Neely's Under Construction: March 2013

Walls: Paint

We have had so much success in the Valspar Paint and Primer in One from Lowe's. I don't think I would want to paint with any other paint from now on. We have covered over red, dark yellow, peach, green, and light yellow so far -- and it worked with one coat plus touch ups, when needed. It's a little more on the expensive side, but definitely worth it. Unfortunately I'm not getting paid for endorsing Valspar. I just thought everyone should know what works and what doesn't.

I just saw that Lowes has a $5 rebate if you buy a gallon of the Signature or Duramax paint online. The best part is there is no limit for the household. I will be buying more paint for the bedrooms, so that's great to know!

Rebate Link:

http://www.lowes.com/pdf/16598_16600_89570.pdf?cm_sp=Paint-_-Paint|HB-_-Rebate|Paint_Valspar_Duramax_Print_Rebate_HB

Here's a link to the Valspar products at Lowe's:

http://www.lowes.com/allen-roth-Colors-by-Valspar/Creative-Ideas-for-Color-by-Valspar/Valspar-Duramax/_/N-1z0yye5Z1z0yr3aZ1z0zz6eZ1z107u3Z1z1378k/pl?Ns=p_product_avg_rating|1#!&N%5B%5D=1z0yye5&N%5B%5D=1z0yr3a

The top picture is the color of the walls in the living and dining room were before.

The bottom is one coat of the Valspar Paint and Primer in One. Doesn't get any better than that!

Kitchen: Paint

This is what we were starting out with for the most part. The appliances are new. You can see in the picture below that they had an old dishwasher in the kitchen that didn't work. The stove wasn't in 100% working order, so we replaced those right away.

The picture on the left is the door to the basement. The picture on the right is the old dishwasher.

Please excuse the mess on the counters.. We were still unpacking and trying to find a home for everything.

Since the kitchen was yellow from the ceiling to the walls, we decided to go with a darker color on the walls, and white ceilings, of course. Every room in my house will have white ceilings... eventually. The picture on the right is of what the floors looked like when we moved in. Since the previous owners had updated the kitchen, we got really lucky with new floors too!

The picture on the left is from the dishwasher to the dining room. The picture on the right is the basement door straight ahead, and the doorway to the left of that door are stairs to get upstairs. We call them our butler stairs.

We wanted to keep the room bright, so we made the wall out to the backyard white. I have added cute signs on that wall to dress it up a little. I love the signs. Husband on the other hand isn't a huge fan.

I will post update pictures with all of the new decorations we got for the kitchen. Along with the signs, we added a stainless steel island and a couple stools to the kitchen. It's perfect.

- Sarah

Dining/Living Room: Before and After

My intention was to post a lot more often than once every three months! With everything that we have going on with the house, my internship, work, and a family it didn't seem to be doable at the time. Now that things are starting to calm down, I am hoping to post on a more regular basis.

I will first start with what we did from the beginning until where we are at today. I will post each room one at a time.

First, I'll start with the living room and dining room. All of the pictures are from my cell phone, so I'm sorry for the quality. One of these days I'll get a nice camera.

These two rooms had dark red walls and a deep yellow ceiling. Aweful. I'm not sure what in the world they were thinking. See it for yourself.

Apparently they made one wall darker for an "accent" wall..

We decided to go with colors that are a little more -- relaxing. The ceilings are awesome. They have rounded edges and molding on the ceiling, plus "crown" molding. We picked white for the ceiling to the "crown molding," but a dark grey for the ceiling molding that matches the accent wall. The walls are a lighter grey with a darker grey accent wall in the dining room.

We started with the middle of the ceiling and the molding first.

We have replaced the old curtains they had in the big front window with newer, more modern ones. I will have to take updated pictures with the decorations we have put in the rooms since it has been painted. I will post those soon.