Settling In, Week 1 - Living Room Painted!

My original plans had been to paint two living room walls the day before moving in, so I didn't have to deal with all my stuff in the apartment, but due to my procrastination/busyness, I was unable to buy the paint until that day. That presented a problem, as the day before I moved in was New Years Day, and the hardware store was closed. So by the time I finally had a chance to catch a breath and think about painting it was Friday.

Because the room includes the entryway, the kitchen, and the living room, I figured I didn't want to paint all of the walls, but instead do two walls which are only in the living room a bold color. I used my rug as a starting point, which would be a golden yellow/caramel or rusty red color, and found some fabrics I loved at Jo-Anns when I was home over Christmas. The first fabric I found is a rusty-red background with gold, green, blue, and other colors in a abstract floral pattern. It was a bit pricey for curtains though, so I only got a couple of yards for pillows. I found some clearance fabric that is muted small stripes of three different colors of gold which would be perfect for the curtains, so I matched the wall paint to that fabric.

Onto the painting - I wanted to make sure I did a good job, so I carefully taped off all of the walls, except the ceiling because it is so tall and it made me nervous to get that high on the ladder. I had an edger wheelie tool, so I figured it would be ok.

It went pretty quickly, even having to do two coats. I did notice the next morning an odd patch on the wall where it didn't have quite the sheen of the rest of the wall. I eventually remembered that I had accidentally bumped the wall with my butt when coming down the ladder, so now I have a butt-print on my wall.

The color isn't quite as bright in real life, but it definitely is an impact wall. The curtains up are also not the final curtains, just the ones from my old apartment I put up for privacy. Right now it's looking a little like ketchup and mustard.

My fabulous taping job worked pretty well, if I do say so myself. It took almost as long to tape everything as it did to paint, but it was worth it. The ceiling edge is a little sloppy looking due to the edger tool, but I think I'm going to go back in with a tiny paintbrush and straighten it out.