Ceilings should be white

First things first.  I apologize for the boatloads of photos!  Since Derek had to work and live in Illinois for the first two weeks of us owning and painting a house I did my best to keep photo records to send to him so he knew what was going on to his house while he was away.

The house we ended up buying was built in '91 and was definitely out of date with the painting and decor.  The first time we looked at the house neither of us noticed the ceilings because neither of us looked UP.  When we came up for the home inspection I ended up noticing the previous owners had painted each and every rooms ceiling to match the wall colors.  I'm talking the kitchen, dining, hall, and entryway ceilings were seafoam green.  

Living room ceiling was baby blue.  

Hard to tell that the ceilings are actually baby blue.  Trust me they were baby blue.

Two bedrooms had some weird beige color to match the bathroom ceilings.  Those who truly know me know that I absolutely despise beige!



And the master bedroom had this dark purplish grey ceiling. 

And the absolute best thing the previous owners did with their ceilings was use a piece of trim between the living room and entry to separate the seafoam green and the baby blue.

This was a "are you kidding me?!?!?!" moment.

In four words: ceilings should be WHITE!

It took some convincing Derek that ceilings not only should be white; but, ceilings should have a different texture than the walls.  This way it makes the ceiling obviously different than the walls and it also gives the rooms a clean and finished look.  My dad had experience and the tools to texturize the ceilings with the orange peel look which we absolutely hated on the apartment walls (who does that to their walls?  No judging, it just isn't my thing.); but, I love it for ceilings.  Mom and dad brought all the supplies to do the orange peel and we really didn't decide until Derek was getting ready to head back to Illinois to actually do the textured ceilings.

The process is really a pain and super time consuming to get an orange peel ceiling.  We are talking: mixing the mud, spraying the mud, waiting an hour before knocking it down, scraping when dry, priming, then painting white!  Oh and you have to remove all light and ceiling fixtures along with taping and using plastic over EVERYTHING you don't want to get sprayed or covered because the process is super messy.  It is SO worth the time and work though! 

Goodbye ugly light fixture!  Benefit of having a tall husband and tall dad is not needing ladders ;)

YAY!  Texture!!!

Cleaning it off of the walls.

More than one person IS required!

Spotlights are required when you are spraying ceilings at night once the sun has set.

No turning back once you have started!

After priming, the white ceilings appear after being painted on pink!

Again, seriously nice not to use a ladder to paint the ceiling!

Ahh no more weird two colored ceiling being separated by a piece of trim that has no business being on a ceiling in the first place.  *Note: only half the ceiling is painted here; but, I assure you the whole thing is WHITE!

Derek really wanted to learn how to do it so Dad ended up showing him how on our laundry room ceiling and he did great!

Dad explaining to Derek how to work the sprayer.

After everything was said and done, my husband even admitted that doing the orange peel to the ceiling and having the ceilings white was an excellent idea.  It raises the height of the room and just makes everything cleaner looking.

Stay tuned for more on the house as it might take a year to get through the whole thing and everything we do to it!