Spring Break

Oh, by the way, this is an attempt at a family photo during the holidays.  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Hope you all are keeping up with your resolutions.  

This (the above) and the following two photos are the 'before' that I managed to scrounge up from the past year.  

The interior architectural feature dividing the family and dinning rooms that I criticize because of it's bulk and lack of function for a small space was NOT torn down and replaced with a wall of open cubes.  Rather, the columns and connecting arch were painted in a medium-light brown River Rock by Ralph Lauren.  It's a secret how much I spent on that gallon.  :-)  It's a really neat paint.  I love the sand texture.  The bottom part of that is a custom Kevin creation of 'key-lime pie yogurt' as per Kim.  It's a yellowy green and is also put on one wall of the entry wrapping around into the dinning.  

The carpet was torn out and replaced with standard oak laminate planks in the dinning, family, and hallway.

The existing tile entry floor was tiled over and extended to a more natural place (the end of the entryway wall) with the tile and pattern of the kitchen, which was done a couple years back. I also designed a ramp transition to bring the height of the kitchen floor down.  This was the result of discovering a regular transition would not be enough, as the kitchen was more than an inch higher than the dinning.  I am very pleased with my tile ramp.  It looks great.  And the regular laminate transition bridging the two was engineered to be installed at an angle by my dad to match the angle of the tile ramp.  

You can't see it in the picture, but instead of white the wall is a light brown - cafe con leche, eggshell, light wheat - kind of color.  It is also a custom Kevin creation as the paint we bought was too light when applied.  So, I added a cup or so of some brown 'oops' paint we had acquired previously.  In fact, the only color I didn't create was the blue and the river rock.  We applied that straight from the can.  Oh, and of course the white, too.  

hallway - those door transitions were a buger!  The hallway was painted a bright white.

This is my favorite picture.  I love how all the colors come together.  There are five colors on the walls alone.  There is an earthy clay red, wintermint or eggshell blue, light wheat, brown river rock, desert grass yellow green.  And as an element of surprise there is a cantaloupe orange as you come around into the kitchen.  I'm sure we're breaking all kinds of rules, but what do ya do when most of what you afford is oops paint a gallon or less at a time.  :-)  

Anyway, it was a full 7 days of hard work.  My mom, dad, mother-in-law, and a sister-in-law were a big help.  Thank you!  Thank you!  Thank you!  

And that was my Spring Break.