The contractor is finally finished! We could hardly wait to open up the door and see the masterpiece awaiting us. We snuck up to peek at the new floor stain one night and even my husband squealed with delight! We were only allowed to walk in with our socks on, but it felt like Christmas morning!
It’s certainly much shiner than before, and what a different feeling of homeyness right away! It’s amazing what a difference paint can make. We ended up choosing a cool color palette of blues and greens for our living room, bedroom and kitchen. The bathroom had preexisting rosy tan floors and tiles so we tried to match the wall tile color in hopes of washing it out and making it feeling more neutral. The trim and doors are all bright white (Behr White 3052).
Here is a floor plan of our apartment so you can get a better idea of the overall flow and layout:
We only painted the back wall of the kitchen in case the blue darkened the space too much. I figure we will eventually install a backsplash and new countertops, so the blue was more of a focal point and a distraction than a final fix. You might also notice we covered the stained flooring with new sticky tiles. They don’t have grout and they don’t go under the cabinets, so if we do any major kitchen renovation they will have to go, but for $150 we thought it was a definite win for a face lift in the kitchen. Next on the list will be new hardware and possibly a Rustoleum Cabinet Kit!
Thanks to the cleaning crew, the bathroom is no longer a place of fear and loathing. That room seriously raised my blood pressure when we first walked in. The awkward brown tile doesn’t feel so out of place now that the rest of the room is a complementary color. We replaced the shower head with a Kohler we found on sale at Home Depot for 40$. We really love the rain shower feeling without having to go through the whole the bathroom remodel right away.
TJ Maxx had the perfect bathroom curtain that seemed to pull our whole color scheme together, so it went up moments after I walked into squeaky clean bathroom. My next bathroom projects will be changing out the bathroom hardware and probably adding hooks and art. Now that it is actually clean, I think this bathroom will serve us nicely for quite a while.
Our bedroom is the least impressive reveal, but once we get our furniture in there I’m hopeful it will perk up. I love the green color we chose, but the red metal window casing is now sticking out like a sore thumb. Red and green next to each other says Christmas to me – and my friends know I LOVE Christmas – I just don’t want it as my bedroom theme ALL year long. We will need to do something about that ASAP.
Now that almost everything is bright and shiny I’m itching to start filling it up with furniture and decorating! Here goes nothing!