Color Me Cream!

While I haven't been in the studio much the last few weeks, I have been busy with color, projects, bits and pieces.  It's time to get my late Aunt's condo on the market. In order to do that, some repair, cleaning, and painting needs to be accomplished.

Starting in the dining area & living room - check out the Mint & Mocha color scheme.

While I'm not saying I like it or not - the milk chocolate brown needed to go. The walls of the dining room area are only 7 feet tall. It leads directly into the kitchen and neither space has a window, so no natural light.

I started with a coat of Kilz latex primer before the new color went on - Behr Premium Ultra Paint & Primer with stain blocking, satin finish in Belgian Cream.  It took two full coats to get it to this point. The green is staying and being refreshed. Everything else will be Belgian Cream, and I mean everything else - walls, ceilings, trim, even parts of me! 

Unfortunately, my Aunt was a smoker (ICK!) and the walls in the primary bedroom were, well, gross and the paint about 13 years old. The second bedroom wasn't as bad but obviously still needed to be painted.

And the ceilings, and the hallways, and all the trim. Miles of trim. Multiple coats. So far, I'm about 4 and a half gallons of the Cream paint in and will definitely finish out the last half gallon.  Of course, some of this lovely shade of Cream has landed on me - my hands, my hair, my clothes & my shoes!  

I removed all the ceiling tiles from the kitchen, labeled them (much like quilt pieces) and gave them a fresh coat of paint before reinstalling them. You can see the color age/change difference on the picture I labeled. 

All the fan blades were taken down & bleached clean. I am here to say that Scrubbing Bubbles Foaming Bleach spray cleaner has been a lifesaver! Totally cuts down on the amount of elbow grease and overall time spent on cleaning.  The trick is to let the product have enough time to work.  For the fan blades, I used Dawn dish detergent and a scrubbing sponge, as the thin wood could not be left to soak.

There's still more to do - my brother is repairing a section of the bathroom ceiling before I prime & paint it, the fridge and stove need a deep clean, and a few more odds and ends, as well as cleaning.  The last big thing is to have all the carpeting replaced - I need to get some quotes on that in the next two weeks. 

That's been keeping me busy in my spare time and unfortunately, out of the studio.  Need to balance that better.