Paint colors; Inside & Outside

So so so so many choices!
From left to right:
1st floor man cave
1st floor main area (none of these worked)
2nd floor office
Exterior

Exterior options

Chris painting (from left to right) exterior options
number 1-7

We took our favorite exterior options (#2 &
#3) and painted them around the house!
In the sun & shade, plus on the old &
new siding!
We chose #3 - shown on the right here!

Some of our first efforts on the 1st floor color.
We wanted a light gray....darker than the white trim but
lighter than our cabinets. Harder to find than you'd
imagine! This includes living room, dining room,
 hall bathroom, kitchen, family room and our master bedroom!
I struggled mightily with this choice!

2nd floor color options - we wanted an off white that would
show off the trim but not be too bold. This paint is for
the foyer, front stairwell, upstairs hallway, guest rooms &
the hall bathroom. Bottom row center is the winner!

Gray, gray, gray.
I painted lots of color options on this wall
in the kitchen! We wanted to be as sure as possible we were
making the right choice! We went with the color on the lower
left (its repeated on both sides of the door).

We are rocking the man cave like it is
a transplant from our condo! It will be painted
brown & have virtually the same furniture :)

The winning man cave color is on the right.
The one on the left looks too much like a dirty diaper :(

Chris showing off the office window with the color
options. The darkest one won here :) Its in the center

I DIYed the basement laundry area wall....because it is in
the basement & it doesn't matter! The middle color won!

I wanted to go bold & fun. One might think this is too
dark of a color for a basement; I went high gloss to
bounce the light around the room. Our basement has some
above grade windows which give it some natural light,
which helps!

In case you care to buy any of these colors, we used all Benjamin Moore paints. Here is a list of what we bought & where we're using it:

Exterior: Deep Royal

1st Floor + Master Bedroom: Whitestone at 50% strength

2nd Floor + Foyer/Stairwell: China White

Man Cave: Whitall Brown

Office: Van Deusen Blue

Laundry Area: Old Navy

Demo Days 5 & 6 - The Walls Come Tumbling Down

I mean, really, they are. The walls are dropping like flies! Two more days of demolition this week meant such eye candy for Chris & me. 

Day 5 saw the wall between the 1st floor kitchen & 3rd (back) bedroom come down. The wall between the 1st floor 2nd bedroom & back stairs came apart, just enough to look through. The east wall of the first floor kitchen lost its plaster. The garbage continues to pile up in epic fashion; we're still playing a waiting game with the permits......and the dumpster. We brought some crowbars over to the house to go on a bit of a treasure hunt on the 2nd floor. We were hoping that someone had stashed (& then forgotten about) bars of gold or boxes of money in the built in cabinet accessed from the bathroom. The doors to the cabinet were painted shut; so Chris knocked them in. No treasure. Sort of disappointed :( Its always fun to break stuff though!

You can see straight through the
1st floor from front to back!

Chris wielding the crowbar

The debris pile keeps growing in our future family room

Our living room rocks both a stove & fridge.
Oh & some sinks.

Just the right size to peek through to the back stairwell

Day 6 was even more dramatic. The back stairs are completely gone. Giant hole from the 2nd floor down to the basement! The walls between the 1st & 2nd floor 2nd bedrooms and the back stairwell are gonezo! Its insane. We can now look from the top of the front stairs all the way back to the back wall of the house! We can get a sense for the size/shape of our future kitchen on the 1st floor & our bedroom on the 2nd floor. The debris from the demo is getting comical, if it wasn't already. There are piles everywhere! I continue to be so happy with the guys doing the work. They've kept things as tidy as is possible given our dumpster-less situation. They continue to sweep up at the end of each day. Its the little things, right?

We love the treasure hiding in the walls. This page from the
"Chicago Evening American" is dated Tuesday
May 8, 1928. That is a really long time ago!

Chris pondering the 2nd floor through
the hole where the back stairs had been. Note the piles...
growing, growing, growing.

The old 1st floor kitchen was on the left
Chris is standing where the closet for the 2nd bedroom used to be.

Feeling on top of the world on the "pantry platform"
From my perch at the back of the 2nd floor I can see
down through the old stairwell into the basement!

View from 2nd floor kitchen pantry down through the floor
all the way to the basement!

Demolition Day 1 - HOORAY!

I am sure everyone is glad to know our project is "officially" underway (so you won't need to hear me say "we are at a standstill" when you ask me how the project is going :)!

Before:1st floor bathroom  (Eventually) After: Gut rehab

OK, if we are going to be technical about it; we don't exactly have the pesky permits- but - at least the demolition has begun. It is ridiculous how happy this step makes me. Somehow this feels more official than any of our DIY demo has.

Handsome husband in the now defunct 1st Floor kitchen!

I'll let the photos explain why! This is the work of one guy, for one day. I also didn't get a photo of the holes in each wall that will come down........but they are there - exploratory work? Marking the ones that will go for the next crew who comes in? Who knows- but Chris & I had fun shining our flashlights through them & talking through them. Yes, we were incredibly pleased with this development!

Casually posing in the garbage heap in our future family room

Who doesn't love a stove & sink in their future family room??

Before:1st floor 2nd bedroom. (Eventually) After: part of our kitchen. Sweet hole in the wall, huh?

Before:1st floor bathroom(Eventually) After: Gut rehab

Before:1st floor  1st bedroom (Eventually) After: Man Cave

Before:1st floor Kitchen (Eventually) After: Our mudroom