Sayonara dark '70s molding!

The snow is gone (almost!), the family's gone, and now it's just me by myself at The House of Goodwill.  After a week's delay by the big snow storm, I am ready to get to work again!

Of all the rooms in the house to paint, the entryway is one of the biggest, because it contains a total of 2 windows, and 8 doorways.  Plus molding circling the room on the floor, chair rail and ceiling.  In addition to all this molding (the most time consuming portion to paint, by far), there is wallpaper to strip and the walls to paint.

About a third of it is already done.  The door frames to the bedroom and hallway were painted when I worked on those rooms.  And I spent a week last summer painting two of the closet door frames, one window and part of some wall/ceiling molding.

But there's still a lot left!

Yesterday I got it all deglossed and ready to paint.  (My least favorite part.)

So once this post is up, I'm off to put on the first of the five coats of white paint.

I've been waiting FOREVER to tackle this room, and I am so excited about it!!

Here's where it's at right now:

My husband built this platform for me over the spiral staircase so I can put the painting ladder on top.

He's quite talented! 😍

Oh, this dark entryway!

I swear, I'm adding skylights eventually!

In the meantime, we'll see what lightening the paint can do...

Here is the double door entrance to the living room and a small coat closet.

Looking into the entry from the hallway.

There is one bedroom off to the left, and the living room entry and three small closets on the right.

It's hard to believe that this dark, dark molding was ever considered a good look.  As I tell my son - who constantly tells me that Birkenstocks worn with black, ankle-length socks is a legitimate style - not everything that is popular looks good.  Just because something is in style, doesn't mean it has style - at least not to me.

Ironically, I'm actually not a huge fan of white molding.  I actually prefer stained wood; I just love the look.  But there was no way to lighten the stain of the molding (at least to my knowledge) and anyway, all the color choices I'm using in this house are an attempt to lighten it up.  And it's working so far!

Incidentally, it's really weird to be in a house without even a dog.  This silence feels so foreign.

But enough of this for now.  It's time to paint!