It's a Paint Party!

One things for certain, we are not paint experts. It took us several coats, to achieve color and consistency that we wanted in the living room. And at times it seemed almost like we were going in circles (e.g.: paint the wall - get paint on the ceiling, paint the ceiling - get paint on the wall - "It's a vicious cycle!"*) But we got it done...finally...

Here's our friend, TB,  Justin & Jill in action...

The living room, painted in the creamy, warm color of Manchester Tan (from the Benjamin Moore Historical colors of course!). Don't mind the ugly white ceiling fan, it will be making its exit shortly.

And here is the finished product...

Another angle of the paint job.

I love how the color changes from grey/beige/white/cream depending on the light. How versatile!

Anyway, while the painting in the living room was going on, I assigned my sisters to paint the downstairs bathroom. I picked out this really dark teal color called "Swizzle Stick."  I was hoping for a peacock theme in bathroom with teals, blues, chartreuse, and brown.

Here are some pictures of my sisters looking less than enthused.

In hindsight maybe this paint color wasn't the best idea. 1) My sisters can't paint within the lines! (but what do you expect from free labor?) 2) Their mistakes (e.g.: paint on the ceiling) were blinding obvious due to the dark color and 3) The glossy finish of the paint combined with its dark color made every hole and bump in the walls stand out. Why I picked a gloss finish for the bathroom (as opposed to satin or eggshell), I have no clue.  Oh well. I guess this is a learning lesson for me, but heck! We are keeping it! I'm a frugal gal at heart and too much time/money/energy/paint was already spent on the bathroom paint project. And who knows? With the right accessories it might turn out nice!

*If you know what movie that line is from you get a thousand cool points! :)

New Years Cheers (and Jeers)

I hope everyone had a good and safe New Years.  Justin and I decided to partake in one of those “open bar/buffet hotel parties” for the night’s festivities.  All-you-can-drink and sometimes all-you-can-eat is usually a win-win situation.  In DC, there are so many parties to choose from.  We’ve actually done a bunch of hotel parties from Euronet’s 007 Themed Gala to Big Night DC (heck, I’ve even done Big Night San Diego many years ago).   This year we wanted to do another one, yet still be cost effective.  Now you might be thinking, how can you consider a hotel party to be cost effective, when most of them start at $100?  Well, in addition to hotel parties, we’ve also spent New Years at bars and clubs, and it’s no fun at the end of the night finding a cab to take you home.  Nothing will ruin ringing in the New Year more than standing outside in the freezing cold, wearing your party dress, and trying to haggle with cabbies on the fare.  Unless you plan on having a house party (where you can just stay in once place the entire night), hotel parties is the way to go.

After reviewing our options, we decided to go with the Passport to the World Gala, thrown by Professionals in the City.  We decided to go with this party because it had a no food option of $90 (‘cause really who wants to eat pasta that has been pawed at by hundreds of people, probably sitting there for hours?) that started at 10:30pm.  Perfect…or so we thought.

We arrived around 11:30pm and ran into some of our friends as we entered the main ballroom.  Realizing that midnight was nearing, we rushed to the nearest alcohol lines, in order to get some drinks for our toast to the New Year.  Justin got into the cocktail line and I got into the champagne line, hoping that we could meet up by midnight.  With midnight nearing, and the champagne line not moving, I was starting to get frustrated.  That is when I found out that the bar stations were only doing one drink per person.   It did us no good that we were in separate lines.  I tried darting to the line that Justin was in, but it was too late. It was an anti-climatic start to the New Year, as the clock struck midnight and I was running around looking for Justin, instead of waiting in line with him… L

Once we got our hands on some cocktails, we were none too pleased with what we got.  They were advertising “premium open bar” (YOU LIE!!!!), but the brands of liquor being served were names that I’ve never heard of (and trust me, after doing alcohol promotions for over five years, I know my liquor).  I didn’t know what vodka they were serving, but Justin said that the bourbon they were serving was Beam Eight Star, which to him is the “red headed step-child” of the Jim Beam family.  On the bright side, the lines for liquor were shorter after midnight, and the lines for beer and wine were non-existent.  Once we actually got some champagne, it was actually quite tasty.  We toured the other rooms and they seemed really dark, missing the usual disco ball/dance floor lighting.  Basically, people were dancing in dark with cheesy dance music.  Overall, we were pretty disappointed with the experience; however, because this was one of the cheapest options out of all the hotel parties, this might be an instance of “you get what you pay for.”