A Cure for Old House Smell

We have been in our new house a little over a month now, we love it, but there’s one thing I don’t love about it … it smells… like an old, musty house. I have tried EVERYTHING to get  smell I get a whiff of everytime I walk in the door. Candles, Scentsy warmers, plug-ins, Febreze, oils, and even baking soda in several different rooms but nothing got rid of it. The smell would be masked, but it would be like Pumpkin Pie Spice … and old house smell.

So I painted. I found a color that I loved, which I will show you a little preview of tomorrow, and I was just about ready to go to Lowe’s and pick up some paint there because I had a coupon.  Well, I couldn’t find my coupon, so I remembered another coupon to True Value I had found in my last issue of Family Circle. And I realized that the store was only 1/2 mile from my house, even better.

I ran into True Value, found the best priced paint I could afford, used my coupon, bought it in a hurry because I had two tired kids with me, put the kids down to bed and got ready to paint. While I was opening the paint, I noticed it said something about “odor eliminator”. That caught my eye, so I read on and lo and behold, it said it eliminated odors, and even showed a cool little picture with the odor molecules disappearing. I felt some hope, it must have been my day.

Well, it’s been two weeks since we’ve painted and guess what?? I walk in the door now and I love that I don’t smell old house anymore.  So what is this miracle paint ? It’s called Dutch Boy Refresh. It’s been on the market for a couple of years, but I’ve never had this problem before and didn’t really pay much attention to it. I know you can buy it at Wal Mart for around $22 a gallon and True Value for $25. If you have a subscription to Family Circle, there is a coupon in there for $5 off a $25 purchase, so you can get a gallon of paint for around $20, which is a pretty good price!

So I’m not counting on it lasting forever, the smell will probably come back, or maybe it will be so gradual that I won’t notice it, or maybe it’s even all in my head, but for now I’m happy that it all worked out and I ended up choosing Dutch Boy because that’s not the first thing I notice anymore when I come in my front door is how bad my house smells. One less thing to stress about and cross of my list.

Also, on a totally different note, I LOVE fall and it poured all weekend here so it got me in the mood to put up my fall decorations. I am linking up to Layla’s fall mantel party tomorrow, where you can also see a preview of the color I chose. I love it and I hope to see you there! Have a great Monday.