Repainted

The first grouping of comments weighing in on whether we should repaint or leave were a firm "leave".  But it just took one brave soul, Leslie, to turn the tide and speak up with a resounding "REPAINT", and the rest followed suit.  Deep down I knew it would drive me crazy having the lighter color.  Not that it looked bad, it was actually quite a nice shade of gray, but it was not what I had envisioned.  And you know, once you get something stuck in your head it is hard pressed to leave.

Art was more than willing to repaint the boards since he hadn't hung them yet (plus, if you recall, he talked me out of going darker in the first place), and since there wasn't even a half gallon of the lighter gray left to tint darker, we went to Lowe's and got a lower end brand of paint to save some money. 

At the end I went about 3 whole shades darker on the color spectrum and the results are what I originally had in mind.  A saturated gray that still reflects some light and is not so dark that it is cavernous.  It's part steel gray, part gunmetal gray, and fits in perfectly with the space theme. 

We still need to hang pictures and all that jazz, but I at least wanted to give you a bit of a glimpse into how it turned  out.  Thanks to all of you that chimed in and voiced your opinion.  It was fun reading all the comments, and even Art was checking in throughout the day from work.  My blog usually doesn't garner that much attention from him so it was funny to hear that he had been following the comment stream all day.

Here is a detail shot of just the paneling, chair rail and baseboard.  He did nice work, and all by himself mind you.  When we hung paneling in Taylor's room I did a great deal of the painting, so he was brave to single-handedly take on this job.

 Look at how clean the lines are here.  Nice work Art!  The hanging of the paneling, chair rail, base board and casings took an entire day.  Then the caulking, filling and touch-up painting took another whole day.

"Hey mom, get outta heeerre!  Don't take a pitcher!"

"You can't see me!!!"

I'm outta here

 Where did he go???

The only shred of evidence is a filthy blankie, and Woody, who would never rat out his best buddy.

p.s. I leave on a jet plane today for Nu Yawk City.  Art and the kids are meeting me out there on Thursday and we're staying through the weekend, where we will subsequently freeze our butts off and hopefully won't get frostbite.   I get back on Sunday, and then I turn around for an overnight trip to Dallas on Monday.  A couple of very wonderful bloggers agreed to guest post for me while I'm gone.  Please say hi if you can!