I was NOT HAPPY AT ALL. Splotchy, and crappy brown.

And as you can see, by the time I got to the fourth door, I was livid and didn't care anymore. I slopped the paint on, went home and told Dave it looks like shit! Literally! As a matter of fact, I got a phone call during painting and I did not hold back. (Sorry Anh!)

Then the next day, we went back to the house to check on the doors and look how this paint dried.

GORGEOUS!


I had to touch up from my 'bad attitude' paint job, so you can see a few wet spots, but these doors turned out exactly as we hoped they would. We love them.

Cindy

PS - Patti B...give me a call...you can come out and see the floor now.

Cream

56 colors of cream/white and I can't find one I like. I'm so over chosing paint colors.
My friend said if I can't find a color I like, pick a name I like. So I picked Greek Villa. Bought a sample. Looks like white on the wall. I want cream. Cream...do you hear me? Not yellow. Not taupe. Not gray or grey, Cream dammit!

Cindy Bee

Still painting

I've been painting again. I picked a color called Simplify Beige for the pantry. Here's why.
1) Mountain Air - my first choice, did not look good after I painted two walls with it.
2) We had a can of Simplify Beige at home from painting our hallway and stairway (at the house we live in now) so I would have some extra for touch up. As you can see by the little white dots, it's not easy to paint o.s.b. (a type of chipboard)
3) These walls are going to be covered with shelves, so you will not see much of the wall when it's all said and done. It's the pantry.
I also painted the

mechanical/electrical room.

I don't like painting behind stuff like this...

or this....but I did. (the white is primer - it is now gray. Serious Gray!)

I've decided...

I am not good

at picking out paint colors. I have about 20 of those little sample cans.

(Hey that kind of looks like Africa on the left! - Kind of...)

I've also decided I'm going to go with creamy colors on the walls...

and add color by painting furniture and cabinets with all of those little sample cans. And add more color with pillows, blankets, pictures and other fun stuff.

We hired someone last night to hang gutters, after several phone calls and four estimates.

Also, I went to our family reunion on Sunday and found out one of my cousins is taking HVAC classes at Ivy Tech in Kokomo. He said his class is looking for a project to install heating and air. Pick me pick me!!!

Cindy

Enclosed the basement

This is the main level of the house, not the basement. But, by putting up the o.s.b. here, on the main level, we have enclosed the basement. It was too damp down there. And that is a temporary door btw. One we had sitting around for some reason. Who knows why. I certainly don't.

So now our basement is enclosed and there are two dehumidifiers running in it.

And that's the way it's been since July 2, when we started working on the yard. "What do you mean", you ask? Well, we have not worked IN the basement living area... much. A little, but not a lot, which is frustrating. We have worked on things or issues concerning the basement and the living area. Like the yard issue. They left the area of yard around the basement too high, so we have worked in the yard trying to get it leveled out so water would not keep pooling against the house. And yes our neighbor is doing the backhoe work, but he needs help doing certain things. Which takes Dave out of the basement.

And we are working on the mud issue so we don't lose our entire yard in the driveway.
And the dampness issue, which I just discussed.
And the lighting issue. Dave wired the entire basement because there were certain rooms that didn't have power yet, therefore, no lights, and it was frustrating (have I used that word twice in this post?) not being able to see.

We did insulate the pantry, insulate the water pipes, plug a hole in the wall in the basement (don't even ask) and move a doorway that goes into the bathroom, and put up some lighting in the basement, but none of that was done in the living area of the basement. But all of this takes time...lots of time.

And then there's the color issue. blues...greens...I'm tired of green. I have green in the house I live in now. I'm into blues....but not these blues...so I'll keep trying.

In the meantime, the house progress is moving forward...

very s l o w l y.

Cindy

Paint colors - AAAUUUGGGHHHH

Sherwin Williams is having a paint sale, 40% off, and today is the last day. And quite honestly, I don't know even know if I'm going to go, I'm so confused. I'm tired of thinking about it. Totally, completely, exhaustedly (is that a word?) tired of thinking about paint and color. I used to love green for house colors. All shades of green. Now I like blue and I am VERY tired of green, especially hunter green. This is the color on my front porch right now, where we live, and I like it a lot. And here is a paint chip that is close to that color. Topsail...tradewind...rain... And here's another paint chip close to that color...glimmer....tidewater...watery They have blue and green and gray tints, depending on where you are. Right now, in my dining room, they look more green and gray than blue. But holding them up in my sun porch (above) they look blue. My friend and I went to the house on Friday and picked out some colors for the basement. Which was not the color I picked out at home. I picked a little bit darker in the basement, because, well it just looked better, at that time in the basement. It's called drizzle. At home, in my dining room, I like the colors above it, but in the basement I liked drizzle (do not like the name of it though, as drizzle is not my favorite kind of weather) She has her thumb on the color. And in the basement at our house it looks good. Drizzle and pure white, and I just hope I like it when it's done. Because at home, right now in my dining room, I like Topsail, Tradewind, and Rain...AAUUGGHHHH

And here's the other thing.... When we first designed our house, the areas that have porches were supposed to be T-1-11 and we were going to paint them. See this post and you'll get a better idea of what I'm talking about. So anyway, without consulting me Dave decided to go ahead and side the porches on the East end of the house. The ones with the balcony. He explained his reasoning and it made sense at the time. So the big decision now is do we go ahead as planned in the beginning, and put up t-1-11 on the porch on the west end in front of the kitchen. OR do we just side it too.

My friend and I held up paint strips on the porch too.

Again, the color I picked out at home was not the color I went with when I was at the house. It just makes such a difference when you are in the actual place that the paint is going to be used, and it's hard to tell by holding up a tiny little strip of paper with six different colors on it. That had to be a man's idea...the color strip. Women would have made little paint pods with the actual paint in them that you could really paint a bit and see what it would look like.

That's the pile of T-1-11 waiting to be installed. It can be returned!

So I woke up at 4:00 a.m. on Friday morning and started talking about paint to Dave. He was trying to sleep and asked me to be quiet. I had several questions and rattled them off anyway, but the main one was...can you paint Tyvek?

I went to the store and bought those little quart cans of paint, which are also on sale by the way. And yes, you can paint Tyvek.

I did.

This is what it would look like with siding....and possibly shutters someday.

and this is what it would look like painted.

Greenish color - but not hunter green. It's called Quietude and the shutter color is called Underseas.

And here's the thing....Dave likes the shutter color better than the porch color....and I figure in a few years we'll get tired of both....so I'm thinking for right now....we'll just side it. I know...I'm losing it. We wanted a house with less maintenance, and by siding it, it'll be less maintenance.

I'm exhaustedly tired of thinking about paint.

Cindy