Here's where we started. It looks fine but it did not smell fine! The smell is really what drove this project and we just decided to have some fun while we were at it.
Paint samples are my new favorite thing! Lowes will make you a sample pot of any color for only $3 and they are actually pretty big! I have the entire pot left because I just used the extra on the top of the cap to paint these two samples swatches. We tried out coral and yellow. I was totally digging the coral but my mom made a good point that a lot of our food is red so it might not pop. I bought it and we went with yellow.
Then we live like this for a week. Seriously....live like this for a week and you will never take your pantry for granted. I was singing when we finally got our countertops back!
Derrick took out all the shelves for me while I was out with my Mom shopping one Saturday. He's a gem. I started taping off all the little clips but taping took forever so I nixed that idea and decided to free hand it. The paint job is not perfect but it's a pantry and it's filled with stuff so you can't see any imperfections! We started with a coat of Kilz primer to get rid of the smell and then did two coats of yellow.
And the big reveal! Actually, it's pretty anti-climactic but the smell is gone!!! I love the pop of color when we open it and I'm happy with the choice of yellow. This is the first painting project we've taken on in the new house and I am glad we started small. It was a good place to get our confidence up and a good start to the fun, comfortable feeling we're going for in the house.
The second big thing that happened was Derrick bought me a living room rug!!! I have been looking and looking. Online, in stores, at the furniture market. I wanted one that would look OK with the wall color downstairs, not too dark because of the dark floors, and couch, and something that I hadn't seen before. I finally found one that I liked and asked Derrick if he liked it. While I was hemming and hawing over it he just reached over and hit the order button :) When it came yesterday I was a little skeptical. It's a 7.6" x 9.6" rug but it looked tiny in the roll! I was worried it was going to be this flimsy, thin thing that was wrinkly and just wouldn't work.
I was pleasantly surprised :) It is thinner then I originally wanted but I found that thick cushy rugs didn't have as much pattern or the pattern looked messy. I think a rug pad underneath it will do wonders and keep it laying nice and flat.
Isn't it so fun? And it's super soft. It's even better in person!
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