As Dull as Watching Paint Dry, Literally...

[Heidi & Milton]

All my life has been lately is paint/grade, paint/grade, paint a LOT, and grade some MORE!  This old house is an awful lot of work.  It seems to have come at a bad time when I have endless stacks of multiples of 94 papers in the crush of work prior to Christmas vacation.  It hasn't even felt like Christmas around here because Jeff and I have been working so hard.  We have not dabbled in the traditional Elf viewing or seasonal shopping outings.  We have been moonlighting as painters in the evenings and the weekends, often staying at the house until 2 A.M. on Friday and Saturday nights!

Milt likes to lie on our drop clothes and chew what he can find.

What's the rush?  Our apartment lease is up January 7th, and we have very few weekends to accomplish everything especially with travels to both Louisiana (to drop the Milt with his grandparents and later pick up), as well as New York to visit my family.  We feel the pressure.

Milton likes to take his rightful spot in front of the fireplace

For our color scheme, (as I like to explain it), we are going with sun (yellow) all throughout the house, sky (bright blue) in our bed and bath, and grass (mint green) in the guest bed and bath.  Picking the exact shade of paint that I had envisioned was more difficult than I would have ever thought.  The yellow is too pale and the blue is too bright, and hopefully when I pick the mint it will be just right.  After a few weeks though, I am certain the walls will just fade into the background.

A temporary declaration of love in the kitchen

Painting is not cut and dry in our household.  Jeff is absolutely fastidious with the details.  Here are the steps of painting for us per room, and we are painting 10 rooms total!:  spackle all the cracks, texturize the cracks, sand the cracks, tape the important parts, edge around the important parts, roller the walls, return for edge touch ups, return for roller touch ups, sweep, scour floor for drips and clean.  When I think I'm almost done, I'm not because Jeff the Taskmaster creeps in and spots something that needs a little more work...  Oh, joy.

The outside looking in

While we paint, the Milt can be in the room if we are prepping or working up high, but when the rollers come out, the Milt is banished to the outside which he is not too fond of.  To think that this doodle now has his very own yard, and all he wants to do is scurry back inside with his Momma and Daddy.  At least he gets to bark  at the neighbors a bit while he's out there, so it could be worse...!

To read more about Milton the Goldendoodle visit www.goldilocksandherdoodle.com

[Jarka, Monty & Auggie]

Your house is beautiful. Can't wait to see pictures when it's all done. Hang in there!

[BG and Gavin]

It looks great and Milt looks right at home.  A little yellow goes a long way.  I have yellow myself and a decorator told me to pick the shade I wanted, then go one shade lighter.  I did and she was right.  Once you live with it you will see :)

[F, Calla & Luca]

The house looks lovely as do the colors.

[Deanna & Desi & Cori]

I feel your pain!  After 30 years in our house, my husband decided we "needed" to move.  We bought a house just 7 miles away.  It needed a complete facelift!!  We stayed in the old house while contractors redid all but the bathrooms.  That was hard enough - I can't even imagine doing the work ourselves!  We're now in the new house, with construction continuing on two of the bathrooms.  I just keep reminding myself that it will be worth it!

Your new house is beautiful!!!

[Kaytlin and Cooper]

ooooh you just threw me into reality - we get the keys for our new house jan 3rd and have to be out of our rental 31st dec (we are staying at the inlaws for a few days with a truck full of our stuff). I keep telling myself we will only paint the areas that really need it.... youve made me realize ill end up doing it all, just like DH wants to!

Enjoy your new home!

[Janie, Jackson and Jilly]

It's coming along nicely! Just think how great it will look when the work is done! How many rooms left to paint?

 

Lucy and Sophies Mom - you sold it after 4 years? ouch! lol

[Lucy & AnnaBelle's Mom]

Many years ago DH designed our "dream home" from scratch, drew up the plans, I changed them (many times), then he built a 3d replica of the house so I could have a vision, then I changed it again.  Finally, after a year of working on the plans, we started the construction phase.  We were building the home ourselves.  By that I mean, we were digging the holes, sawing the boards, hammering the nails, etc.  We were both working full time and worked at the house every night after work and all week-end long for 9 months.  It was an exhausting schedule.  That year during the Christmas season DH had no time to Christmas shop.   One afternoon he said he had to go to the lumber yard and I said I'll go with you and he said no, that he had to do his Christmas shopping.  I was like "there is nothing at the lumber yard I want for Christmas.  He said I would like it, just take his word for it.  On Christmas morning I unwrapped his package and found a wall hanging made out of wood that said "I owe u" and I just looked at him.  He said turn it over and there it said "shopping".  He said I didn't have time to shop so I owe you some shopping!  It still hangs on our wall to this day as a reminder of the wonderful times we had building our dream home that we ended up selling and moving away from after 4 years.  So, just enjoy the experience as it is one you will talk about fondly 30 years from now.