Painting the Cave

You've seen bits and pieces of our family room.  When we purged toys.  When we framed our professional wannabe photos.  

This room is a cave.  Ceiling tiles.  Horrible light fixture.  Fake wood paneling--it's not even grooved. It's just photocopied wood grain pasted onto drywall.

The paneling was installed in such a way that we couldn't just paint over it.  Not only did we have to use that de-shiny-stinky-stuff to make it amenable to paint...

But we also had these seams to deal with.  That means someone had to seal the seams.  And that someone was not gonna be me.

Ryan graciously volunteered (yes, he did...if I keep saying it, it shall be true) to do the work. So he bought a bucket of mud and got to muddin'.  And despite my assumptions otherwise, this mud is not the kind you can make in your own backyard.  You can't give yourself a facial with it, either.  And muddin' does not entail going out in a rugged 4WD vehicle.  Or the Volvo station wagon your daddy gave you that you then crash so that it never drives again.  That's a totally different thing.

You can see which one he did first. And then he got better at it.

After he sanded it down, we painted the room "Winter Wheat" by Olympic ONE.  I've used this color before, so I knew it was a winner (just like me).  It's almost considered a beige, but in reality, it's a light yellow that turned our last house from a cave to a palace, so I figured it didn't hurt to do it again.  Technically, this work is temporary until we amass a fortune so we can gut the room, re-wire, put drywall in, etc, meaning I can change the color later to something new if I so choose.

And here it is as a final product.  The room is still a tad dark because we need more windows.  However, it is now not even close to a cave.  There are no chipmunks to be found hiding here (anymore).  I enjoy coming down the stairs to this room.  I'll love it even more when we get art back on the walls.  And the trim painted. And the ceiling demolished.  Oh, you get the point.

My lovely vintage sofa goes perfectly with the color.  I really adore this piece and don't care if that makes me a polyester-wearin' granny.

The great desk given to me by my brother Ryan.  Looks good against the wheat color.

All in all, we're not even close to finished with this room.  But in the meantime, it's a pleasure spending time here.

I linked up to A Bowl Full of Lemons, Type A Decorating, Domestically Speaking, Saved by Suzy.