Floor Envy......And Attack of the Crazy Colors

It's been a weekend of great progress at our Broken House. But first I have a confession: 

The French pattern rolled edge Travertine floor is the prettiest floor I have ever seen.  I can't believe I'm going to get to see this pretty floor every day. Even though it's only about 1/3 done, I really really think it's beatiful. Better than beautiful but I'm just not word-smithy enough tonight to come up with a word that's better than beautiful. In the pictures of the floor, before you say "oh she's nuts," the floor still has to be sealed, and we are getting new 8" baseboards to set off the new paint (Named Macadamia Nut - love the crazy paint color names... now there's a job.... coming up with paint color names, more on that in a minute).

Some some action photos from this week. Here is one of the very hard working guys who "textured" our kitchen and bathroom walls with a Florida staple... it's called "orange peel." The walls down here, unlike most of the walls up North are textured with "mud" that gives the wall the texture of an orange. Since it's already in most of the house, it's in my current house, it's in the houses of everyone I've ever been to in the State of Florida, we went with the orange peel. It gets sprayed on and has to dry for at least 24 hours before painting.

 
 Here's a little more orange peel for you folks keeping score at home:



 Now. Onto the floor. Here's what the crates came in when the tile was delivered to my house. There is also a pallet of mud or mortar visible in the bottom right corner of the photo. I think you'll agree. That's a lotta tile.

Here is the first day's work, in progress. You can see the color variations in the stone and how pretty it is and the the pattern shows that off.

So at this point in my post, I probably ought to lay off the floor business because no one will ever want to read this blog again. We let the kids pick out their paint colors for the bedroom, and no surprises, she picked pink, he picked green.I think Norah's was "Pretty Pink" and Tim's is "Gecko Green," perfect for the tormenter/chaser of lizards that he is.

Above is a little silliness with laundry room paint. It looks more purple in the photo than it really is, and  the name of this paint is "Budoir Blue."  The laundry room doubles as a mud room when you first come in from the garage, and there's no natural light in there. I wanted this room to be a happy color since it's the first room we'll walk into and the last room we walk out of on every trip to the house, and this Budoir Blue, despite the name struck me as happy. It was either this or a pale orange color, but Tim nixed the orange for some reason. Oh, but if you're married to a girl from Syracuse, you can't nix the orange for long as you'll soon read.   After I took this picture, I painted the whole wall so my love message is lost forever, except for this blog that is. The Budoir Blue is happy and pretty.

Here's a shot of our Master bedroom. This paint is called "Versatile Gray." You'd think after four years of every day wearing gray at West Point, that gray is the last color I'd choose for my bedroom, but it's a very soothing and calm color. And as the name suggests, versatile.

Right outside our bedroom is the lanai and pool area, which are pretty and a nice thing to see first thing in the morning.

 This next room is where I'd really like some opinions. I became a devotee of the Lowe's Paint Department bargain bin this weekend. For those of you who don't know (My Sister Eileen, raise your hand at this point)... you can go to Lowe's or Home Depot or Ace Hardware and they usually have a "mistake" or "oops" or "leftover" rack. They've mixed the paint for someone who has now changed their minds, and the person for whom the paint was mixed leaves the store without purchasing the paint.  The abandoned paint then goes on the "mistake rack" for a greatly reduced price. At the left, you'll see $5.00 worth of creamsicle orange paint in the kids' bathroom that came from the Lowe's "oops" rack. Forget the ugly light fixture over the mirror, what do you think? Is the orange paint cute and fun or wierd and freaky? Tim didn't want it, but I insisted on it... and now I'm wondering if it should have been left on the rack. The jury is still out. 

I also purchased a gallon of "Silver Fox" for my guest bedroom for $5.00 at the Lowe's Oops Rack, and that is a really really beautiful bluish/gray color. Very calm and soothing, and I've already painted it, just need to go back and cut in the ceiling, photo coming soon.

Last photo for this post, big surprise!