For the walls, we’re using the coolest stuff.
It’s a plaster-like material, but has a beautiful, light, sandy texture.
It’s called Tobias Green Wall Finish, and it comes in a bunch of different colors….which means you never have to paint.
I was there the day the plasterers started applying it to the walls…
And it was so cool to watch it go on. It moves really fast!
It goes on surprisingly thin…and the texture is just perfect. It makes the walls look like they’ve been that way for awhile and gives it a more interesting texture than just flat paint.
So basically, you get on the first coat, sand away the rough spots…
Then you put on the second coat.
And then guess what happened? You’ll never guess what happened. Okay, I’ll tell you what happened. My mother-in-law and I looked at each other with fear and trembling and said, almost in unison, “It’s too pink.”
And this picture doesn’t do it justice. It could have been that the opposite brick wall was casting its red onto this, but in person, there was no denying it: We’d picked a shade (Beach, which I’d shared with you from the start) that, when dry, had an unmistakable pink cast.
So we agonized.
We debated.
We tore our garments.
We laughed.
And then we decided to change to a different color, Natural, which isn’t actually a color at all. It’s the raw Tobias material without any pigment added.
Fortunately, the plasterers hadn’t gotten very far in the grand scheme of things. All that was involved was just continuing to use the same stuff…just without adding any color to it. Easy!
And boy, are we glad we switched. Again, it’s hard to see the full effect here in my amateurish photos, but the color on the left is the new Natural color (which, again, is a non-color.) The color on the right—around the doorway—is the old Beach color. You can definitely see the difference, even more so in person. Beach not only has a pink cast to it, the overall effect was quite a bit darker…which made everything look a little dingy.
Here’s the new color, up close and personal.
The great thing is, it coordinates perfectly with the color of the lettering in the mural. This is exactly what we were going for from the beginning—but the Beach just didn’t didn’t complement it at all, no matter how much we wanted it to. It just made the mural look desperate and alone.
The rest of the Tobias will be on the walls by late tomorrow, I believe. I’ll show you once it’s all done!
Meanwhile, this is the tile I picked for the girls’ bathroom. (Marlboro Man picked a totally different tile for the boys’. I’ll take photos today.)
I love the way the tile is turning out! Old, classic, but nice and clean.
(This is the tile I got. In the photo in the link, it’s shown with a white grout, though—we’re using a natural grey grount that’ll provide more contrast.)
This is the back stairway, which has been totally reworked to meet code. And here’s something I like to do for kicks: Walk over to Terry and Jerry, our contractors, and say, with a totally straight face, “I think I’d rather have those balusters straight, rather than leaning on a diagonal like that.”
They always have a wonderful couple of seconds of confusion on their faces before they realize I’m pulling their leg.
And then I crack up.
I’m so easily entertained.
Here’s the old stairway. It was too narrow, so we widened it to meet code. As a result, all of these old posts and railings are being used halfway down the stairs on the new landing. (The new railing was made to look like the old.)
Another thing we’ve been working on are the stain colors for all the trim and the floor.
For what it’s worth, I like the larger sample on the far right for all the trim…and the smaller sample on the far right for the floor.
But I don’t know anything.
This will be an action-packed week!
The walls will be finished.
The ceiling will be painted (more on that later.)
The cabinets will arrive (today!)
The light fixtures will go on the ceiling. I think.
Then the floor refinisher shows up next Monday, which I think will change the look of the whole place.
This is an older photo of the floor, but it pretty much looks like this still today. We don’t want to sand away/fill the gouges, scratches, and imperfections next week—we still want the floor to show all its history.
That’s all for now! I’ll check in again tomorrow with more photos.
Note: None of the links or materials mentioned in Building posts are sponsored in any way. I’m just sharing the stuff we’re using. Over and out.