Friday, April 15, 2011

Hidden Work

While working on updating and maintaining this house it has become apparent to me that some of our hard work is visible and in plain sight. Anyone can see that the rooms have been freshly painted. We're at a point now that I must wait for the Farmer's help in order to put bookcases and furniture back in the office and so while I'm waiting for him to be free I decided to create some hidden work for myself.

The workman took the doors off the coat closet in order to sand and finish the floors. I removed all the coats and junk that had accumulated and it became glaringly apparent to me that the closet needed to be painted.

Let me mention at this point that the man who built this house hired a female architect. How do I know this? Well, for starters he told us as much. I probably could have figured it out anyway. Why? Because of the closets!!

This house has a closet in each of the four bedrooms and a linen closet for each bedroom. There's a linen closet in the two bathrooms and two linens closets in the upstairs hallway. Then there are two coat closets - one in the front hall and one in the laundry/mudroom. And there are two pantrys!

In theory this all sounds wonderful but the fact is that all these closets quickly become filled up with who-knows-what.

Anyway, I decided to paint that coat closet. It was originally painted stark builder's white but we chose a creamier shade.

Gotta love Martha Stewart's paint colors.

Photobucket

This fold out brochure is great. All kinds of beautiful colors arranged in a portable form. I've used her color Glass of Milk before but this time I decided on a color called Talc.

Photobucket

I could live with that lovely color of dark pink but cannot imagine the hot orange on a wall.

Photobucket

Martha's paint chip brochure is perfect for cutting apart and taping on a wall.

Photobucket

You can step back and get the effect. Translation: I'm about to make more work for myself.

Several years ago I painted stripes on the wall in the front hallway. Now I'm thinking of something taupe/grey, kinda Pottery Barn. What do you think?

Here's the freshly painted closet.

Photobucket

Nothing exciting but certainly something that needed to be done.

4 comments:

Lisa D. said...

I'll trade your too many closets for my no closets any day :)
I love looking over paint colours. So many great ones. I love your stripes too. Beautiful!

Vee said...

It looks great. That you were willing to do it says a great deal about you, too. I have had a fire engine red linen closet for the entire time I've lived here. I just cleaned it out today. I never even thought of painting it. Ha! Thanks for the tip about Martha Stewart paints.

Vee said...

Oh I like your stripes as is, but then I would.

Leslie T said...

Kudos to you for painting the inside of your closet. In all of the painting that has been done in all of my homes (much of it by me, and much more by my wonderful and handy husband), I have never bothered with the inside of a closet. My hat is off to you. You're so industrious! It looks great!