And so it begins...

We are moving house this month. In preparation for this, we've already had a garage sale to downsize before the move. And... we had a painting party, our new space needed a little love. A few of our amazing friends came over for the day and helped us bust out the whole house. It was awesome. (Thanks again friends! You all blessed our socks off!)

My bedroom area was an oceany blue. The color itself wasn't bad, but it just wasn't fitting my vision of how I wanted my personal oasis to be. I decided to go with a white shade that has a hint of grey in it. My current bedroom is quite dark and one of the things I love so much about this new room is all the natural light. The lighter color just reflects and bounces the light even more, which makes me happy :)

The day of the painting party, I had one gallon of Behrs All-In-One paint to cover my entire room. When Nate, Carrie, Jan and I started painting the walls we quickly realized that it was going to need at least two coats. Not wanting to buy another can, I crossed all my fingers and toes and prayed that it would be enough. Waiting the 2hrs suggested to paint the second coat (warning: I'm going to be a bit dramatic) definitely felt like a form of slow torture. I kept myself busy by helping paint the other rooms in the house, but I was counting down the minutes in the back of my mind the entire time. I just wanted to know if it was all going to work out. I wanted to see the finished project. But like a lot of things in life, it's a process and if you rush it... you tend to mess it up more than help it along. So, I waited. As soon as my clock reached the two hour mark, I grabbed my roller and went to town. A little later, Nate came in to help me which I was very thankful for. Looking at the amount of paint we had and the walls definitely kept me nervous. We both knew it was going to be a stretch. We got down to literally a 3ft x 4ft square and we were all out... my heart sank. I really didn't want to buy more paint. So, I headed out into the living room to see if there was any of the white left out there. There wasn't much but Chris said I could use some. Nate dipped his roller in once and then I took it back out to them. I didn't want to use all their paint since they were running low as well. When I came back in the room, it wasn't looking good. Then I got an idea, I sat on the floor with all the rollers and brushes we had been using and I squeegeed out all the excess paint. It was like I just found gold, the excitement I had come over me was pretty ridiculous. But we had enough to finish off the wall we had left, plus go around the entire top, plus fix some of the places that we went a little thin on.... plus I took the rest out to the living room and it helped put a second coat on the wall out there. You can bet that I considered that a major WIN!

So, my first tip (it may not be new, but it was something I recently discovered) is to squeegee the heck out of your paint tools before you purchase more paint. When on a budget, every dollar counts and that saved me quite a few dollars.

One of the things I am having to wrap my head around is the 11x11ft I have to fit all of my stuff in. So my solution was to measure all of my current furniture and then head over to my new room and figure out a way it can all fit by taping out their measurements on the floor. Honestly it has helped me visualize and get some fun ideas on how to make it even better than my current space.

So, my tip number two (this also is probably not new, but it was to me) is to literally tape out where you see your pieces fitting into the room. If you are a visual person like me, it helps to see the space laid out before you, so you know what you need to keep and what you may need to let go.

Stay tuned over the next month... there will be packing posts, unpacking posts, decor posts and then the final reveal. So much goodness to come :)