Custom mixed paint

It seems to be my newest hobby. Who knew? Inspired by the fabulous Karen, I decided to give it a whirl. First I made paint for the small bedroom – one can of mistint, plus two quarter cans of previous project blue. It turned out great and I have a small jar of it left to leave the new homeowners for any touch ups. 

Then it was those two cans of blue for the master bedroom. They were clearance mistint specials and close to the same color. I mixed them together, painted a wall, and decided it was entirely too blue and not nearly neutral enough. Don’t get me wrong, I liked it a lot… but it hardly fit the bill for making the room more neutral. So I added a can of that mistint gray (which was supposed to be for the living room). Perfect! It turned out great and there is at least another room’s worth since the master bedroom only needed one coat (painting WIN).

A couple evenings ago, I went to the paint archives (or the far back of the paint shelves) and found lots of good stuff. Several partial cans of beige and off white from before I moved in (most of the house was beige or off white). A partial can of dark forest green (the dining room when I moved in). Some yellow from the first time I painted my bedroom, beige from when Lisa painted her bedroom, and some small amounts of white. I mixed it all together (minus the forest green) and it is a nice, creamy, yellowy beige. I think it will do quite nicely for the basement stairwell and family room. Nice and neutral (and I’m sure I will think it is perfectly boring when I’m done).  Anyway, it appears to be a paint mixing success. And I got rid of about 8 partial cans of paint and a couple cans that were completely dried and unusable. 

A few tips:

• Wear clothes you don’t mind getting paint on. (Those pants that look like the scary green pants with no one inside certainly fit the ticket).  
• Be careful when opening old paint cans. The rims get rusty and can puncture a finger… Or if you are using a crow bar because you’re too lazy to run upstairs for the paint can opener, you may slice your wrist open. Don’t say you weren’t warned.
• Mix a lot longer than you think (stir and stir and stir)
• Before adding a can of paint  to the big bucket, stir it in it’s own can and see if it mixes together… otherwise get rid of it.
• If paint is hardened in the bottom of the can, well… obviously get rid of it! 
• Strain paint before using (it can get clumps if the paint is older or rust from that rim you may have cut yourself on). You’ll thank the future you if you remove the clumps before putting it on the wall.
• Paint a bit on the wall and let it dry before coating the entire room- sometimes it dries differently than you think and you’d hate to waste all that effort if you suddenly decide it is too happy or you hate the color or something.
• Don’t be afraid to mix paint sheens- on the master bedroom, I combined satin, flat and semi gloss and it looks great (sort of satin I guess). 
• Be sure you are mixing latex and latex paint. Don’t mix oil based and water based paint (but you already guessed that). 
• Have fun!

The Big Decision

My big decision in the last few weeks: Sell the house this spring. 


It has been a great 10 years. I've had a dozen people share the Homestead with me at various times for various lengths of time, and that time is drawing to a close. For a couple years now I've thought once I can sell without losing a lot of money, I would like to do so. I love the small city I live in - but I would prefer to be out of town, a bit further out, with a bit more yard to neglect, etc. Let's be honest, I'm a country girl at heart!   

So I'm jumping headlong into this process we call "getting the house ready to sell," which is all new for me. And kind of a big project. Daunting. I know it doesn't have to be perfect (or so I keep telling myself) but somehow going through my house trying to think like a prospective buyer is making me very aware of all the little things-- the kitchen faucet that leaks a bit and is old and kind of crusty in spite of my cleaning efforts, the bathroom faucet that the handle comes off of easily (kids and guests always manage to remind me of that), the linoleum in the bathrooms that is kind of tired, the counters that I should have replaced years ago... the list goes on and on. Not to mention the rooms that need repainting / neutralizing (think bright green living room). SO many things that I could / should do. So... what began as Lock Down February to just catch up on some home projects has launched into a full fledged Get the House Ready season. And it's a doozy!   

In addition to all the house stuff that I need to do, there's the ten years of living there to purge. It is entirely too easy to put stuff in a box in storage and forget about it. Especially the stuff that is hard to decide about: college papers, childhood treasures, that cow collection, etc. So I am delving into all of that and throwing away a lot of stuff, filling bags for donation, and organizing like crazy. It is a humbling task. I knew that the last couple years I let things go in the midst of burnout conditions in my life... and now I'm facing it head on. Lovely.  

I am also finding remnants of things from nearly every roommate that has ever lived there. Not only do I get mail for every single person I've housed from time to time, I'm finding odds and ends from them in the storage room: CDs from one roommate, a crochet project binder from another, a backpack from another, a desk from another.... the list is endless and a good reminder of how much life has gone on under this roof in the last decade. It has been a great decade in this home- the longest I've lived anywhere and the most "home" of anywhere I've ever been - so I'm getting a little nostalgic and at the same time, confident that it is time. Let's do this.

Lock Down February

It is officially Lock Down February in my life. Lock Down February? How so? December is always a flurry of preparations and celebrations and overall frantically busy (and really fun too). Typically January is the month to recover from December but somehow this year I managed to fill it so completely that now I need February to recover from that. Not to mention I desperately need some time at home to catch up on life there. I've got bedrooms to paint. Clutter to purge. A living room to paint. Kitchen touch ups to do. And apparently these things don't happen when you are never home. Lock Down February it is!! 

If you want to see me, I will be at home. Wear paint clothes or at least plan on being drafted into a project. Enter at your own risk.  

Obviously I can't do a complete lock down (although that sounds delightful right now). I still work full time, teach Religious Ed, spend one night a week with my grandparents, etc. But I am determined to limit the amount of outside activities I'm not already committed to so as to deal with my own life for a bit. Wish me luck... 

A few painting tips (or maybe a painting rant)

How not to paint a bedroom:

1. Leave all the hooks, shelves, etc. on the wall. It doesn’t matter right, no one cares about a little paint, right?

2. Do a crappy paint job. Poor coverage. Splotchy. Drippy.

3. Feel free to get it on the freshly painted ceiling, the wood floors, the trim. Don’t bother wiping it off while it is wet.

4. Did I mention about the leaving shelves mounted on the wall? See, when you leave them there, and slop paint all around them, not only do you get lovely blotches of paint on them, but when the homeowner goes to repaint the room after you’ve moved away, she has to pry the brackets off the wall, pulling drywall with them. See that? Yeah, always be sure to leave shelves on the wall and slop paint around them. It is simply too much bother to spend the 5 minutes to take them off the wall and preserve them for the next inhabitant.

 

How to paint a bedroom:

1. Imagine you are going to have to repaint this space in a couple years. Save the future you a lot of trouble and do the little things: remove hooks, shelves, switch plates. Spackle holes. Sand off spackling. Remove all of the wallpaper adhesive before painting. Believe me, if you don’t thank yourself a few years down the road, the next homeowner will.

(not quite done – I still have to touch up the brown wall shelves and put them back up).

Swatching

If you know me well and visit me often, you know that you can almost always find a stack of paint swatches floating around. On the table, in the kitchen drawer, in my purse, on the coffee table. I love paint swatches. I love agonizing over what the perfect color would be for whatever room I’m currently dreaming of painting.

But don’t be fooled, I am actually a clearance paint junkie. It is kind of ironic that I pour over paint swatches, checking them with all sorts of things around the house to make sure they are just right, and drool over shades called “Rusted Earth” and “Sunny Dale” and “Shoreline haze." And then I go by the mis-tint paint section in every home improvement store that I find and pick up whatever shade of $5 clearance seems close to my dream—or whatever shade could fit into that same dream with a little help.

I believe I can trace my love of clearance paint back to the laundry room repainting project, during which I ended up with several pints of mis-tints in various colors and managed to produce a bright, cheery laundry room out of them for very little money. Since then, I always walk by the clearance paint when I'm in a home improvement store, just in case the perfect color is there on the shelf. Or maybe something relatively close to the perfect color- which of course I know because I’ve done all that paint swatching ahead of time.    

I can't say I always use clearance paint—in fact, I don’t even use it most of the time. For instance, I bought full price paint for the hall because I didn't find anything I liked on clearance and wanted a specific color and sheen.   

The other day the paint gods were smiling on me. I’ve been thinking about painting the living room a more neutral color and then having splashes of bright colors in the form of pillows and painted end tables (rather than the whole room being bright green). I’m thinking gray but still swatching to find the perfect gray – not to warm so that it’s beige (I abhor beige) and not too gray so that it is too cool with the red brick fireplace and the new couch. Anyway, I walked into my local Lowes looking for something unrelated, and happened down the mis-tint aisle (duh), and there it was: a gallon of beautiful gray paint. I knew I’d need a second gallon but figured I’d cross that bridge when I came to it. When I checked out, the lady handed me a rebate slip. $5 off that brand of paint. What? I spent $5 on the paint and will be getting $5 back. AWESOME. The following week I was in Lowes to buy roller covers and found another gallon of nearly the same shade of gray in the mis-tint section!! So the paint for the living room (2 gallons of paint+primer) cost me a total of $5. I will probably mix them together and might add a touch of brown to warm it up, but still… I am loving the clearance paint! 

Keep in mind, I’m not actually advocating this as a decorating strategy. In fact, I prefer all of you stay away from the mis-tint sections and leave those yummy, super cheap colors to me.

I would also like to note I do not buy paint only because it is cheap. I am always amazed at some of the hideous colors there in the mis-tint section and I leave those for some other poor sucker, sticking with the ones that go with my color palette.

Hi. I’m Reenie. I am a clearance paint addict.

Hi Reenie.