Happy Monday! How was the weekend? We mixed ours with half work, half rest. We're still recovering from painting the past weekend. Nate and I are both learning that getting old is hard. Can't move. So sore.

Our house is a bit messy right now. It's making me all twitchy. Ike is angry that his love seat is not near the window. There is a 14 foot ladder in our living room. The living room chair is in the dining room. But the new wall color is totally worth it!

We decided on Mindful Gray by Sherwin Williams. It's a very pretty grey. The space we painted is large and the color changes throughout the day. It's a bit green-grey at times. A little clay-like at others. And sometimes it looks like a pretty true grey. No matter what color it decides to be, it's totally better than that Macadamia hot mess.

Nate and I are both very happy with the Mindful Gray choice. Neither of us are like "OMG, we love the wall color." (Mainly because Nate and I don't get excited about much.) It's more like "Man, that's nice." It's a great neutral that feels like it's meant to be. It just kind of blends with the surroundings. Here are some before and progress photos.

We owe a huge thanks to Nate's mom, my brother and his girlfriend. With their help we were able to paint the entire area in one day. One day!!! I honestly didn't think we would be done in one weekend but they were super speedy painters. Nate and I are so appreciative of their help! We would still be painting a week later without them.

Even Ike approves. He wants you to excuse the messy floors.

The Mindful Gray flows better with our other room colors. I really like how it looks next to the blue of the bedroom.

I think the gray draws out a little more of the tan in the carpet but that will be replaced with wood flooring. Someday when I win the lotto. Or pay off the mortgage. Whichever comes first.

The living room is still a hot mess. We spent the weekend working on the wall of windows. I'll have more details on the plans for the room on Wednesday. We are working on getting bids to replace the carpet with wood flooring. It's coming back at more money than we want to spend. (It's really hard being cheap. I mean frugal.) We're waiting on one other bid. Fingers crossed it comes back at a reasonable price or there will be a few weekends of wood floor laying in our future. We have also started designing the new book shelves/mantel. The two-tone look isn't doing much for us.

The wall of windows received a coat of bright white. It looks pretty horrible now without the molding. I'm holding out that our vision for this wall will turn out just fine.

It has to get worse before it gets better. Or some other wise saying like that. We're really happy with the progress so far. Ike, on the other hand, just wants his love seat back next to the window. He takes his job as cushion smusher/yard supervisor seriously.