While we were looking for a house in our new school district last year, we had to give the candidates nicknames. Among others, there was the Moose Lodge, the Red House, and the one that became our new home: Beige Manor.

This is part of our 100 Things in 2018 challenge. Make sure to click on the photos!

We called it this because every single surface in this house was beige. The outside. The inside. The walls, the carpet, the tile, the countertops, the ceilings even. Beige inside and out.

This is not to say that beige is necessarily a bad color. If you’re a beige lover, power to you. But we aren’t, and it was one of the first things we knew we’d have to change.

Becky’s dad used to be a professional house painter, and he still keeps a big plastic tote organized with all of his supplies, including his favorite brush, which he’s been using for probably 30 years now. He volunteered to coat the inside of our house with a color of our choice, and we couldn’t turn him down.

So over the course of the last four months or so, Ken has been converting our Beige Manor into something else, and just last week he finished the final room (the laundry room). We both helped out a tiny bit, but he deserves most of the credit for this thing. Most of the walls are one of two shades of warm gray that Becky chose, and the kids each got an accent wall. It’s completely transformational, and we’re so much happier in our house now. It just feels more like us. The place probably needs a new name at this point, though.