What I Did on My Snow Day

Picture this. I’m sitting in my office at work the other week, it’s after 5:00 so I’m already supposed to have left, the weather is freezing, and everyone is on alert that a storm is coming. I’m just preparing to wrap up and take some things home because even though there’s been no formal announcement, we’re all preparing to work from home the next day because the weather is supposed to be that bad.

I called a colleague to ask a quick question and he says “Oh wait, I think they are just putting up the closing announcement now.”

REALLY? Yahoo! A real snow day! This is a big deal because I work at a big company and it takes a lot for us to close. Add that to the fact that I live in Upstate New York and snow is as common as spray paint projects on a decorating blog, real snow days are rare.

The next morning after I slept in, I donned my paint clothes, made some tea and was off! Home improvement is what I do on my snow days.

My plan was to tackle the side foyer. You’ve seen its sorry before state and this project has been staring me in the face every time I walk by it {which is every day}, so I got to work.

My first step was to remove the wallpaper. You can’t particularly tell in the photo above but that back wall is painted over wallpaper that needed to come down. First I scored it.

 

Then I sprayed and peeled. Actually I peeled and did other things, then sprayed and peeled some more. It’s an ongoing process for sure. See the beauty underneath.

In between more wallpaper scraping, I worked on painting. I had my heart set on navy for the upper part of the walls and ceiling here but I was striking out on selecting a color.

These two were just not cutting it.

Turns out I elected to save some moolah and dip into my paint reserves.

We got 2 gallons of Behr’s Flint Smoke for our bedroom and only ended up using 1 gallon for it. So I also used it in our front small foyer and upstairs bathroom for some mini makeovers which I’ll have to show you soon.

I ended up also using this color for the side foyer.  It has a nice smoky grey blue color and will look crisp with the white on the lower half of the walls. So I threw it up there. Well you know, I rolled it on 🙂

In the right you can see the plaster underneath the wallpaper I removed. And the ceiling is painted. I love painting ceilings lately. Have you painted any?

Even though the paint is done on the upper half, you can see there is much more to do to this area. Replace the trim, paint the bottom half, replace the hooks, add some style. The list goes on.

But I did get all the wallpaper off, finally.  Outside it snowed and snowed and I scraped and scraped.

And I found an old gas pipe under the light fixture on that wall. This is how they did it in old homes. The light fixtures went where the gas pipes were to cover them up. Old wiring – yea, that’s the next project on the list.

The project is officially started. Here’s where our to do list stands:

1. Paint the bottom half of the walls white. It’s already painted paneling.
2. Remove the wallpaper in the hallway
3. Replace the trim on the walls with new or salvaged trim if we can find some that works. Paint it white.
4. Select a color and paint the top half of the walls and ceilings {still need to patch and prime the plaster on that one wall}
5. Remove the hooks and boards they are on
6. Make a shoe shelf in that half wall
7. Hang new hooks for jackets and such
8. Install some shelves on the one side
9. Replace the wall sconces now, or whenever we find some good ones
10. Hang up some art on the walls
11. Buy a new rug
12. Get some baskets to hold items like reusable grocery bags

Only two items crossed off? I better have more snow days 🙂