Bye Bye Paneling

When we bought our house it was not attractive inside.  It was the exact opposite of attractive.  It was down right ugly.  I was actually kind of proud of how ugly it was.  It was built in the early 70s, so imagine lots and lots of paneling.  The majority of it had already been painted.  There were two places left with straight up paneling.  The hallway upstairs had paneling on the bottom half of the wall.  I desperately wanted to do a two tone kind of thing, a darker color over the paneling and a lighter color on top.  However, someone generously gave us 5 gallons of a gorgeous light tan Sherwin Williams paint.  That meant the living room and hall all got the tan.  But on the paneling, I left the "stripes" in between in each panel section.  I like it, eventually it will probably change.  But I like it for now.

So there was still paneling left though.  Our house is like the house that paneling built.  The living room, kitchen, hallway, laundry room, basement, and BASEMENT BAR were all paneling.  Yes, basement bar really needed to be in all caps.  Who in the world builds a bar out of paneling.  Sheesh.  So that poor bar was the last thing left.  Over Christmas break I painted almost all of the basement.  The bar has green tile on top, not my favorite, but I went with it.  I painted the walls a light celery green and the dark wood/paneling bar got a couple coats of glossy white paint.  However, the whole back of the bar was left as wood paneling.    It was ugly.  Really really ugly.  I had the best intentions to throw up some adhesive primer then follow it with a coat of the green from the walls.  Well, we got a dog and that never happened.

Fast forward to today.  I took Rowdy to the vet this morning to get neutered.  (Poor Rowdy!)  That left the basement completely free for projects.  I grabbed my trusty paint brush (rolling would have been faster, but it wasn't a huge space and I hate washing out the roller) and got to work.  But, now it's done.  No more paneling remains in our house!  So excited about that.  And the green on the back of the bar looks great.

With Rowdy being gone, I also got the carpet vacuumed, the linoleum mopped, and all the dog toys picked up.  I feel like the basement is actually done now.  It's an amazing feeling.  Sure there are still things that need to be done.  Like the spare room/storage room still needs to have the walls painted and shelving installed and maybe a partition.  That is so low on my list though.  But, all the paneling is gone.  I think I should have a party.

While I was painting I talked to a friend I hadn't talked to in about a year and a half.  She has met a great guy and they are wedding planning.  I'm so happy for her.  It was great to catch up with her.