Starting Painting Projects at the New House (Finally!)

It’s been a long time coming and even as I write this, we have still not officially moved to our new home. But after nearly a full year since moving out of our previous house, we were given the opportunity to travel to our new home in Virginia at the end of the summer. Our belongings are still in storage, but being in our new space for a couple of weeks was a true joy. Empty as it was, it already felt like home.

I took advantage of the nearly empty rooms and couple of hours of free time I was afforded each day (hello, nap time!) to get some initial painting done. We’re getting geared up to start a large renovation project in the main living space, but I grabbed some rollers and brushes and got to work painting some of the rooms that will be unaffected. While this post by no means documents any dramatic room transformations, it’s always fun to celebrate even the most minor steps forward. And to be honest, the act of diving in and using my hands for something for the first time in over a year was exactly what I needed to feel a little bit more like myself.

In my eagerness, I didn’t take very technical before shots of either of these rooms, let alone process shots. Oops. But you can still get a sense for the space before the paint hit the wall and I’ll walk you through some of my decision making process with picking colours. Even simple paint transformations take a little bit of consideration!

Before Painting

Before Painting

The Primary Bedroom

Truthfully, I painted the primary bedroom on a bit of a whim. I wasn’t planning on painting it during our visit, but I was struck with a wave of confidence that gave me the ability to quickly pick a color and hit the ground running. I’ll share a moodboard, inspiration images, and ideas for where I want to take this room design at another point, but for the sake of sharing the paint update, I’ll just mention that I wanted to paint this room dark. Like really dark. I always loved our black cozy room in our previous home and I decided to embrace a similar feel for our bedroom in this house.

I had been workshopping the overall room design for quite some time, so I had already narrowed it down to two different tones I wanted to test out. I was honestly going for a fairly true black, so initially I was leaning towards Greenblack by Sherwin-Williams (which was the exact tone I used in our cozy room), but also liked the slightly warmer brown undertone of Urbane Bronze by Sherwin-Williams. I ordered two of their stick-on paint swatches so I could sample them in the space once we arrived. I moved the swatches around a little bit, testing them against our upholstered headboard and next to the wood trim that I’m intending to keep. After seeing the samples in different spots throughout different times in the day, I ultimately settled on Urbane Bronze. The undertone is just a little bit softer and I love the way it complements the wood trim.

I have always loved painting. My Dad was a general contractor and I grew up around this type of work and have never been intimidated by it. I don’t think you need a painting tutorial here, but I will just say that I started out by cutting-in and then followed up with some rolling. I ended up doing two coats on all the walls and three on all the baseboards. Which reminds me that yes, I decided to leave the wood trim on the doors and around the doors and windows, but I did paint out the white baseboards in the exact same tone, but using a satin finish rather than the eggshell I used on the walls.

The primary bedroom is actually quite large, which is exactly why I think it can handle such a dark colour. It doesn’t feel too cramped or stuffy. There is only one west-facing window though, so considering the way the light changed throughout the day definitely influenced my decision on what undertone to use. The first evening I walked into this freshly painted space, I saw the way the warm setting sunlight hit the dark wall and nearly melted. Exactly what I was going for.

Mabel’s Bedroom

This significant move has been unsettling for our entire family, but especially for our young children. They have been such resilient little troopers, but even so, it has always been my intention to prioritize setting up their spaces as soon as we get to our new home. The primary item on my to-do list during our two week visit was to get Mabel’s room painted so that once we move, we can immediately set up all her belongings and let her settle right in.

Now that she is five, Mabel has developed her own tastes and interests. As I have been planning I’ve tried to involve her as much as I can so she feels a sense of ownership over her new room. She (unsurprisingly) really pushed for a pink room, which has been a fun challenge for me to design with. I love pink, but very rarely use it in our interior spaces. I really want to have fun with this house and prioritize the actual living that happens here, but at the same time, I want to maintain a sense of visual cohesion as you move from space to space. Functional, but well-designed. Personal, but peaceful. So while I absolutely want to give her the pink room she desires, I wanted to find a way to do it that still fit in with the greater tone and style of the home at large.

Like the primary bedroom, before our trip I pulled a few tones that I wanted to sample in the space before buying paint. The challenge with Mabel’s room is that it’s actually in the basement with only one (large) north-facing window. Natural light is limited, which means that most of the light in this room will be artificial. This drastically impacts the way the colour will read when you’re in the space.

I didn’t want to pick a tone that was too saturated. All of the samples I chose are pretty muddied tones of pink. My initial plan was to go with Monticello Rose by Benjamin Moore (pictured on the left) because I thought I could lean into the darker natural light and create a really warm-feeling bedroom for her. The next colour I sampled was Odessa Pink by Benjamin Moore (pictured in the middle). Once I painted the swatch, I immediately hated it. In a scramble, I also sampled Vintage Tea Rose by Behr (pictured on the right), but the undertone ended up being way too plum for what we were after.

I actually sat on these samples for the first week of our visit. To be honest, I hated all of them. But eventually I realized that the room’s original yellow combined with the wood trim was throwing me off with the samples. Each tone was skewed in it’s representation because I was viewing them next to a bold yellow colour. I realized that I needed to sort out whether I was going to leave the wood trim in this room or paint it out and considered whether it would be worth my while to prime the entire room before deciding on the final colour.

Throughout the entire process of sampling the colours, thinking on them, panicking, and then thinking some more, Mabel very clearly expressed her desire for the lightest of the tones - Odessa Pink. When I sampled them, this was my least favourite, so I initially dismissed her insistence. But I had reached a point of such indecision myself that eventually her insistence wore me down and I decided to just let go of my desire to have everything be perfect and go with her choice. I was quite frankly exhausted from making decisions and just surrendered. Even after I purchased the paint, I questioned whether it was a good idea. But at the end of the day, it’s just paint. I resolved that if it turned out so bad, we could always re-paint it in a year or two. It’s just paint.

I looked up Odessa Pink on the Benjamin Moore website to browse their suggestions for matching colours. I love this feature of their website! From doing that, I was able to easily pick a trim colour that coordinated perfectly with the pink. I’m sure there will be people angry with me for painting out the wood trim, but at the end of the day, it was dating this room and my priority is to make this as comfortable and cozy as it can be for a little girl. Everything about this move is new to her and so I want her space to feel fresh, cozy, safe, and bright. I ended up settling on White Opulence by Benjamin Moore in a semi-gloss finish and it took four coats to achieve full coverage.

As soon as I finished painting the trim and the walls, I knew this colour was perfect. It honestly turned out so good. It’s bright, but not cold. It’s pink, but not overwhelming. It feels exactly like Mabel and I am so glad she used her stubborn and persistent little attitude to advocate for the colour she wanted. Because while I was overthinking it all, she knew exactly what was perfect for her.

I got two coats of paint on the walls and even managed to paint the inside of her closet. I’ll share more details of the room design in a future post, but for now, I can’t wait to see what else she insists on to make this room perfectly her own.

Considering I only had a couple of hours each day over a couple of weeks to work away at these painting projects, I’m so pleased with where I was able to leave things by the time we travelled back to Canada. Both rooms are ready to be moved into, but most importantly, leave me feeling excited for all that is to come. This move has felt like a marathon and although we still aren’t quite to the finish line yet, it feels like a true blessing to not only imagine our future home, but also to start to make those ideas a reality.

Some Final Take Aways

As the first official projects completed at our new place, I’m amazed at the tone they have already set for this next adventure. Here’s what I can already tell will be some recurring themes for me to keep in mind as I work at making our new house our home over many years to come:

01. Make the Plans

Have fun dreaming and scheming and planning it all out. Some of those plans will come to fruition. Some of those plans will change over time. Some of these plans will be cast aside. But part of the process is enjoying the process. Let your imagination run wild, have fun, don’t box yourself in, and stay true to yourself. I came into both of these rooms with an idea of what I wanted to do before we even got there and it was fun to dream that up.

02. Let The Room Speak

Even the best laid plans are made better when it comes time to actually execute them because you will inevitably be forced to pivot on things. Letting the home offer what it has is the surest way to make it feel completely your own. Be willing to adapt and to try and to explore. I ended up changing my mind on my initial plan for paint with both of these spaces after sampling the colours in the rooms and I’m so glad I did.

03. Trust Your Gut

At the end of the day, trust that you’ll figure it out. No commitment is too permanent to change your mind on. Lean into your inclinations, get creative, and take some risks. I’m excited to have some fun in my choices with this home and these simple paint swaps were my first taste of this resolve.

I already can’t wait to share more about this home!