Loggia | Operation Home

Wah-hoo!! It’s amazing what a little impending overnight guest does for a little kick in the pants. It’s been a crazy week. I know I’ve said it before, but I really mean it. We’re having company this weekend (really, for the first time since moving in), so it’s been a mad dash to try and get some unfinished projects done. The house is (of course) nowhere near finished (that’ll take YEARS, I’m sure), but we just wanted to clean up a few things that were needing some immediate work. And in this mad race, I didn’t stop to take “after” pictures until today. #mybad

Anyways, as the days go on, things at the ole’ homestead are slowly coming back together again and my head feels like it’s gradually reattaching to my brain, which is nice. So, here’s what’s been going on house-wise. Joey’s been a mad-man out in the backyard (I’ll have a post about that soon), and I’ve been checking off a bunch of items inside. Among them was the office/guestroom. Here’s how it looked the last time I showed it to you…

It’s a great room in that it gets really fantastic light in the mornings and has a pretty view out of the window. Which you can sort of see here (sorry about my photography skills)…

It’s the smallest of our bedrooms, but is still a decent size. My main issue with it was that it REALLY needed to be painted. It was the same peach color as the master bath and since it was a flat paint finish, it was really dirty in spots. Plus, this was the room that we had the flood prior to moving in, so the drywall was patched, but not painted.

Not a good look if you ask me.

This room contains most the decor remnants from our very first house that managed to survive our multiple moves. That house had a very “Tuscan” color scheme. Taupes, greens, reds, with cherry wood accents. Very different from our last and current houses. So, the brownish accents that I still liked enough to keep, are pretty much in this space only. Now, I’ll admit, my taste has changed and I’ve mentally dubbed these as “for now” pieces. But regardless, I’m grateful to be able to use them to decorate the space (forfree) until I find new stuff to replace them.

With this plan in mind, I wanted to select a paint color that worked with these items, but would also work with a cooler color palette for when I eventually change this stuff out. And the color that I landed on was Loggia by Sherwin Williams (ie: the same color that we painted our house’s exterior). Its a neutral taupe tone that has more grey than anything. It could easily work with cool colors, but fits in swimmingly with warm as well. Basically, if Joey’s personality was a paint color it’d be Loggia. He gets along with everyone.

I’d originally intended to get the paint color-matched with a cheaper paint to save some money, but when I went to Lowes I realized that they now sell an affordable line of Sherwin Williams paints! Perfect! They were able to simply pull up Loggia in the computer and mix it exactly. I chose the cheapest paint (Ovation) in an eggshell finish which ran me just over $28. Not too shabby. Once I got home, I got down to business, which pretty much resembled the state of my brain the past few weeks…

I have to say that was super impressed by the coverage of this paint. In the words of that guy in that Indiana Jones movie (you know the one ;))… I chose wiiiisely. Here’s the difference in the peach vs. Loggia…

I loved it immediately. It’s taupey grey neutrality. Even in it’s half-wet state.

Once I had the walls painted, I moved everything back, hung some curtains and the art that I already had on hand, which left this…

It always amazes me how much a set of curtains adds to a room.

In reassembling the space, I actually tried floating the bed on the adjoining wall (with the head beneath the painting) so that everything wasn’t so crammed against the perimeter, and it looked much better than the current layout. Then, I realized that functionality-wise, I wanted more floor space. I sometimes do workout videos in this room and I like just being able to plop down without having to rearrange the furniture. So, in this case, I’m sacrificing looks for function. Honestly, I’m just glad to have enough space to do that. Our last house had such small rooms, that I really didn’t have space to workout in any room without bumping into furniture (even after I’d moved it out of the way).

Here’s the desk area as of now…

I simply styled the shelves more and switched out the desk drawer knobs for those delicate little guys that I found at Target on sale for $5 for a set of 10. See that old school camera and the lenses on the lower shelf??

I got that as a white elephant gift at a good friend’s Christmas party. I’m not sure who gave it, but I happen to think its completely awesome.

And lastly the wall that that backs up to the hallway…

I still have some more tweaks that I’d like to do in here… I’d love to someday get a headboard, jazz up the nightstand, improve the bedding, get a wireless printer so that we can hide that eyesore, and add a nice area rug for interest, but this room definitely jumped leaps and bounds from where it was. I’m just glad to have this done and to be able to say “…and this is the guest room/office…” minus the “…we still have a ton to do in here. Pay no attention to the walls…” part. 😉

***For updated pics on this space, check out this (creating a wood-framed art headboard), this (revamping a mid-century nightstand), this (adding a new awesome $12 lamp) and this (creating DIY burlap wall art).***

It’s been a long time since I’ve mentioned our house’s exterior. Here it is on the day we closed in all it’s mismatched glory…

Now, I’ll admit, the paint color doesn’t look uber offensive in the photo above, but in person… Meh. It was all one color. No contrast. No interest. Something was missing. In short, it was a giant yawn. And it wasn’t even a well-maintained yawn. The paint job had definitely seen better days. The paint was peeling in many spots, caulk was hanging off the house in places, etc. It just looked sloppy. We were told by neighbors that the last time the house went into foreclosure (it’s been foreclosed on twice), the bank did that quick, cheapo paint job to get the house sold. Apparently, our home was light green with dark green trim prior to that. Can you imagine?? I’ll bet it blended right in with the shrubbery.

During our home inspection, the inspector recommended that we get the house painted sooner rather than later to get the house all sealed up and water-tight. So, after we moved in we got an estimate by the same company who’d painted Joey’s parents’ house. My in-laws were incredibly impressed by the amount of prep work and care that was taken during the process, so we knew that we wanted to go through them, as well.

We got an estimate, and were told that if we stuck with lighter colors, one coat would do the trick. Darker colors would require a second coat which would be an additional $1600. Yeah. So, one coat.

The sales guy recommended Sherwin Williams Loggia. He stated that this would be the darkest we could go while still only doing one coat. So, after holding up about twenty swatches and really narrowing it down, we ultimately decided that he was right and we’d go with Loggia. I purchased samples of both Loggia and Loggia at 25% saturation for the trim (this is 75% lighter than the original color). And we painted samples all over the house….

…which we liked. The initial plan was to paint the entire body of the house Loggia and the trim at the roof-line the lighter color. But then they started painting. Let’s just say that once the paint was up in larger splotches, there wasn’t nearly as much contrast as I’d hoped. The colors were very similar (Loggia is on the stucco and the lighter 25% Loggia is on the trim)….

I was SO incredibly bummed. I was looking for BAM! Contrast. And what I got was BAM’s loser brother, Meh. Again with the Meh. Ugh! So, learn from my mistakes… When painting the exterior of your house…

#1: The colors will appear lighter than expected, so go darker. And…

#2: You need to choose WAY more contrast than you’d think to make an impact. Go bold!

So anyways, here we were, painters at the house, completely disliking the plan. So, we decided to change course and instead of just using the lighter color on the roof-line trim only, we’d go ahead and paint all of the wood siding on the house the lighter tone and the stucco dark. We wanted to add interest in SOME way and the contrast was much more apparent when both colors were on the same plane. Plus, the house is unique and we felt that adding a two-toned effect would help accentuate it’s character.

Now, for how I ran off a paint crew. The timeline of events went as follows…

On Wednesday, they powerwashed.

On Thursday, they prepped (or at least they were supposed to). When Thursday came, both Joey and I were shocked when around lunchtime they began painting. We’d been told that prep would be Thursday and painting would start Friday. Once the painting commenced, there were some communication issues regarding where we wanted the paint colors. I would discuss what I wanted with the crew leader, and either he wasn’t communicating to his crew, or they weren’t listening, because I would walk out and they’d be doing the opposite of what I said, so then we’d have to start over. So, I was somewhat frustrated by this point. Then, came the biggie… very little around our house was taped off and covered up. We started noticing paint dust on our pool filter and other items surrounding the house. The final straw came, when I found this…

Dried caulking all over our patio cushions (these are just a few examples), as well as footprints where the painters had been STANDING WITH THEIR DIRTY SHOES. When they had about fourteen ladders nearby. Um, no. I was unable to communicate with the painters due to a language barrier and the crew leader who did speak English had left, so I called the foreman and politely reported the situation and asked whether these items should be covered. He agreed that they should’ve been covered without a doubt and that he was shocked to hear this. When the crew leader returned, I showed him the damage to the cushions, and he tried (unsuccessfully) to clean them. Then, he stated “accidents happen” to which I brought up the fact that it’s not an accident when his crew was standing with their muddy shoes on our upholstered furniture. He asked the crew whether this was true and they answered in the affirmative. Then, he looked at me and stated “You tell (the foreman), you get another team for tomorrow.”. I clarified that I wasn’t asking for another team, I was simply asking that they cover stuff up before painting and NOT stand on my furniture. And he stated “No, I say you get another team.” Greatness. I wasn’t even rude (I mean sure, I wasn’t exactly smiles and rainbows either, but c’mon.).

So, the next day, another crew arrived. And this crew was like night and day from the first. They covered and prepped everything, which, FYI, was kind of like being inside a Dexter kill room…

Most importantly, they did a fantastic job painting. And they were super polite. They painted the wood siding on Friday, the stucco on Saturday, and came back for touch-ups on Monday. Given how this company handled the debacle and redeemed themselves in the end, I really think that this was an isolated incident. Everyone was really shocked by the first crew’s lack of prep and the fact that they just never came back.

Now for the post result. Honestly, I’m not a huge fan of this picture. It was taken on a really gloomy day in December, thus I don’t really feel that it does the house justice, but here it is anyways….
It’s definitely more of a subtle difference than we’d wanted, but that being said, we’re okay with it. The house looks much more manicured and cared for now. And at least we have peace of mind that our home is all sealed up from the elements. Also, ignore the hideous (HIDEOUS) front door. I’m painting it a pretty charcoal color soon.

I’m deciding between painting the entire door area, sort of like this…

Or just painting the front door and storm door, but leaving the trim light like this…

From these renderings, I’m leaning towards painting the entire door area, but we’ll see. After that, I’ll paint the rusty, green gate a sharp black (and fix the hardware so it stays shut), and the lighting fixtures and mailbox will also get a nice coat of black as well.

Then, there’s the roof…. The roof that is currently the bane of our existences. Joey and I both despise the color. It’s a faded orangey tan that does NOTHING for the house whatsoever. And because it’s so light, every flaw is apparent. It just looks awful. Don’t believe me? Come visit. We were shocked (and kind of disappointed) when the roofer told us that our roof was good for now. When the time comes, we’ll be going for a richer brown tone which will really update the house nicely.

You can also see that Joey’s been busy trimming things up in the yard. He added a rock border to the beds and a ton of mulch. Our sprinkler system was broken when we bought the house and had been for at least 6 months prior. In this time the lawn really suffered and weeds went crazy and partied it up. We recently had the system fixed, so hopefully in the spring we can start working on reverting our yard of weeds (yes, those neon green zits on the face of our lawn) back to actual grass. We have a lot to do, and I totally have a case of the wanting-it-done-yesterdays. One of these days we won’t be embarrassed by our curb appeal. Haha!! One day….

In any case, you can kind of see the direction we’re going when you look at these photos next to eachother…

Much more sophisticated and streamlined. I can’t wait to paint that door!!!! 🙂