Note to self:

I AM NOT GOOD AT PICKING OUT PAINT COLORS!! Period, the end.
No matter what I do, no matter how many swatches I get, no matter how many sample colors I paint on the wall, no matter what - my paint picking out skills SUCK! SUCK, SUCK, SUCK!!!!

And I have no estimation skills either.

Here is how it went:

I bought 6, yes 6 grey samples and painted swatches on the kitchen wall.

3 whites for trim

4 browns for accent wall

After much debate, I decide to pull the trigger and say we are going to use sterling on all the walls....top left.

Go to Home Depot, buy 5 gallons, 1 gallon of white for trim and 1 gallon on brown for accent wall.

Monday morning: Painters arrive. Please note, they speak hardly any English and my friend Teri was here with me when they came to give me the quote and did the talking for me. She wasn’t here Monday morning.

Do my best to ask how much more for them to paint all the doors – now that I realized (with the help of Teri pointing it out to me) that if we are painting the trim, we will need to doors painted as well. Yes, they painters asked me if I wanted the doors painted and I said no.

Okay, good – doors are now going to be painted.

They get to work, Ian is not a happy camper being as he is being kicked out of the living room.

We will leave to go over to Sylvia’s for much needed mommy talk and for the kids to run themselves ragged. Come home about 4 hours later.

First coat is on the living room – UH OH – not looking like the swatch I picked out. Maybe because it is wet?!?!? Now trying to hope for the best.

Eric comes home – he looks at it and tells me it will be okay – it will be what it is. NOT GOOD. I needed him to tell me that it was in fact not lavender and that he loved it. He.did.not.say.that.

It doesn't look THAT bad in this picture, but in the evening and night time, with the lights on, the color of our floors and couch, it looked lavendar.  NOT what I wanted.

Monday night.

We decide that we don’t want this color, yes the color that we have FIVE gallons of, in the kitchen as well. They hadn’t started the kitchen so we were good in that aspect.

Tuesday morning.

Me and Ian load up, at 8:00 a.m., hit the donut store and to home depot to get a tile out of our back splash color matched – nope, that can’t color match it because the color is under glass. With the help of an employee, we match the tile to a swatch. Get a gallon.

When the painters get here, I tell them to paint the kitchen a different color. He looked very confused at what I was saying.

We leave again, come home in the afternoon – kitchen looks great. Living room still looks lavender – ARG!

Tuesday night.

We decide that we have to love the new paint and at this point, we hated the lavender that was glaring back at us.

Wednesday morning.

I use my phone translator to figure out how to ask them how much to repaint the living room, entry way and small hallway off the bathroom downstairs. Okay, price worked out.

Take Ian to MDO.

Come home, paint piece of wood with kitchen color, head to Home Depot yet again. Eric was going to meet me there in about 30 minutes. The nice lady noticed I was looking pretty panicked and asked if I needed help – YES, I NEED HELP!! So after she went through all my choices, I told her my problem, she picked 3 all new choices for me. Eric got there, we picked Elephant skin, got 3 gallons.

Brought the paint back home.

A few hours later, it was painted and it was BEAUTIFUL, WONDERFUL, I LOVE IT!!!

 The pictures don't do the paint colors justice but they are wonderful!!
Now however, I have about 2.5 gallons of the sterling (lavendar) color left, 1.5 of elephant skin and little parts of trim, kitchen and accent wall – which I am good with those being left over.

Now on to getting stuff back on the walls, curtains, new rug, backsplash put up (yes, we have it picked out) and stairs redone (yes, I think Eric and I are going to attempt doing them ourselves) and then the downstairs is done!!!  I am hoping to have a home warming party in late April/early May for Eric and I's birthday  - here is hoping...and working.