Still Kickin...

So, it's been a while since I posted last.  The reason is, this blog is named the Taj MaHell because it's allegedly about the renovation process on the Taj.  And I haven't been to the Taj in nearly two months.  I KNOW!!  How did that happen?!?

Obviously, there've been no improvements made to the Taj since Christmas, although Shawn did pressure-wash the exterior on a quick trip we made.  So, every time I'd think about writing a post, I realized I had a big old nothin' to say.

Not that things have been quiet here.  Oh, by no means!  Once we got home to Gilligan's Island and rested a few days, Shawn and I both began squinting our eyes and tilting our heads to one side and thinking that the Gilligan house was beginning to look tired.  Time to whip out the paint brushes!

The office/third bedroom was the first project.  That's the only room we had never painted since moving in nearly 8 years ago.  And the funny thing is, we both HATED the paint in there--guess we just hated the idea of repainting more.  The room was a dark brown and in the summer, the combination of heat rising to the second story and sunlight coming in the windows and hitting that dark brown paint made it almost unbearable in there.  We just never could decide what color to paint it, so the project stayed on the back burner.  And then we took us a little trip to Lowe's and I found a color called Leaf Bud.  Actually, I found 3 colors and we got samples of each...Leaf Bud was the clear winner.  Side note: that was our first time using the little sample paints and we will be using them from now on!  I forgot we didn't have any photos of the office before (that's how bad I hated the paint!), but here's one of the primer going on:

We primed everything, since the trim was off-white and we were changing that to pure white.  Then, we painted on the samples and made our choice.  In the store, we both agreed on River Reed, the color on the right.  On the wall, we both disliked it intensely.  Leaf Bud is in the middle and the paint on the left is called  Limish.  All of them are Valspar colors.  So, Leaf Bud won and we got to painting.

Here is Shawn, finishing up the paint:

Not everybody's cuppa tea, but we love the way it turned out.  After the wall paint dried, I repainted the trim and changed the old off-white electrical outlets and switches to bright white.  We went with Decora switches, the wide toggle-type light switches and matching rectangular, flat-faced outets for an updated look.

  All in all, I think it turned out well!

And then we started squinting our eyes and turning our heads to one side when we looked at the powder room downstairs.  More on that later...