Chaos Again

Last summer, I had the old off-white carpet removed from my main floor, and replace with beautiful oak hardwood floors.  I went from this to that.  The floors look GREAT!

But it made the house, especially the living room, feel really dark, cavelike, even, especially when it's nice and bright out.  I didn't paint the walls that green, though I've liked it well for a long time.  But this winter, especially, it feels really dark.

So I started fantasizing about painting the interior walls, especially in the living room.

And this week, it starts.

I spent a LONG time thinking about colors, looking at them, consulting with friends, and here's what I'm looking at.

The idea is that most of the walls will be that off white (Alabaster is what the color is called), and then there will be a color wall, too.  In the living room and bedroom, there will be yellow.  In the kitchen, blue.  And in the study/office, purple!

So this weekend I packed things up again (not as much as before, though!) and took most of the switch plates, outlet covers, and such off the walls, and the art, and got things ready so that furniture could be moved.  (That means again emptying bookcases.)  I also spackled all the little holes from the hangers.

Things look sad and dismal, at least they did last night:

 Here's the hallway.  Usually, there's a gorgeous quilt hanging to the left.  But it's taken down now, as is the wall hanging and other art usually in the hallway.

 And here's the living room, facing the front door.

And the living room facing away from the front door.

Somehow, taking the art off the walls and removing the switchplates and outlet covers really makes the place seem sad, even with the furniture in.

I have sabbatical for the next academic year, and I really want the house to be a cheerful place to work.  Fingers crossed that the colors look as good as I hope!

A friend is doing the painting (it's his side business).  We got the paints yesterday, and he's going to wash some walls and start taping today.  Maybe he'll even get some paint on.  (He came by yesterday because I wanted to make sure that things were moved enough for him to work around or move himself, and he gave me the thumbs up.)