Big Project!

A couple weeks ago I decided we needed to paint our house...it was all white walls...which I liked for the first little bit, but after 2 years of white walls, it started feeling a little sterile. AND I thought it might help with making renters feel like they were in a home rather than in an apartment. Hank said that if I wanted to do a big project like that, then it was going to be my baby...plus he has NO time really to spend on it! SOOOO...I got to work. Drawing pics of every wall, measuring every distance, trying to pick the perfect colors, going through rolls and rolls of tape, moving furniture, painting, removing tape, touching up, rearranging furniture, redecorating, and all the ugly details in between each of those! It was a BIG project. We got most of the painting done within 3 days...but it took about 3 more days to finish all the touch ups and put the house back together. Our room was a disaster and our bed was pulled apart, so we had to sleep on our futon for a couple nights! (It reminded me of when we first moved into the house and we didn't have a bed...we slept on that futon for over a week!) SO, after all that blabbing...here are some pics.....

BEFORE...here's what the house has looked like for almost 2 years

Taping everything off and starting to paint

First coat done...(it was scary cuz when we only had the first coat, I didn't like the color. I thought, "Oh, know...what did I do!?!?") But then we put the second coat on and the color really came out and now I really like it!

I had the paint brush to do the edges and Hank had the roller. He would work and study until I was done with moving furniture and prepping the walls and taping everything off...then he'd take time away from all his deadlines to help me with the paint! He was so nice...I even kicked him out of the office for a day so I could get that room painted...that put him behind a little bit and he had to work really hard to catch up! He's super sweet to me! I HEART HANK!

TADAAAAA...Here she is....Newly painted. Butter and Sage. (those aren't the "official" paint names, but basically that's what the colors are! We rearranged the furniture...pulling the TV out of the corner opens up the room a LOT more!

So....I've learned a lot during this process....

-It's a lot more time consuming than you think

-If you have kids....I don't know HOW you'd be able to get it done without kicking them out of the house all day!

-If you're kitchen is unusable because you have your table pushed in front of the fridge and sink...it's okay to eat out so you don't starve!

-and the BEST PAINTING TIP IS...buy a small can of polyurethane. It's a clear coat that you put on all the edges between your tape and the wall you want to paint. It dries clear, even if it soaks underneath the tape...then, when you paint, the paint color will not leak through. Result: Crisp straight edges that need little or NO touch up! IT WAS A LIFE SAVER!