50 Shades of Grey

Get your mind out of the gutter. I’m not talking about the latest mom-porn-book that is on millions of nightstands around the world. Although, HOLY-50-SHADES-OF-MOLY! Yes, the books are on my nightstand. And yes, I’m about to start book 3. Don’t judge.

I’m talking about grey paint people. For your house. It’s hard as shizz to pick out.

The biggest challenge with grey is that there’s blue-grey and green-grey. Some look silver. Some look brown. Or “greige” as they are calling it now. There are very few grey-grey’s. And that’s what I want throughout my entirehouse. Leave it to me to pick out the hardest color scheme there is. Our old house had a blue-grey color in thekitchen and upstairs bathroom…Mineral Deposit by SW. It was hard to tell if it was blue or grey onany given day, and I loved it, especially with my teal accent color on my chaircozies. So, that was my startingpoint. I knew that Mineral Deposit hadblue in it, so I went searching for colors that appeared greyer. Is that a word? More grey.

Well, my final selections turned out blue as crap. I even managed to pick out a black that looked blue. Ugh. Back to the drawing board. I bet I have a million paint chips in thishouse, all in different shades of grey and black. And in the end, I picked 3 that I absolutely love. Mindful Gray by SW, Dovetail by SW and Kendall Charcoal by BM. My problem? They don’t seem to be popular paint colors inthe design world. That knocks my levelof confidence down a bit. WHY? Why don’t people use these colors a lot???

At this point, the majority of the upstairs has been painted. 4 Shades of Grey. I played around with Mindful Gray and did it at 50% in an extra bedroom. That’s always a good route to take if you like a particular color but think it’s too dark. I might do the 50% in my masterbath downstairs now that I know I like it. We shall see.

My biggest nail biter was the doors. All of my interior doors (minus closet doors) are Kendall Charcoal. I was nervous as hell to make the move. Doors are not fun to repaint if you screw up. But, I LOVEIT! It’s delicious….and as we speak,Will just announced that he thinks they are too light. Great. If I change the doors, I have to change the color of my kitchen cabinetsdownstairs. I’m anal like that.

I have a few more weeks until I have to make final decisions on the paint for the downstairs.  Which means I may have to redo some of the upstairs.  

Btw, what is the difference between GRAY and GREY??  Why's it gotta be confusing like that?

It's going....

At least once a day, I get asked how the remodel is going.  "It's going" is my typical answer.  Because do you REALLY want to know?  Do you really care??  It's like when I pass someone in the hallway at work.  "Hey there, how are you doing?"  When actually, I could care less.  

So if you really are interested, here goes.  

I feel like I'm living in a crappy little apartment.  Well, not little.  The upstairs has 3 bedrooms, 1 playroom, 2 baths, a kitchen and a tv area.  But, it looks like I stepped back in time 10 years.  The furniture we have up there is the same exact furniture that Will had in his apartment when we got married.  Exactly the same.  It wasn't intentional, and actually it's kind of scary that we still have all of it.  Maybe we should pat ourselves on the back for picking out decent pieces 10 years ago, right?  

So, by crappy little apartment, I really mean crap-ass-kitchen.  This thing is bad.  My cleaning lady told me that it's the worst oven she's ever seen.  And you know she's seen some shitty ovens.  Then she proceeds to turn to Noel, my brother-in-law, and they start talking about the oven in Spanish, and laughing their asses off.  Now I'm scared to turn it on.  

The kitchen sink?  Yeah, well, it didn't drain.  So Will tried drano which didn't help.  Then, the other day, I filled it up with hot water and oxy clean to soak a few articles of clothing with stains from a Pinata filled with airplane bottles of liquor (entirely different story!), and when I went back in the kitchen 30 minutes later, the entire contents of the sink were on the kitchen floor.  Lovely.  So I called Gustovo, the Plumber.  Turns out, the garbage disposal was so old and gross that it was rotting.  So I ran to Home Depot, purchased a new one, and had him install it.  Right before he left, he told me to run the dishwasher because it smelled so bad.  So I did.  And went about my business.  Yeah, bad idea.  The entire dishwasher drained onto my kitchen floor.  I am now hand-washing dishes, just like I did 10 years ago. 

Oh, and the washer and dryer?  They are in the kitchen.  They look all nice and new and fancy.  Turns out, they aren't.  The dryer wasn't drying the clothes.  It was heating, but not drying.  So I called around and no one services LG dryers.  I think that was my first sign that they must  be crap.  So, I call LG.  The customer service rep suggested that we pull the dryer out and make sure that nothing was clogging the vent.  Good idea.  You know what we found?  A bird's nest.  WITH EGGS!!!!  I am not even shitting you.  Eggs.  And then all of a sudden, the birds outside realized that we found their little secret, and they went all ape shit on us.  Will's exact words:  "Call Animal Control.  I don't do birds."  

So yeah, that's how the remodel went last week.  This week seems to be better.  Except that I went around the house yesterday to take pictures with my MIL's camera.  You know, because I am so smart that I packed up my camera somewhere and can't find it.  And then I proceeded to get her SD card stuck in Will's laptop.  Lovely.

Smooth Sailing...so far.

We are 2.5 weeks into The Reno and up to this point, it's been easy breezy. I'm waiting for the sky to fall on us. That's just how it always works, right?

We decided to go stay with my in-laws (AGAIN) for 2 weeks while we prepared the upstairs to be slightly more livable. The wood floors were sanded and one coat of finish applied. Then the painters came and did their thing, and tomorrow the wood floors get the last coat and we can move back in. So, 2 full weeks with Will's parents. Not bad considered the last renovation we did took 8 months. No matter how awesome they are, it's 8 MONTHS OF LIVING WITH YOUR HUSBAND'S PARENTS!

Everyone we have chosen to work with has been pretty easy-going. Except they all talk too much. I am not even kidding. Way too much. Dude, tell me what you need to tell me and then let me get on with my life. I don't need to know about your wife's job with the State, or your child's Communion, or your oldest son who is about to leave for the Marines. Please do not get me emotionally attached to you by telling me that your son died when he was 25 in a car accident. I'm not strong enough to take it. I AM WEAK! And I'm not paying you for that. And don't even get me started on Jody, the tree guy. One day I'll secretly tape us having a conversation. You will die.

Here's a little Before, During and After eye candy for your Wednesday. This is the same shot of our guestroom over the last 3 weeks. Ah, the progress. It makes me smile :)