a. fresh. coat.

Ahhh, a fresh coat of paint really does make a huge difference in making a house feel like your own home. And when you basically paint the entire house, that helps too!

We recruited some parents last weekend to help us knock out Project #2 - Mission Walls and Trim.

Our amazing team of painters working on the hallway trim

It wasn't that the house had awful colors or that it was painted poorly, but two of the bedrooms were green (and we don't have any green in our planned color scheme). The other was painted what a friend called "baby poop brown," which was ironically in the former baby's room. Also, as Kody and I have been planning the decor for the house, we've been dreaming of light gray walls and white trim with a charcoal gray couch. That was our goal and I think we succeeded!

While I'd like to think the idea for the paint colors was originally ours, it most definitely wasn't. I'd previously read how my favorite bloggers John and Sherry from Young House Love painted their living room. When I showed Kody, we were both sold (and he's even reading some of their blog posts now!!). We were going to attempt to pick our own gray color, but after realizing how long it took us to decide on a stain for the wood floor, we decided to simply copy. John and Sherry used Benjamin Moore's Moonshine, so we used Benjamin Moore's Moonshine.

Not that we didn't think for ourselves a little bit, though. It's just that our criteria perfectly matched their criteria - not too blue or too white, but a pure silvery gray that would allow white trim to pop. And we loved how it turned out in their house.

Here's a few in progress pics:

The mess of our living room - thankfully this is looking a little better now.

The gray walls definitely looked white until we painted the trim and then it really did pop! It looks beautiful now and you can definitely tell that it's a soft gray, rather than white or blue.

Dad working hard on the window trim, which ended up taking all afternoon!

We painted the living room (which was previously a very light brown/tan color), all three bedrooms and the hallway in Moonshine. We added a gray/brown wall in our bedroom, which you'll see below. We also painted almost all the trim white, although some of it was thankfully already white. The hallway was definitely the most tedious, as it has seven doorways and doors, which we also painted. The only thing we didn't paint was the kitchen and the two french doors we have between the kitchen and the living room.

And now a few Before and Afters:

The Master Bedroom Before:

Master Bedroom After:

We painted three walls of our bedroom in Moonshine and then the fourth wall in Benjamin Moore's Stardust - a warm brown color that has hints of gray, but coordinates nicely with the other browns in our room.

Guest Bedroom Before:

Guest Bedroom After:

This is a terrible picture that just looks like we painted the walls white, but I promise, it looks really nice!

Study Before:

Study After:

These aren't the best pics and it makes the house look pretty blah, but we've got big plans (or will be making big plans) to bring in lots of color. Really though, the pictures would probably just look better if we simply progressed in the unpacking/organization stage.

As far as what we envision these rooms eventually looking like, the goal for the living room is to use pillows, wall art, a big rug and other accessories to bring in lots of color (I promise we'll try not to copy John and Sherry too much!). However, a post is coming soon about our color inspiration, which was definitely YHL inspired.

The study will probably stay relatively boring for the time being, as it's sort of Kody's man-cave/study-all-night-long place. But what I'm super excited about is the guest bedroom! Right now it's just the simple gray, but Kody has given me permission to have a little fun in the room. I'm picturing a bold colored accent wall (maybe a red/orange color - we got a sample of Valspar Rare Sienna), a fun new comforter and...that's about as far as I've gotten. It's not top priority right now, but I'm excited to start working on that room! I kind of get to start from scratch and create it how I want because we don't have much furniture/accessories for that room.

Oh, and if you're wondering...the bathroom is still really really blue, but I did get a pretty white shower curtain for it!

Up next...hopefully a comfy charcoal gray couch to sit on rather than laying on an air mattress in our living room to watch Netflix.