Let the painting begin!

     Hi my friends, It is amazing how you can take a can of paint (many cans in my case) and turn a room into something totally different. Choosing a color of paint for your walls can be a real head scratcher sometimes. If your like me and love to redecorate a room or two often, I always revert to a good ole neutral color on the walls such as a soft creamy white or beige, sometimes a hint of buttery white is pretty also. I took into consideration a few factors when deciding what color to paint the walls in this ole 160 year old mill.

      Firstly, I thought...Theresa, how often are you going to want to repaint these 15 foot high walls? Answer...I don't ever want to do this again!! So, I had to make sure that the color that was going on these walls is what I could live with for a very long time.

      Next question....Theresa (that's me) what style are you going for? Answer...I love to incorporate old, worn, weathered pieces into any room with a light, airy feeling. I love a more neutral pallete of creams, whites, blues, old greens, and faded yellows, and of course, let's not forget aged wood. Now if I were to combine all these elements into my style, I would have to say it is eclectic country farmhouse,  with a twist of Modern elements,  and a touch of english cottage.

      Geez, That was tough! Have you asked yourself that question before? It's hard when you love so many styles and to try to attach a label to it? So, where was I?, Oh yes, next question I asked myself...Theresa (that's me again), what colors do you love to decorate with? Now, this is fairly easy for me. I love to use many soft colors of blues, creams, and at holidays more bolder colors of oranges, and reds. So therefore I needed a neutral color on the walls that would go with all the colors of my pillows, rugs, and such.

      The color of paint I chose to use? Drum roll please.........A soft antique white. So far, I am loving the color. Originally the ole flour mill had white walls. So I find it lends itself to this color also. As I paint each wall, the more and more it is reminding me of a country cottage, or a cottage on a beach. It just has that feel about it. Sometimes you have to let the house speak to you. I have some great ideas for this ole gal (the mill not me) and hope soon I can start to add my furnishings. So enough said, here are a few before and after photos of the bathroom painted.  Note to self....Make sure to take before and after photos from the same place.

Look how bright and airy this room has become.  Love it!  Can't wait to start decorating in here, and to soak in this tub!

Here is a before photo

 Here is after paint.  My husband added a small light behind the enclosed leaded glass case.

 

Before painting walls in bathroom.

Here is after painting.  This is the wall where the sink is and a large mirror will hang.

Before painting of bathroom.

BEFORE PHOTOS OF BATHROOM AT MILL

Well, it's finally time to get painting inside the mill.  Let me tell you, there is plenty of painting to do.  If you're into the stock market, you might want to invest in the paint stock!  I will be using plenty of it.  I thought I would share before photos of the bathroom project which will be where I am going to start in this big old mill.

The pictures might not show just how large this bathroom is, but it is a nice size.  I don't know about you, but I always disliked my small bathrooms in previous homes I have lived in.  In this room, I want to create a nice color palette of white and linen for a French Country style.

Let me start by showing you the outside of the bathroom.  I chose these beautiful french doors which we had purchased at a restore for $125.00  I will be making inside curtains for them.  Everything we are doing in this mill is being done on a shoestring budget.

I wanted to add interest to this opening to the bathroom, which we did by just adding these doors, but I went a step further and had my hubby build me a shelf above door adding these really old, chippy white corbels.  We also had some chippy trim that he added under neath shelf.  This will be a great shelf to add some nice Ironstone pieces that I have been collecting for a while.  So let's open the doors and go inside shall we?

Please excuse the mess.  Like I said, these are the before photos.  Lots of cleaning needs to be done.  The floors in this bathroom were also purchased from a restore.  Beautiful, pine floors.  Add a nice warmth to the room already.  Can't wait to see them cleaned up!  The hanging chandelier is also a purchase from the restore.  You can't tell, but it is really a massive fixture.  I will unveil it at another time when the whole room is finished.  The cost for the flooring was 100 bucks, the chandelier cost us 175.00.  This old, deep, claw foot tub was one was given to us from a neighbor down the road.   I had made this pair of curtains from drop cloths.  I will tell you all about them and the rods on my next post.  Just love how they turned out.  Wait til I tell you about those curtain rods!

The bath tub is angled almost in the middle of this room.  Sink is to the left, toilet is to the right.

This sink is new, and was purchased at Menard's on sale for 130.00, normally a 600 dollar sink.  Right now it has a board sitting on top for some reason or another.  We still need to add the faucets.  The antique mirror will be hung just above it that we purchased at a garage sale for 50.00.  It has beveled glass mirror.  Above the mirror is a piece of the mill's flour shoot that we incorporated into a fixture for the light.  The light is antique and purchased at the restore for little or nothing.

This is the other corner of the bathroom.  It has an angled wall where the toilet will be.  Above the toilet is an antique cubby with leaded glass, beautifully detailed molding and 2 small shelf inserts.  It will be painted and have a small light inserted to shine through the glass.  We had purchased this antique cubby for 250.00 at a restore.  Love restores!

Well I hope you enjoyed my little tour of before photos of the bathroom.  I hope to start painting any day now.  Can't wait to show you after photos!

Stay tuned for my next post on the drop cloth curtains and those rods that we made!  Thank you for stopping by!  Be sure to tell your friends about this blog for me.  Would love to gain more viewers!  Have a wonderful day!

Getting ready to paint

Hello folks, The mill is taking shape now and is going to start to get an interior face lift with paint! I am going to start with the main floor bathroom next week. We are busy at the moment getting things ready for a huge barn sale this weekend and will be closing our store. So much work involved with closing a store. So I will make sure to take a few before photos of bathroom and after of course. It is pretty neat. French doors, huge chandalier over tub, and more. Making drop cloth curtains also. Just wait and see this transformation! Got to go. See you all next week hopefully!

I'm Back!

How do I begin to tell you all why my blog has been neglected for so long? Let's see....first, I had hurt my back pretty darn good which had put me out of commission for quite some time. It was all I could do to stand and do my hair in the morning. I even resorted to buying a wig to alleviate that problem. I hate wigs, hot and itchy! I was even having a hard time sitting. I still to this day do not know how it happened. I happened to have a slipped vertibrae, degenerative joint disease, and arthritis. Doc said it was all the rough housing over the years that did it. Second...I have been busy trying to get my new business up and running with photography. So much work involved in that process and is still ongoing! You can check it out here if your curious at . Third....The old mill that we have been working on is coming along fabulously! We hope to be in there by this summer! Whoohooo!. Sorry, I get excited about this. I will be posting many photos from this journey. You would not believe the changes that have been taken place already! I just can't wait to finally be able to decorate in there! Even though I have a bad back, I can and will continue to decorate.

Just to recap, here is the beginning of our major project/renovations on the old mill.

In these photos, We had just finished the railing that goes around the atrium which overlooks the downstairs livingroom area. We had kept some pretty cool, large mill gears. Another photo is looking up from the main floor looking at the railing. Never mind those corbels hanging up on each side of the soon to be bathroom. I told my hubby that I did not like them and they are now down. He tried. I will try to post another update when I can. We just finished all the floors in the mill with beautiful hardwood flooring. What a transformation it made. Can't wait to show you, but it is pretty dusty right now. I want to take photos of clean flooring. My hubby and I think that our store has sold. Just waiting to hear soon if they were able to get the financing. If so, wow we will be busy with dealing with store inventory, moving everything out, yada, yada, yada. So please be patient with me during our journey. I promise that there will be plenty of decorating photos to show you hopefully soon!