painting woes

Let me start this post by explaining a little about our new house. It was built in 2005 and purchased by a family. They lived here until 2011 when they tried to sell the house as a short sale. After several months on the market as a short sale, the house went into foreclosure and sat vacant for 7 or 8 months before it was listed for sale again.

Fannie Mae, the owner of the house when it was under foreclosure, hired several crews to come in and work on the house before it was relisted. It was cleaned, fixed up, repainted, and had light fixtures replaced (because the former owners took everything) so that they could list it for a higher price. Every wall was painted "builder beige" with the cheapest flat paint they could find. It scuffs and marks so easily and does not clean well at all.

A few weeks ago my mom was visiting and we were having lunch with Isaac. We let him out of his booster seat and he walked over to the wall in the breakfast nook and left a greasy little hand print. My mom scrubbed it using various methods, but unfortunately the wall looked much worse when she was done.

It was time to pick a new color and paint.

I had a celery green color in my mind. We haven't done much painting and I haven't done much color picking, so off we went to choose a few color swatches like the novices that we were. I taped some cards on the wall and stared at them for a week before choosing the one that continually stood out to me. I saw pictures online of rooms painted that color. I was ready.

My parents came on Saturday to help us paint. Well, my dad came to paint. My mom came to play with Isaac. The first problem we ran into was the way the paint was not sticking to the wall. My dad said he had never seen anything like it. You would brush the paint on one way and go back over it the other way and it would practically come right off. It wasn't in our plan for the day, but we had to put a coat of primer over the walls first. Even the primer didn't go on super well, but they managed to do a decent job. They painted one wall of the breakfast nook and I instantly knew it wasn't the right color. It was so much brighter than I thought it was going to be. They finished priming the rest of the kitchen and we made a plan to pick a new color and try again later in the week.

My mom is so awesome and went to Home Depot, Lowes, and Sherwin Williams to find the perfect color. She came home with lots and lots of color swatches and 2 small samples. She's a genius because I loved both samples and didn't even bother confusing myself further with the swatches. I think we'll be happy with either color, but one in particular looks exactly like what I had in mind the first time. Mom saves the day!

the old color...too much yellow