Study Makeover

The ladder makes another appearance

For years I've been wanting to paint our study. It is the one room we haven't painted since we moved in, almost 15 years ago. Yes, that is completely shocking, to leave a room unpainted that long, but if you saw how much furniture is in this room, you would understand why we haven't rushed to paint it before now.

This room was our dining room for a few years, then we extended our living area between having Emily and Laura, and it became a study. In this room we all use two computers, I teach piano, the girls practise saxophone and flute, we keep our heirloom china and little-used dishes, and this room also serves as storage for paperwork, instruments, toys, clothes and more. It is one well-used little room!

The other reason we haven't rushed to paint this room is that over the years it's had a few transformations and alterations, and parts of the wall and floor are not finished properly. Before our time there used to be a door behind where the piano now stands going through to the room behind. Oh how I wish I knew how the house was first set up when it was built in the 1920s! Then the previous owners painted the rooms in a kaleidoscope of colours, but not with any attention to detail, leaving whole sections of trim unfinished!

Fast forward fifteen years to the last few weeks and I have been plugging away at getting this room decluttered, and looking at paint colours ... and looking at other blogs where people actually get on and paint their rooms rather than just think about painting their rooms ... so about 10 days ago I went out and bought some sample pots and painted some sections of the wall. The sample colours turned out to be not quite right ... and you can't really live with big brown patches on yellow walls ... so now I HAVE to paint!

The study looks particularly YELLOW with our new lightglobes at night

Steve spent this afternoon pulling out furniture and emptying the sideboard (we have china all over our kitchen benches!). Steve even managed to move the piano! Then we cleaned half the walls, and tomorrow I am going to paint half the room! Yes, all in one day! Huh! Before my piano students arrive on Tuesday!

Well, that's the plan!

The study is currently two shades of yellow. It is a south-facing room, so it doesn't get a whole lot of light, but we have put in a solartube so it is lighter than it used to be. The trim is in the same pale green used throughout the hall and living areas. It has never really looked great and it doesn't go with all our timber furniture. Here is the "before" shot, though I have to confess that I have altered the photo to hide the brown sample patches I painted the other day, hence the two strange looking sections of wall. And please excuse the mess on the floor and the curtains piled up on the rod for painting ...

The study in daytime

As you can see our piano and sideboard are in a rich dark walnut colour and the yellow doesn't really suit at all.
Thanks to this site I've been fiddling with colour options, and this is what I'm hoping the finished study will look like, although it's not the exact shade I'll be using:

Something more calm, more suitable for a room full of timber furniture, more professional-looking for a "piano studio" and more coordinated overall.

I'm hoping to have a real "after" shot to show you tomorrow!