"Always Make New Mistakes"

For my 21st birthday, one of my best friends gave me a magnet that had a quote by Esther Dyson saying "Always make new mistakes." Since then, that magnet has called my refrigerator home. I always put it in a place that is in eye sight as a constant reminder that mistakes are to be made. It was the perfect motto for us as we celebrated turning 21, and it was a perfect motto for this current project.

Before- The boldness of the burgundy on the tan really draws attention to the low ceiling.

After- Adding a lighter cream color to all walls gives a better flow to the room by blending the walls and the low ceiling.

This basement paint job was one mistake after the other. We ran into problem after problem. None of them were too serious, well there was a shattered window involved, but we'll get there, but mistakes none the less. For starters, we haven't patched the horrible hole in the wall. This is going to be a simple fix, but it turns out there are two different widths of drywall. I mean, come on, builders, is 3/8" that much different than 1/2"! Not knowing the width of our drywall delayed us in purchasing what we needed. Since we had the paint ready to go, I caved and we started painting. Joe was able to help this time. I'm still debating if I can call it help, just kidding, I love you, babe!!

We chose two colors to paint the walls with. As I said in an earlier post, the walls were a deep burgundy and tan alternating walls. It was way too dramatic for the space. We lightened things up down there with Gold Coast White and Fresh Guacamole, I have to say I honestly picked the second color mostly because of its name. I love guacamole! We chose again to have one accent wall with the Fresh Guacamole and the remaining walls Gold Coast White. I'm really loving the pop of color the accent wall gives you. It's not as overwhelming as a whole room of color.

Before~Notice hole in wall. It drives me crazy on a daily basis!

Ahh Relaxing....please continue to ignore hole!

On to the problems. To start with, we didn't have enough paint.We knew going in that the burgundy would be difficult to cover, but we didn't expect the walls to soak up the paint the way it did on both colors. Mistake one. We had a sheet down covering the floor by the basement door. It turns out that sheets are no good for painting. Paint bled through the sheet onto the floor. Luckily, there is a genius out there that invented GooGone and the paint came right up. To add to the paint spillage: the beast, Sweetums, thought it would be cute to knock over paint onto our brand new carpet. Keys to getting paint out of carpet, dab up as much as you can, don't let it dry, and if you have a Green Machine be thankful.

Before-Room appears choppy- sharp angles and a deep color really plays up the smallness of the space.

After- Brighter colors let light in to open up the room- Sweetums enjoying the new paint job!

The biggest mistake/problem of the whole project was the shattered window. I'll start at the beginning, our basement door has a lite, pane of glass, in it. Around the glass is a grid and frame. I was thinking it would be much easier to remove the grid to spray paint it instead of having to tape the glass, which is just a pain. So I started unscrewing. I got the last screw out, pulled the grid toward me and watched the whole window fall to the concrete and shatter into a zillion pieces. Some choice words were said let me tell you. To defend my choice, as I was unscrewing the window, it was not coming loose so I was thinking that the outside was secure. I mean, come on, if you are going to design something that is a pain to update at least make it so the consumer can easily make the updates. After the glass was cleaned up and the smart mouthed 16 year old gave me directions through Lowe's to the door section, to which, I replied thanks, so I look for all the doors right?? I made my way to Lowe's to find out that they don't sell the replacement window, only the whole door.

Notice the grids from the lite shinning on the wall?

And now they're gone, whoops :) Live and learn!

On to location two, Frederick Glass. Here I met some serious characters, which really helped my mood to this point. They were so much help! They helped me decide a new door would be the best option due to availability and price, and showed me how to measure for the correct size. Home I went to measure a door, only to be told by my friendly neighbor that our door frame is not standard, so back to Frederick Glass I went  to order the new window and brainstorm what to use to cover the giant hole. Well my luck struck and they had the replacement glass in stock, so I was ready to go. It took my mom and I about five minuets to install. I have to say, it looks so good. It doesn't have the grids anymore which really lets in light better, and opens the room up.

We'll be patching that hole in the wall within the next couple of weeks and hopefully mounting the TV and adding some new pillows. There will also be some fun artwork added to the walls. Can't wait! Enjoy the pics!

Joe's awesome idea to frame a calendar print. REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE!

Who can guess the "theme"???