Weekend, Full House, Project Prep

The weekend has arrived. Around here that means a full house. And it doesn't just mean that we have all of our family home, often we have multiple extras here! This weekend is kinda calm and quiet! Bethany has a sinus infection and is still a bit under the weather. Rebekah is pretty tired and has to babysit later this evening. Jessica and James will play all day! Laura will chat with her parents and possibly some friends. I can't imagine sending my child around the world and just using Skype to talk to them once a week! WOW!

Cory is going over to his cousin's house and helping cut wood all day. And I get to tackle the house! Yep, the entire house! It seems like we had a crazy week and things got behind, again! So today I start in the kitchen, and I move through the living room, foyer and dining room. Somewhere in there I want to get some laundry done....and clean up the laundry room....and then there are bathrooms. Oh my. I haven't even mentioned bedrooms yet!

See, I have a goal! I know it sounds crazy but a month or more ago we bought paint for the living room and kitchen and stairway up. Yep, there it sits. Forgotten in front of the fireplace, hidden behind some toys, blocked by the wood rack, used as a stepstool for my son to try to reach the phones on the mantle. Kinda expensive step stool.

I was the one who instigated the paint change in the rooms...and I think it will be great! We decided to go with some coordinating colors....and I chose one that was light and pretty and I thought would be a change but not too drastic. I am not afraid of color, but just wanted to be light and open! The picture doesn't show well, but we have a fairly bright blue/teal mix now and the light swatch in the middle is more of a light green color. Still nice and bright and having more color than white or cream, but not the blue that seems to show dirt and dings quite badly!

I let my hubby pick the accent color. I thought it would be nice to change it up since right now the entire living room, all the way up the stairs and all of the hallways upstairs are the same color. We talked about making the staircase a different color and make the wall with the fireplace in the living room be the matching color as an accent to tie the two areas together. I thought since I picked a light color that Cory would to and we worked and worked and worked....and this is what he chose!

Yes, that is a red color. Now the picture does not do it justice...it is called some kind of bean. It kinda reminds me of the color of those Boston Baked Bean candies we used to get Mom when we were kids! Anyone else remember those? Anyway, it almost exactly matches the flowers in the border in my kitchen.

My kitchen is a room I LOVE! I have posted pictures of it on my blog before. I decided when we were building the house that I wanted the backsplash between my counter and my cupboards to be pretty....and I knew I wanted flowers and yellow, bright, cheery and welcoming! This is the border we found, but it was tall! Taller than "normal". We put up the border before the cupboards and counters went in. My mom and I talked and talked and finally decided that the border wouldn't last if we didn't protect it so we covered it with a satin polyurethane that would make it washable. Then we chose a paint color for the room based on the border since most areas it goes under the counter and/or cupboard but at the stove, it ends about 4 inches below the hood. Well, after 9 years that yellow above the cupboards and especially around the doorways is looking pretty dingy and banged up and shows fingerprints terribly! So, since the color matches, Cory decided we should put the red color above the cupboards and around the door frames so that it blends the living room and dining room and hallway and staircase all together. Since we have an open floor plan, that should work well, I hope!

So my goal for this weekend is to get the house cleaned up enough that I can tell the kids that next weekend, no matter what, we are painting! It will be clean enough to shove everything to the middle of the room and paint around the edges. It will be enough warning that they can plan ahead and NOT try to go to a friend's house or whatever. In my dreams, this is going to work well!  In reality....well, I will post updates!

Anyone else have a huge project like this that you need to tackle? Are you like me and have put it off for a couple of weeks, or months....or more like me and have known it needed done for a couple of years?

How often do you paint the rooms in your house? Do you have any rooms (like my dining room) that you absolutely love and you are trying to wait as long as possible to paint it because you can't imagine changing it to anything else?

What weekend project can you start today?