Wednesday, May 17, 2006

HandyDandy

So, like I said I would, I've been focusing on the library. I went to Home Depot yesterday and scooped up - hundreds of paint chips. I mean - seriously, I grabbed one of the little thingys for every. single. color. Plus a buncha color books, and - this CD thingy that you can use to 'test' out the colors of paint in a room. I also scooped up a couple of plastic putty scrapers as I figured that they would be less likely to gouge hunks out of the wall than a metal one. I tested the wallpaper in one corner last night, and it peels off pretty easily. Besides for a reformed scabpicker like myself, it's - WONDERFUL *pickpickPullllllrip!* Hehehehe.


I've been thinking about colors too. So far, the two rooms that we've settled on colors for (the game room and the family room) have both been based on paintings/art. The game room is going to be red, black and chrome - inspired by a Scarface poster my husband has, and loves. *shakes head* The family room is going to be themed off of a matching pair of beach pictures that I got in the Dominican Republic - golds and browns and bronzes and rusts - which also nicely matches our furniture set.


The library is on the north side of the house, so it probably should be - warm colors.  I was thinking of a turquoise/royal blue/gold theme in there - but I'm thinking that maybe a rich reddish violet or maroon would be better to warm up the room a bit. Also, the paint color under the wallpaper is a pale blue - and it looks - funny. Also!! Why - oh why - is the paint textured on the wall? I'll have to see what it looks like once the wallpaper is totally stripped - but if I want to get rid of the texture, what would we have to do? Sand the walls? Sheeesh.


There's beige wall to wall in there, but it's on top of wood like in the main section of the house - so that is TOTALLY getting ripped up. At first, C wanted to keep the carpet (in case we wanted to read an the floor - which would most likely almost never happen) but last night he said he didn't care, so - it's getting ripped up. I don't know what state it's in, but - *sighs* I'm assuming it's going to need to be refinished and all that jazz - ooohh!! With the dark color of the wood, we'll definitely need something light on the walls to brighten it up. Maybe do the gold as the primary color, and use the turquiose as accents (on the walls) and drop the royal blue all together, and then the accents in the room could be mainly turquiose.


Also!! I've been rummaging around looking for cool bookcases (plywood/NOT particle board) and considering building our own once I saw the outrageous prices people wanted for bare freaking wood - and I found this on this ULTRA cool website.




And based on the directions, it sounds not only REALLY straightforward to build, but also something that I could get precut wherever I get the wood from. Also - it's light! It's not super heavy and blocky looking (as most of the other handmade/unfinished wood bookshelves did) and if we painted those the same color as the walls - the books would almost look like they were floating against the wall. :)  I was also considering getting some of the edge molding stuff and finishing off the edges of the shelves so that it looks a little - classier, I suppose. So, I'm happy with that!!


Tonight, I'm going to go home and do some studying (hopefully I'll be able to have some outside time before it starts pouring rain) and then move everything that is in the libray to either the dining room or the exercise room so that I can have unobsturcted access to all the walls.


Hmm.... what should we do first - paint the walls, or finish the floor?? If we have to sand the walls, we should do that at the same time that we sand the floor. Hmmhmmhmm.... I'll have to ponder that for a while - as soon as I look up refinishing a floor, and stripping textured paint off the wall.


 




 


 In other non-library related news, today is the Third Wednesday of the month....and the thrift store up the street from me sells EVERYTHING for 50% off on the 3rd Wednesday of the month. *swoons* I walked out of there with like 4 books (all about home repair/do it yourselfishness), a buncha magazines (landscape/decorating ideas) about 15 wooden picture frames that we plan on painting to coordinate with the rooms, and but black and white pictures in. None of them had glass, but at 23 cents each, I figured that I could figure out some sort of thin cuttable plastic that I can fit to each frame for WAYYY under a dollar each - as our original plan was to go to the dollar store and get them. Soo - Sqqquueeee!! And, I got a big picture frame for a poster of C's of the last day of some Cincinati staduim that he got signed by some baseball dude - he has two, but I could only find one frame, so we'll have to figure something else out for the other one. I also got another pyrex loaf pan for 3 bucks, and......I think that's it. *sighs* Soooo pleased with myself I am.

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