Going grey – in a good way

Before I moved in any furniture I knew I wanted to paint the living room a new color. When I bought my condo I painted the whole place from top to bottom including ceilings. The previous owner had been a smoker and to get rid of that smell I painted and replaced all of the carpet. Thankfully over the last five years my tenants respected my no smoking rule and things were still pretty fresh.

Even though things were still in great shape I didn’t want to keep the tan walls that I had chosen, but I wanted to keep things neutral. What color would I chose? Well the ever popular neutral of choice for many lately…GREY! I bought a gallon and recruited my dad and we got to work.

With dad cutting in and me rolling we got quite a bit done in the first afternoon. I was a little nervous it was looking bluer than I wanted, but I know that paint looks different once it is dried so we kept working.

Well after painting for about four hours we called it a night and went home. I went back the next morning to check on things because the furnace had not been working very well. As soon as I walked in I knew that things were not looking good. Due to the lack of good heat in the condo the paint did not dry evenly and it was definitely looking like two different colors on the wall! I knew before that I would need to do some touch ups, but the way things were looking I was sure that I would have to put on a complete second coat on the entire room. I was not happy, but I couldn’t leave it how it was, so I added painting back onto my to-do list.

I went and bought a second gallon of paint, inadvertently buying a higher quality paint but in the same color. By this time we had the furnace up and running properly. I started using the new paint while dad continued with the remains of the first gallon. After the second coat things were looking good.

Now that the living room painting was done I continued up the stairs and into the hallway upstairs. The staircase is open, so I wanted to use the same color in the living room and in the stairway.

I ordered a new couch, and it was delivered recently. I’m really happy with everything looks. The second coat of grey paint brought down the blue tone I was originally worried about. I’m excited to get some thing on the walls and to continue to bring the room together.

-Emily