Ready, Set, Move In Part II - Family Room Update

Hi & welcome back! If you are following from the beginning, which I hope you are, we had a lot on our plate those first two weeks before we moved into That 70s House!

Right after we finished painting all of the living room dining room and kitchen, we moved onto our family room. This was probably the most time consuming room of all. At first glance it didn’t seem that bad, but once we got into it we quickly realized there was more than met the eye! The room is a good size at 19×15 but there is a slider to back yard, a big window, a MASSIVE fireplace, and one wall that isn’t even a full wall……how long could that possibly take to paint? A LOT longer than we thought! I have to confess, I am a bit OCD and I make a lot of lists. One of the first things I do when we start a project is make a timeline of the items to be completed in the project and the estimated time to complete detailing each day into hour increments. I know I am totally crazy! But this helps me to stay on track. I don’t want to be those people that start a project and by the time it’s finished the decor is no longer in style. Like I have said before, I am NOT a patient person. Anyway, I originally had us (me, Barry, & my dad) painting this room in only a few hours. Well………it took us a FULL day. The part that really screwed up the timeline is the vaulted ceilings……..did I mention we have 15 ft. ceilings in there? Well we do…….and that’s part of why I love that room, but on that particular day that’s also why I hated it. Also, we had this awful dirty brown 70s paneling above the fireplace which needed more than one coat of paint.

This is what the family room looked like when we bought the house.

Garrison Street Design Studio - Ready, Set, Move In Part II - Family Room Update

Obviously, we had to do something about the hideous paneling. Due to time and budget constraints, painting it was really our only option. I just needed to get That 70s House out of the 70s! So we got to work. Barry and I (and my dad) have done A LOT of painting in our day so we have become pretty good at it (not to toot our own horn) so we don’t tape. Yep, that’s right, no taping. It is such a time-saver (and money saver)! I mean think about it. How long does it take you to prep and tape everything before you even get to the actual painting? I could probably edge a whole room before someone could tape it all. Now if you are not a good painter, you know who you are, I do encourage you to still tape or hire a pro. But with a little practice and a good brush, you can teach yourself to do this! This is the brush I like. We primed the paneling first so we didn’t waste our good paint and then we got to work painting the walls. We all had our own tasks. Barry likes to roll even though he is pretty good at edging as well, I like to edge (I find it quite relaxing) and my dad can pretty much do both, so he did. My dad is 6’3 so he did all the really tall edging and rolling.