You Live, You Learn!

This is the lovely art work that greeted you when you first walked into my home. It was lovingly done by my two youngest budding artists! We let it stay awhile and then decided we needed a foyer paint makeover so it could give a better first impression to our guests! :)

We usually do our own home improvement projects, but with my husband going out of town every other weekend for his Masters in a city 2 hrs. away and I being 5 months pregnant at the time, we thought it best! We asked a friend who had been given his name from her neighbor (but who hadn't actually used him herself) for a reference. So we used him and regretted it! He not only painted our walls with semi-gloss (AHHHH!), but he also didn't get the color right! It was supposed to have more brown with some red tint to it and ended up ORANGE, not just any orange, but PUMPKINY orange! I had asked him a few times for the paint chip so I could compare and he put it off (should have seen some red flags there)!

You know when you are told you should hang two triangles and make a mouth out of black paper to make a nice pumpkin face for Halloween, which was only a few days away, or asked if you are an Auburn fan that it has GOT to go! I was soooo depressed when I woke up the next morning that the first thought I had was "If I have to look at that Foyer I think I might throw up!" I decided that I would exit out the garage door until it was repainted. Of course it was hard to avoid considering the fact that my kids bedromms are upstairs! ;)


We tried to talk to the guy (he was pretty old and I think he may have been hard of hearing...he really just needs to retire) and perhaps we should have made more of a fuss, but he told my husband that I asked for semi-gloss(why would I do that?) that it was the right color and it'd cost us another $180 to re-paint. Because it was hard to talk to him and reason things out without having anything on paper to document who said what. We decided to just re-paint ourselves.

A good friend of mine came over and we painted with the new love of my life! Benjamin Moore Aura paint! I didn't have to prime before I painted, it went on smoothly, took only 2 coats and covered really well! I just had to scuff the walls with sand paper to make sure that it stuck to the wall since it was such a glossy paint (though the guy I bought it from said it should stick without it, but just to be safe that is what I should do)! The paint is a dream to work with and dries SUPER fast! It was $47/gal., but it would've cost me about that if I had to buy primer and then have to buy paint. We ended up having to use 4 gallons because the Foyer has a lot of wall plus it included the Loft.

This indeed was a lesson learned, it was a hard and frustrating one, but we learned that we paint pretty well ourselves and some things I will only hire out if it is a very reputable guy! The guy we used was cheap, but sometimes cheap isn't always better! Here are the end results!

eventually there will be a bench under the mirror, an area rug and some hooks!

This half circle was my gift for completing my "Interior Design Certificate" from my husband! I have had my eye on that in Ballard Designs for awhile!

The Moral: "You live, you learn"!