DIY Painting At An Oregon Cottage

We’ve spent our entire married life painting one project or another. Frankly, we didn’t have much choice if we wanted to complete projects. But it would’ve never occurred to us to hire out painting jobs, since it was one of the things we could do and would allow us to save our cash for things that we couldn’t or didn’t want to do (like drywall taping & mudding, ugh).

Of course when our first house came with a lovely cuckoo clock & chicken wallpaper in shades of brown and orange (bet you can’t guess the era that was put up in), we were more than eager to start painting.

When we moved into our current house, we painted the entire inside white. I was pretty loyal to a paint from a store in Portland – an off-white I used for all the trim in our city house. When we moved, it was easy to just go to the same store and buy the same color. I knew I liked it and no angst about picking the perfect white, right?

Wrong. Four hundred dollars and a week of spraying later, I was able to see that they had changed the color and the “white” was now teetering on the “tannish” side of the white scale. Since I had some furniture painted the color from the old house I could easily see that I wasn’t going crazy- it literally wasn’t the same color.

End of loyalty.

I thought about one of the last things I painted in our city house- the kitchen- and the Behr Paint I used for the first time. I had found a color I fell in love with, Country Moss, and loved the way it covered (not to mention the great price).

So when we remodeled our garage into living space in our new place, Country Moss was the color I knew I wanted for our laundry room upper walls and painted floor:

And what color did I use for the white squares since my “foolproof” white ended up just being foolish?

I liked my experience with Behr Paint, so I looked to see if they had the warm, creamy white color I thought I was getting with my previous color. Imagine my surprise when I found a color called Creamy White.

Sheesh. Where were you four hundred dollars ago?

I couldn’t believe I found a new white so easily- it’s the perfect color and I’m using it in a semi-gloss to slowly re-cover all the tannish trim in the cottage.

Emphasis on the word, s-l-o-w-l-y.

Needless to say, Behr Paint has become my go-to brand for painting the cottage. Here are some other DIY painting projects we’ve completed and the colors we’ve used:

Brian’s office in Gobi Desert.

We painted the trim and cabinets in our main bath when we remodeled Creamy White (of course) and I went out on a limb (for me) with periwinkle upper walls (Silent Ripple). I’m glad I did. I love how it looks blue sometimes and purple at other times.

Our son’s extreme room makeover. I wanted the Gobi Desert look, but a shade lighter so I went with Raffia Cream. I did add a splash of Gobi Desert to it, though to darken it just a bit.

Our daughter’s room mini-makeover.

Oops. DIDN”T use Behr Paint because I thought I didn’t have enough time to go all the way to the store that sells it. It had been awhile since I’d used a different paint and I have to say I was surprised by how thin this paint was.

And see that darkish green? Yeah, that took three coats. Ugh.

So, when it came time to paint the exterior of our house, what paint do you think we’d automatically want to use?

Yep, Behr Paint. So we approached them with the idea of having them sponsor the exterior painting of our Oregon cottage.

And guess what? They agreed! We’ve been working very hard on all the details of painting a house by ourselves (and with a little help…er, a LOT of help from my family) and are excited to share with you the process and the end result.

You won’t believe it.

Look for the next post in this series about choosing the color on Wednesday.

-Jami

Disclosure: Many thanks to Behr Paint for providing the main paint color for An Oregon Cottage. Always, the results and opinions are my own.

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