the house itself has lots of history with me. its the house i pretty much grew up in from the time i was 7 years old until my parents moved out of the area when i was 20. my two sisters and brother were brought home in this house, and we all have tons of memories stemming from it.


when alley cat and i first decided to move into the house, my parents had to give its current tenants 90 days to move out. they had been renting from my parents for the last 5 years. although they seemed pretty nice, their level of cleanliness would put even the dirtiest of frat houses to shame.


so it was no suprise to us that the house, empty and waiting for us to inhabit, is in TOTAL shambles. the house was built in 1953, and has lots of beautiful charm. what the house does have, that has NOTHING to do with how old it is, is lots of grime, dirt, unloving use, really badly stained wooden floors, the DIRTIEST walls, unusable kitchen cabinets, blinds that were so disgusting we had to throw them out, and just lots of poor treatment from the last 5 years.


it is so gross that thinking about everything that needs to get done makes me want to stop writing and drive over there right now.


the greek, alley cat, my mom, and dear friend spent the weekend cleaning up debris and useless things that were left behind, and painting. the greek's best friend and awesome girlfriend came by on saturday and really helped us get the painting started.


so far we have painted alley cat's room, the office, my bedroom and the back hallway. WHAT A DIFFERENCE painting does to the space and energy of your surroundings.


i've taken lots of before pictures, and when i have some decent after pictures, i will post them here.


until now, and to help you get the vision of food splatters on walls, gums stuck to floors, and dirt dirt dirt out of your mind, here are some swatches of what we have painted so far. all the paint we used are from behr, and you just can't beat the quality and the fact that all their paint contains no toxic fumes. love behr!

alley cat's room is in a wildflower color.







the office and hallway are in a color named powder sand.







my bedroom is all painted in majestic mount (hubba hubba).




obviously the colors are hard to really "see" posting online as photos, so you will just have to see final results when i post them!


i don't know about you, but i pick out my nail color, lipsticks, even eyeshadows based on their name! paint is no different. my friend and i had a blast in picking out these colors. some we liked but their names were not what we were "feeling", so we opted for other colors that were similar that had more luscious names.

i love the fact that the neutral parts of the house are surrounded in "powder sand", and that my lovely little girl will be sleeping admist wildflowers. and the greek loves the idea of my room being dressed up in majestic mount. (not appropriate? we all had a giggle!)

the living room and main hallway are going to be way more vibrant, but we havn't started on those areas yet, so i will spare you the deets for another day.

i still can't wrap my head around the kitchen. im obviously not afraid of color, but i just haven't felt it out enough yet to colorize.

any ideas?