It’s been a month since my last blog entry. During that time I finally finished the painting upstairs, and wire up most of the plugs and lights. This April will be the fourth anniversary of buying this house. It has been over three and a half years since we had light on the second floor. It’s been a long frustrating road to get to this point, and we still have a lot of work to do, but I am able to start feeling a sense of accomplishment.
Room by room, part 1: Our daughter’s bedroom
For those who care, the colors we chose for this room were Behr “Rhapsody Lilac” (620A-3) for the walls and Behr “Iced Mauve (680E-2) for the ceiling. My wife and I narrowed the selections down in the store, but our daughter who made the final decision.
Yes, it is a lot of purple (trust me, I painted it). But the room’s “purple-ness” is not overwhelming. The funky angles reflect the light creating enough visual interest and subtle variations in the appearance of the color.
The main light fixtures in the room a “special buy” at Home Depot. They were each part of a three piece set consisting of a matching ceiling light, table lamp and night light. Two 3-way switches control the lights so our daughter won’t have to stumble around the huge room in the dark. The smoke alarm is a hard-wired model, with battery backup. It is one of three located on the second floor of the house. Overkill? Perhaps, but the bedroom ceilings are higher than the hall ceiling. A fire in one of the bedrooms could burn for a while before the smoke reaches the hallway.
The back dormer area, which will be used for either reading or doing homework, is lit by a small globe fixture controlled by another switch.
Room by room, part 2: The guest room
The guest room paint is Behr “Rocky Mountain Sky” (720E-3) which is an interesting shade of blue-green. I painted the ceiling the same color because it has a small surface area. The light fixture is one that we selected at Canadian Tire. We wanted something unique for this room that fit the character of the house and I believe we have succeeded.
One source of disappointment for me is the quality of the drywall work in this room. A number of flaws showed up once I finished painting that I didn’t notice at the primer stage. My wife and I discussed it and decided to live with the room as it is, rather than go to the time, effort and expense of applying more mud, and sanding, priming and painting the room again.
Flaws or no flaws, the room sure looks a lot better than it did originally with the indirect lighting from the “Lego” style ceiling panels.
Room by Room, part 3: The hallway
The hallway paint is CIL Smart “Lunenburg” (90 B6 (42/106)) for the walls and Behr “Divine Pleasure” (W-B-210) for the ceiling. The beautiful shade of blue is carried down to the main floor hallway and will eventually extend to the front foyer and possibly the living room. This was my least favorite color when we selected the paint, but it has grown on me.
We selected an off-white for the ceiling rather than a pure white so the contrast would be a little less harsh. I will use the same off-white in an oil base semi-gloss for the wainscoting which I plan to install up the stairs and in the upstairs hallway.
We purchased the light fixture at a specialty store over a year ago. It hangs centered over the stairs and provides light for the stairs and upper hallway. The finish on the fixture is oil-rubbed bronze which is a rather deep rich finish. It is controlled by four-way switching with one switch outside of each bedroom and another switch at the bottom of the stairs. This way, each occupant upstairs can control the light conveniently, without having to walk across a dark hallway to a more centrally located switch.