The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

So we've been in this house for about 2-1/2 weeks now, and I've already talked about the good things I like about this house.  I didn't list everything I like because there's a lot to like.

Now let's talk about the bad.  Recently, like a couple days ago, I realized something about this house that I don't like.  There aren't very many windows, and the living room has NONE.  The closest one is  in the dining area which runs into the living room, but I don't count that as being in the living room. This, along with the dim yellow lighting, and with all the yucky brown paint colors, makes the house look dark and dim and depressing.  I am used to my house in Wasilla where I had a lot of really big windows that always kept the place looking bright and cheery.

So, we are gonna brighten up this place, starting with the ugly.

There are a lot of really ugly paint colors in this house.  I think the bathrooms and the big rooms downstairs are the ones that are doable for me, or at least I can live with them for now.  The rest of the paint colors in this house gotta go.  But first, I want to tackle this fireplace.

We discovered that there is some pretty gray tile hidden underneath this coat of black paint.

Someone please tell me WHY, OH WHY? would anyone PAINT over pretty tile with BLACK PAINT?!  These people must've really liked their house dark and depressing.  It's bad enough that there's not enough windows to let the sunshine in, but then to add dark paint?  Sheesh!  I suppose maybe it was the "in" thing when they did it, but it's not my thing.

I guess the reasoning for this really doesn't matter.  What really matters is that I get it off!

So I started scraping it.  First with a razor blade, which didn't work very well.  Then with a butter knife. It comes off okay with a butter knife, but doing it this way is gonna take forever!  And my hands get so tired - I don't wanna get carpel tunnel. Plus there's the problem of all those little crevices where the paint has to be poked out.  And it can't be scraped off the grout at all.

So I went to Sherwin Williams and told the guy what I'm doing, and he sold me this stuff.

Now all I need is a big chunk of time, and good ventilation, and hopefully I can get it all done in one day.

Hmmmm, good ventilation might be a problem..........I hope I don't fry what brain cells I still got left.

Lack of windows, ya know!

I will just have to open all the windows I got and try to pick a breezy day.

In the meantime, we got Justin's room all done, and we are now trying to decide which ugly to tackle next.  I am studying some white and light shades of paint to cover all these browns upstairs, but while I'm working on the fireplace, we will probably do all the downstairs first and then focus on the upstairs.  We are gonna have a LOT of painting to do.

All I know is that this house needs to be brightened up, and I'm already sick of looking at these drab dreary depressing browns!