Busy Bee

That's me!

bee art found here

Last Friday I sent the kids to school and powered through my to do list. Wanna know what I did?  I ran to the post office to ship some things, then I went to Wal-Mart to pick up my bookshelves for my door & bookshelf desk, then I ran to Lowe's to get a rug for my bedroom (it's a huge 9x12 cream broadloom remnant and was $80!) and a showerhead and a few other Lowes-ish items, then to Petsmart to get some charcoal filters for Coco's litterbox [note: people with cats: I swear by the Booda dome cat litter box with charcoal filter - no smell!].  Then I ran home, started laundry, unloaded the car, and I started my projects.  I ended up painting the console table for the den (post coming soon!), wood puttied and touched up the window trim areas where the old window hardware was, swiped a fresh coat of trim paint in the living room, lightly sanded and swiped a quick coat of Poly on the Adirondack chairs, swapped out the yellow bathroom shower head, and put together one of the bookshelves and discovered it was too tall. This halted me in my tracks.  See?

womp womp womp

So the desk project went on hold while I went back to Wal-Mart and exchanged the too tall unassembled bookshelf (I'll find a home for the one I did put together) for a shorter one, which I found and they were only $13 each!  Hmmm, maybe rather than being a "busy bee" I should call myself a "busy Taz" because I really was like the Tasmanian Devil.

Tasmanian Devil image found here

Here is a quick before and after of the window trim.  I'm so glad I took some time to do it.  See in the corners of the trim around the windows in the "befores" how the old trim color was visible? Now it is nice and white.  When I eventually get around to really doing up the bedrooms I'll probably touch up all the trim, but for now, this will satisfy me (also notice Big got new bedding and a new rug! Thank you Pottery Barn Outlet!):

before

after

before

after

 Once I finished all of the above, it was time to move on to the fun: putting up test squares of my whites and creams in the living room!  Normally, as you know, I am a Sherwin Williams girl through and through, but I'm going to try Valspar or Olympic paint in this space.  I live super (dangerously) close to Lowe's and my closest Sherwin Williams isn't so close.  I asked Lowe's to color-match several colors for me for the test samples.

I put them on the wall in diferent spots around the room: near the window and trim, behind the couch, in the back.  When I do test swatches I always put them in alphabetical order on the wall so I know which color is which.   I'll post the test swatches for you below - and they are: (1) Alabaster (Sherwin Williams ... this is a very close match to Benjamin Moore's Decorator's White, by the way); (2) Country Dairy (Ralph Lauren); (3) Creamy (Sherwin Williams); (4) Marshmallow (Sherwin Williams); and (5) White Dove (Benjamin Moore).  

As you can see there is a mix of white and cream in there.   I immediately ruled out Country Dairy (the second from the left).  It's way too yellow in person.  Marshmallow (fourth from the left) had too many pink undertones and came up a little dingy looking.  I also ruled out White Dove, because it is a little too pure white and bright. So it was between Alabaster (far left) and Creamy (middle square).  I lived with it for a few days and had Jamie weigh in.  We both agreed that Alabaster was the way to go: it looks great next to the furniture and the trim and isn't a super bright, pure white but will tone down the taupe furniture and make it read a little lighter and greyer.  Well, here's hoping anyway.  

If all goes according to plan, guess what I'll be doing tomorrow?  Stay tuned for the transformation of my living room!

See you swoon,