Pink to purple to grey

When we purchased this house on September 24, 2008, all of the walls in the house were painted a neutral color (almost all of them white) with the exception of Nadia's bedroom, which had pink walls. The family who previously owned this house had one daughter, and that was her bedroom. Every room also had neutral colored flooring. The rooms that had carpet had a off white Berber carpet. When we moved into our home in Catawissa in the summer of 2004, I painted almost every room in the house and replaced most of the flooring immediately in part because the previous owner was a smoker. When we moved into our current home, we didn't make many changes. Within the first 15 months of living in this house Paul painted our bedroom walls light blue and Ian's bedroom walls light green. Two people from our church painted Oliver's bedroom walls yellow while he was in the NICU in 2012. After taking a 12 year hiatus from painting, I painted MANY rooms in 2016 and also began to change some of the flooring that year as well. After eight years of seeing almost every wall have some shade of white walls as well as mostly white flooring, I was ready for COLOR. When Nadia was a toddler and preschooler, she loved the color pink. When I repainted her room, she was in what proved to be a very brief phase where purple was her favorite color. I was fine with that choice because purple also went with the wallpaper border, comforter, bookshelves, etc. some of which had been in her room since she was born. Shortly after the purple carpet was installed, she then switched to blue being her favorite color, and blue is still her favorite color (turquoise in particular is her favorite shade of blue).

A few months ago Nadia told me that she wanted to change the décor of her bedroom to a Harry Potter theme. When Ian was a baby, toddler, and preschooler, his bedding had a transportation theme, but when he was 6 1/2 years old he requested a change to Mario. He didn't ask me to take down the wallpaper border, but he got new Mario sheets, comforter, and curtains. Nadia mentioned that Ian had already changed his bedroom décor. She thought it was her turn. When Ian switched to Mario I told him he needed to know he'd be keeping that for many years. Nadia has had the butterflies and such for twelve years, and she said she's fine with having Harry Potter for at least the next six years. She purchased a Harry Potter light switch cover and hamper. Grandma and PopPop got her a bedding set that included sheets, pillow sham, and comforter. I got her the matching drapes. She told me that she wanted the border to come down. When I saw the comforter on her bed and the drapes on the window, I realized I also needed to repaint her room even though the paint was in great condition considering it's only been 4 years since I painted that room, and it's not a high traffic room. The purple carpet is not the ideal color for the new décor. If her carpet was dark blue like Paul and I have in our room, that would have been perfect, but carpet is way too expensive to change just because she picked a different décor for her bedroom. 

I selected this border when I was pregnant with Nadia.

I know that grey has been a VERY popular paint color the last several years, but I wasn't interested in neutral colors when I was painting in 2016. It's still hard for me to get excited about grey, but Nadia's room looks much better now that I removed the wallpaper border and painted her walls "Silver Mine." I was shocked at how expensive it was to get a gallon of paint, but I was impressed that it only took one coat of paint considering the color I was applying was lighter than the color I was painting over. I worked on removing the border for 2 hours on Sunday night, and I spent 12 hours working in her bedroom yesterday. Really the actual act of painting is just a small part of it. Moving furniture, applying tape to all the edges, removing the wallpaper border, taking everything off the walls, vacuuming, and cleaning the brush and roller took more time than painting. Paul was a professional painter for a brief stint when he lived in New Mexico. He's a perfectionist. I am not. Still, I am pleased with how it turned out even though I know Paul would have done a more perfect job than I did. He has the skill and more patience, but I'm the one who has the time to do it. I'm going to wait until she comes home to hang things back on her walls. I'll hang the curtains before she comes home, but I'm waiting a few days as I think otherwise the tension rod will likely pull some paint off the wall. I have also been doing some cleaning and organizing in her room. When I removed the wallpaper border the original pink paint was revealed. Now both the pink and purple have been covered with a light grey. When Oliver's room was painted an entire gallon was used. Since her room is much bigger than his, I bought two gallons on Sunday night. Well since this paint only requires one coat, I came very, very close to finishing the whole room with one gallon. If I had been more careful, I think I could have managed it with only one gallon. Lesson learned. You can't return paint once they have mixed it to a particular color. Although I liked the color I chose four years ago for the half bathroom (blue), the paint quality was awful (from Walmart). I had only purchased a quart since it was for a very small room, but really I needed more paint as some parts really needed another coat. So I decided last night that I'd use part of the second gallon of grey paint to repaint the bathroom. 

Yesterday I fed the guinea pigs, eat breakfast, walked 6 miles from 7-9am, and then worked on Nadia's bedroom until after 9pm. I only took breaks to eat lunch and dinner. My back isn't happy with me today so I'm not planning on pushing myself as hard today. While I was walking and painting I listed to audiobooks or music. I never thought I'd listen to audiobooks. First, I began doing it with the kids, and now I'm even listening to books that are just for me. I still love to read a physical book, but I can't read while painting or walking. It can make other tasks more enjoyable. After I cleaned the paint brush and roller, I emailed the kids. I'm writing each of them one email per day. I remember how much I loved getting mail from my parents when I was at camp. My mom would write newsy letters, and my dad would right funny/sappy poems in the vein of "roses are red, violets are blue..." All poems don't have to rhyme, but my dad's poems always rhymed. I don't ever recall writing my kids a poem before. I think I'll have to do that this week at least once. I remember writing my parents a letter every day when I was at camp. I would love to receive a letter from them, but I know I will have to wait until I pick them up on Saturday morning to hear all about their week. In the email last night I told them that one of the butterflies hatched yesterday. We had ten caterpillars, but I'm only expecting at the most eight painted lady butterflies. We shall see!