When we last talked about the living room refresh, I had shared some of my final choices with you. Today, I’m sharing the painted walls and fireplace.
The walls are painted with Sherwin Williams Passive and the fireplace is also Sherwin Williams Tricorn Black.
BEFORE
Here are a few before photos of the living room. It has looked this way since 2004 with a few small changes here and there. It had gotten cluttered and disorganized and grew way too dark, especially during the winter. There is no overhead lighting in this room!
You’ll note that I did not clean up to take these photos-this is real life!
My living room is one very large space with my craft space on the other side which is across from the dining room. The space is great but the openness means that it is hard to hide stuff and you can see everything in all of the rooms and spaces! The dining room will be a 2022 project!
Sometimes you have too much stuff and sometimes you don’t have a place for your stuff. This is why it’s important to get rid of stuff before you try and organize it. The living room refresh begins!
WALLS
You’ll see in the photos that I am going from a dark brown color to a light gray. This required 2 coats of white primer. Even though the paint I chose says it’s paint with primer, I find that using a separate primer helps the color to (1) adhere better (2) you get better coverage and (3) the wall color goes on much more easily.
No one who has ever painted will be surprised by this but it’s not the painting work that that is hard, it’s all of the prep work. Prep work includes cleaning the walls, filling and sanding any holes, taping off areas to keep them paint free and finally doing the cutting in around the edges.
The other part of prep work is pulling furniture away from the walls and covering furniture and other items that you don’t want to get paint on. I’m always surprised after painting when I find paint spots on places I was certain that paint could not get to!
One of the things I have learned about painting is with primer just get it on the wall-it doesn’t have to be pretty.
The other thing about painting when you start putting on the wall color is to get the first coat up and then just let it dry. Don’t try and touch up areas that look uneven. Wet paint looks different from dried paint and ultimately it will all blend together. The first area you paint will look off/different from the last area you paint because it’s more dry. Just cover the wall and let it dry!
I painted the walls in sections because it was too much for me to do it all at once. You can see in this 1st photo the difference in the previous paint color and the new paint color! I loved that brown for many years but was ready for a change.
It is not easy to photograph but this is the finished color on these two walls.
FIREPLACE
Painting the fireplace was an idea that came to me as I was choosing my wall paint color. I just figured if I was going to refresh the living room, I could refresh the fireplace as well.
The fireplace was these beige textured tiles. Every wall and other surfaces in my house seems to be textured! Initially, I added primer so that I could put up the 3 possible choices. Primer is also important on this surface because tile tends to suck up paint and primer provides a surface for the paint to grip instead of getting lost in the tiles and ultimately using more paint.
After the 1st coat, I knew that I liked it and was very happy with my choice. Though it was fairly easy to roll the color on, it still required some prep including taping off and cutting in.
I did 3 coats total mostly because of the texture; I wanted to make sure everything was covered. I really love the color of the fireplace against the color of the wall!
One of the largest part of this refresh is now done! Coming up, I’ll share the 2nd large project of this living room refresh-the new furniture!
