Painting the entry: part 1

Painting the entry: part 1

We recently tackled the enormous job of painting our entryway, which I’m pretty sure is the biggest room in the whole house. It’s a big open space on the first floor that extends all the way up the stairs and down the second floor hallway. Since moving in a year ago, we always thought we’d need professional help to reach the scary 20-foot high ceilings — and ladders on stairs? terrifying! — but we decided to quit wasting time and just do it ourselves.

The walls were originally what I described as “putty,” a color so boring it couldn’t even be offensive. Based on the cans the previous owners left in the basement, I think it was Sherwin Williams Roycroft Suede, which actually looks slightly interesting on the paint chip, but is totally washed out and dull in this huge, dimly lit room.

The original paint color = boooring

We wanted the room lightened, brightened, and cheered, so we picked Sherwin Williams Optimistic Yellow to replace the brown. It’s soft and buttery and quite neutral, which works well since from the entry you can see into all of the other crazy brightly colored rooms on the first floor.  Doors open from the entry to the RED formal living room, the PINK dining room, the TEAL family room, and at the right angle you can even see the MINT GREEN kitchen. Phew, that’s a lot of color!

The new paint color = YAY HAPPY!

Painting took four days, three trips to Sherwin Williams, and five trips to Home Depot. We needed two gallons of paint for two good coats, a new super long extender for the roller, a fancy new edger that swivels, a round sponge roller for the corners, and two bottles of yay-we’re-done champagne. We also rented a ladder from Home Depot to reach the high parts, but, honestly, it turns out we didn’t really need it. While the tall ladder was useful, we realized that most of the high parts could be reached even easier just with an extender on the roller/edger. And staying on the floor is a whole lot less scary!

I am SO HAPPY to have this room finally painted, and just in time for our Halloween party. I’ll share more pictures of the finished product once it’s, well, finished. We still need to hang the art and do some furniture swapping with the living room. For now, I’m just enjoying standing in the empty entryway looking at the walls and loving how much work we put into them.

And seriously, if we ever decide we want to paint this room again… we’re moving.