Living & Dining Baseboard and Window Trim Finished

On our previous visit in June, Nick test painted a section of trim and started preparing to paint the rest --including the trim in and around the large windows in the living and dining rooms-- to finish during the July trip.

Neither of us are fans of painting wood, but covering the white with brown was our compromise to get the architectural effect of wood without the pain in the ass that would be sanding/staining or just pulling up and replacing the trim altogether. Not to mention maybe having to deal with lead paint. 

Here is Nick using his new electric sander to smooth some of the areas on the trim: 

Sanding in preparation for painting

Half done with the first coat

Final paint and trim in living room (with sanded floors-more on that later)

Final paint and trim in dining are (with finished floors-more on that later)

The brown really draws attention to the windows, which along with the fireplace are the major focal points of the living and dining rooms that we wanted to highlight. We are incredibly pleased with both the wall and trim color and how the rooms really feel tied together now.

We'll need to do some trim touch up work after sanding and varnishing the floor, but that won't take long. And we only painted the trim brown in the living room, dining area and kitchen. The hall and bedrooms have trim painted the same as the walls, an idea that we saw and loved in one of the houses on this year's SLC Modern Mid-Century House Tour.

More Painting...

After spending one weekend of the past three months in Portland working on the house, we planned a week-long vacation for end of July to have some fun and finish everything we wanted done before the move, which will likely be in September. Since we took a full week off, we decided to drive and take a second car-full of stuff we won't need for these final few months in Salt Lake City.

I started where I left off: dining room. Below was the island "as is," which was just white and dirty. I removed the door, handle, and hinges and painted the area with several coats of the same "Soft Suede" as the rest of the dining room/living room.

Before

After paint, but before brown trim

Door reattached and a first coat of brown trim down, with bonus shirtless Nick

I'll probably have to do some touch up painting underneath the counter top once that has been ripped up and replaced, which we'll do soon after we are living there full time. We haven't decided yet on a counter material, but color will be basic black.

It's hard to tell but I did not paint the end of the island where those weird rounded shelves are because those are going to be removed. Once gone and any damage patched and sanded, the plan is to paint the end the same color as the rest of the island. Removing those shelves and stopping the new counter top where the island ends will open the area and give us more space for moving between the dining room and kitchen.

Vintage mid-century lamp, media cabinet & new planter

We had several new pieces of furniture to see (in person) for the first time! All were found on Craigslist and picked up by our friend Dylan in Portland. I featured the lamp in an earlier post, but here is it again since it's so amazing! It turned out to be in even better condition than the pair we saw in the shop, which each had scorch marks on the shades from someone using the wrong bulb size. Here I am next to it for scale. 

Beautiful vintage lamp and mid-century cabinet pair well

This cabinet is also new and exactly what we were looking for to create a media center area for the flat panel television, which will be mounted on the fireplace. It was hard to find something narrow enough to fit to the left of the fireplace without blocking the cat door, but this was the perfect size and a steal for only $35. It is currently painted, which doesn't look bad, but I might definitely want to sand and stain it sometime very soon.

The open space will be for the Blue-Ray/DVD player and stereo receiver and the storage space behind the sliding doors will hold all of our dvds, which are in easily store-able soft albums rather than individual cases. We'll cut a hole in the back of the cabinet for the electronics to plug into the wall and run necessary cords along the left side of the fireplace up to the television.

What a very large flat panel television over the fireplace might look like

The final new item on this trip might not technically be furniture, but this fantastic planter is BIG: 17 inches tall and 17 inches in diameter. Exactly the size we'll need to grow a lime tree right here in front of the south-facing window of the living room, which is the plan.

Plants will get plenty of sun with these floor to ceiling windows

 

Lemon and lime trees are evergreen so that will add some year-round green to the space. Having a lime tree like the one above in the house will also add a natural citrus smell to the room and give us the ability to grab a fresh lime for rum and coke or to squeeze over tacos anytime it is bearing fruit.

Living Room Paint-over, Part II

Over the weekend of June 21-23 we were able to meet our goal of finishing the paint job in the living room and dining room plus the large kitchen wall. Nick even started painting the trim brown to see how we like it. 

Looking into the finished living room from the dining room

Painting also complete in dining room in this view from kitchen

Nick starting the trim on a small space to make sure we like it before continuing