It’s been a month since my last blog entry, and during that time I was able to finally finish the painting upstairs, and get most of the plugs and lights wired up. This April will be the fourth anniversary of buying this house, so it has been over three and a half years since we had light on the second floor. It’s been a long frustrating road to get to this point, and we still have a lot of work to do, but I am able to start feeling a sense of accomplishment. (There are about half a dozen pictures posted with the rest of this blog entry)
Room by room, part 1: Our daughter’s bedroom
For those who care, the colours we chose for this room were Behr “Rhapsody Lilac” (620A-3) for the walls and Behr “Iced Mauve (680E-2) for the ceiling. My wife and I narrowed the selections down in the store, but it was our daughter, who has to live in the room, who made the final decision.
Bedroom view from back dormer.
Yes, it is a lot of purple (trust me, I’m the one who painted it), but the way the funky angles reflect the light creates enough visual interest and subtle variations in the appearance of the colour of the various surfaces that the room’s “purpleness” is not overwhelming.
The main light fixtures in the room were each part of a three piece set consisting of a ceiling light, a table lamp and a night light that was a “special buy” at Home Depot. These lights are controlled by 2 three way switches so our daughter won’t have to stumble around the huge room in the dark. The smoke alarm is a hard-wired model, with battery backup. It is one of three located on the second floor of the house. Overkill? Perhaps, but the bedroom ceilings are higher than the hall ceiling, so if there was ever a fire in one of the bedrooms, it might be burning for a while before the smoke reaches the hallway.
The back dormer area, which will be used for either reading or doing homework, is lit by a small globe fixture controlled by another switch. The globe fixture is the subject of a rant to be published in a future blog.
Room by room, part 2: The guest room
Guest room light.
The guest room paint is Behr “Rocky Mountain Sky” (720E-3) which is an interesting shade of green. The ceiling surface is much smaller than in the other bedroom, so we kept it the same colour as the walls. The light fixture is one that we selected at Canadian Tire. We wanted something unique for this room that fit the character of the house and I believe we have succeeded.
One source of disappointment for me is the quality of the drywall work in this room. There are a number of flaws that showed up once the painting was finished that were not detectable at the primer stage. My wife and I discussed it and decided to live with the room as it is, rather than go to the time, effort and expense of applying more mud, and sanding, priming and painting the room again.
Flaws or no flaws, the room sure looks a lot better than it did originally with the indirect lighting from the “Lego” style ceiling panels.
Room by Room, part 3: The hallway
Upstairs hall light
The hallway paint is CIL Smart “Lunenburg” (90 B6 (42/106)) for the walls and Behr “Divine Pleasure” (W-B-210) for the ceiling. The beautiful shade of blue is carried down to the main floor hallway and will eventually extend to the front foyer and possibly the living room. This was my least favourite colour when we selected the paint, but it has grown to be my favourite.
We selected an off-white for the ceiling rather than a pure white so the contrast would be a little less harsh. We will use the same off-white in an oil base semi-gloss for the wainscoting which I plan to install up the stairs and in the upstairs hallway.
The light fixture was purchased at a specialty store over a year ago. It hangs centered over the stairs and provides light for the stairs and upper hallway. The finish on the fixture is oil-rubbed bronze which is a rather deep rich finish. It is controlled by four-way switching with one switch outside of each bedroom and another switch at the bottom of the stairs. This way, each occupant upstairs can control the light conveniently, without having to walk across a dark hallway to a more centrally located switch.