Interior home improvements: paint & walls

Since Jesse's been home, he has been working away on our living room, one of the sunniest rooms and one that I thought was perfectly fine when we first bought the house. It has four wide windows facing east and south, and has one wall of built-in shelves with space for a TV. The walls are white, and the trim was cream, the same cream that was our bedroom trim, the sunroom walls and the kitchen cabinets. The shelves were a cream too, with a rosy pink that I loved:

(Taken on one of our first days!)


Jesse thought that all things cream should be painted white. I didn't really see the point (why waste take time painting off-white stuff regular white? Aren't they the same thing similar? Too similar to bother changing? No?)

Anyway, once we started painting the open shelving and kitchen cabinets white, I immediately loved it and agreed that it brightened up the space and looked much cleaner. But I wasn't completely sold, and didn't fully support the painting of the sunroom walls...but again, once they were painted the room seemed much bigger and...sunnier.

 The living room was the last hurtle, and until January I was subtly shutting Jesse down whenever he suggested painting over the cream. He even went so far as to get paint for the back of the shelves! He wanted to paint over the rose salmon pink!


 I figured if I put him off long enough, he'd give up or even realize he liked the pink behind the books and pictures. But no. He didn't hate it, but would ask every couple weekends if we could start painting them. Then he started painting the trim white, and finished that quicker than I thought he would. So he moved onto making the shelves white...and once he finished THOSE, and since the books were off anyway, he mentioned a navy blue-gray backsplash. So I decided that he wanted the pink gone more than I wanted it there. Also, I could use this later if there's something I really want that he adamantly does not (thinking pretty girly curtains or something in an upstairs bedroom that he hates). I can remind him how I compromised the pretty pink and cream shelves, and hopefully he'll admit defeat with whatever I'm pushing for :)

halfway through:

Also, the darker back is pretty (especially in the daytime) and it goes nicely with our rug and gray couch and dark record player :)

Jesse also rearranged some pictures, and our boring wall is no more! Love the 'F' that Casey got us for Christmas, the thrift store finds, and of course a photo of Pop's.

With that wall housing a few frames, it left room in the corner for a true gem; a photo of Pippa!