Guest Room: Finished!

Whew!

Sorry for the delay in this post--this room was actually done on Saturday, but I wasn't able to get to it until now due to circumstances I will explain in another post.

So, without further ado, let's get rockin' on this final chapter!

Ahh, the trim. I had lofty goals for the trim. I was going to sand it all down and primer it and give it a nice bright white finish. But that was a corner that had to be cut, because I didn't have three hours to spend sanding down the baseboards by hand.

This is my personal tape trick I use when I have to touch up baseboards along the carpet. I hope not to have this issue in the foreseeable future, but we'll know more about that in a month or two.

I smash the tape down onto the carpet and use my fingertips to get it into the crevice against the baseboard. It's 95% effective, and it works for me.

Painting it was a bit of a nightmare. The paint beaded up (that's what I get for cutting corners) and refused to stick unless I went sloooowly around the room... twice. So, those three hours I would've spent sanding? I spent those doing two coats on the baseboard. But it still saved time (and elbow grease!).

I was also going to sand down the closet and bedroom doors before painting them, but that plan was scrapped too. The paint stuck to the closet door a little better, but it took three coats to get it looking white instead of yellow.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to paint the bedroom door. I figured people won't notice it anyway unless the door is shut.

This in-progress shot shows the difference in color... the front of the door is white, but the side of it (the one that closes) is still the old off-white version, as is the trim. It looked so dingy next to the beautiful deep blue-green.

And my baseboards were looking (sort of) pristine! 

My mum took this somewhat-blurry picture of me touching up along the trim (again!) with the green paint. It was easier for me to paint the wall along the baseboard than it was for me to paint the actual baseboard along the wall.

(And yes I have dipped my hair into my paint can/tray many times using this crouch-down-to-eye-level-with-baseboard method, it would be adorable if it didn't happen so much.)

I like checking the swatch against the actual paint when all is said and done, to see the accuracy of the color-matching as well as the accuracy of the swatch itself. This one was near-perfect.

Of course it's a bit greener in the picture than it is in real life, but at least you can tell the colors are close.

Finally the tape peeled off, the drop cloths were gathered up, and it was time to vacuum the edges of the room.

And finally, the furniture was moved back to the walls!

Voila! What do you think?

It's actually their guest-slash-entertainment room. Various game consoles, a cable box, and my brother's Vizio are in there for anyone to use. My mum and I already chose a futon to put on the opposite wall, and that lone bookshelf? Well, it didn't stay lone for long...

Remember when I said my mum has a slight book obsession? This is probably only 50% of the actual books she has around the house. Has anyone heard of this Magic Treehouse series? My youngest brother and sister swear by them, I think they're the modern histroy-based version of the Babysitters Club. Or Goosebumps. 

Up on the white shelves, we have more books (consisting mostly of A Series of Unfortunate Events and the Pretty Little Liars books she got secondhand) and some DVDs. The top shelf will have framed family photos.

Until we get the futon in here, my mattress-on-the-floor bed is public domain. Oh well, at least I get free reign of the Netflix channel on the Wii after all the little children have gone to bed.

That's the same black desk that was in Shane's room. He really did a number on his old desk, it's graffitied like the side of an old warehouse, so we figured we may as well let him keep it until he outgrows that charming stage.

Oh, and that's Lucy, she thinks this is her bedroom since she sleeps in it every night.

What? What was that? You want... comparison photos?!

We started it in a tropical storm and ended it in 100+ degree temperatures.

Goodbye, clouds! Hello, pretty blue-green paint!

And of course, as I showed above, the shelves have been re-installed.

I wish I could say I took a nice, long break after cleaning and repainting two bedrooms, but I did the exact opposite of taking a break--I helped to paint an entire family room and hallway in a matter of three days. Stay tuned for that post!