New House: Part 2

I believe I left off with closing day on our new house, no? After signing all the papers on that Friday (holy crap, it's a LOT of papers), we celebrated that evening with my parents at a local italian joint in our new neighborhood, Al Vento. I highly recommend the pizzas. And the bruschetta appetizers. I also hear from my mom that the Sunday brunch is not to be missed. In any case, I digress...

The first thing we absolutely had to do in the New House was paint, particularly as we closed on the 15th and didn't have to be out of our apartment until the end of the month. So on Saturday morning, we headed to the paint store and loaded up on our pre-selected paint colors. We met Andy's mom, the painting expert, over at our house (that's never going to get old). Here are some before photos, to give you an idea of why we painting was our A-#1 priority.

Living Room: Before (note the old front door... more on that later)

Living Room/Dining Area: Before

These pictures don't really do justice to the brightness of that salmon color. It looked OK with Jill and Andrej's furniture, but it just wasn't going to go with our decorating plans.

Bedroom: Before #1

Bedroom: Before #2

That bronze color had a shimmery-ness to it that we were really concerned about being able to paint over. I thought for sure it would show through. However, we bought some seriously high quality paint. After two full days of painting, and much invaluable assistance from Andy's mom, here is what we ended up with:

Still the old door. 

Note the 2 greys: it's darker on the wall with the door with light trim, then vice versa on the other wall. 

Living room/dining area. 

Bedroom: After #1

Bedroom: After #2

Special guest appearance by my dad's former ladder, which he gifted to us during the painting process. It became painfully obvious that our wimpy little step stool just wasn't going to be adequate unless we wanted Andy to do all the painting. And, as you can see, that bronze color doesn't show through our lovely blue at all. Nice paint is key.

At this point in the process, Calvin was still at "home" in the St. Paul apartment. We did not need a cat underfoot during the painting process, plus we didn't want to introduce him to the house until we could stay there permanently. Cats do not do well with change. Here he is, looking out a window that was just not available to him at the old apartment until we started packing:

It was all very exciting and stressful. Plus, birds!