WARNING: Longest blog post, ever. My bad.
This post has been sitting as an unfinished draft for two weeks. I can't even begin to explain how insanely busy this month has been. Between trying to finish up grad school work before Thanksgiving (including doing 20 hours of observation at a local high school), preparing the new house to move in, packing stuff, working, and all the regular living stuff (like cooking dinner, doing laundry...) I've been absolutely nuts. No time for blogging (for real this time!). I had no idea how much work it was going to be to do all that painting at the new house. After we're done with this round, I don't think I am going to want to paint another piece of trim ever again.
Well, it's Friday, and it's been almost 4 weeks since we closed. After two solid weekends of work with help from our parents, and several after-work evening paint parties, I can say that we're almost there (kind of). I can already see that owning a house is a work in progress-- no matter now much you get done, there is always something else that you're like, "well, once everything settles down, I'm going to paint this, too. It can wait for now... but it's definitely getting painted." Or tiled. Or replaced. Or finished. And so on. And so on. Forever.
At least we're pretty much ready to move in, at this point... Which is great-- since we're doing that TOMORROW.
I've already rented the truck, and invited some people to help. I'm not sure that we will get through absolutely everything in the old house, but at least we'll get all the big stuff over there. Saturday night the paint fumes will be singing us a sweet, sweet lullaby.
Can't wait.
Anyway, I have a load more pictures from the first weekend of work. That was like two weeks ago, but whatever. I haven't been keeping up as well with the "in-progress" pictures as we've been working-- I've been sort of reluctant to grab the camera when my hands are totally covered with paint. Soon I'll have a load of "after" pictures to show you, though. And I know you are all more patient than I am, waiting to see the transformation. I might as well post these bad boys so that I can be ready when the time comes to post the rest; so here you go, a GIANT photo-dump post.
The house has this little "room" that stands in-between the dining room and the living room. I guess it's a foyer? If the house was situated differently, it would probably be the place where everyone entered the house... but since the door sits kind of awkwardly over the hill, no one really uses the door.
Anyway. We finished that room.
Here's the "foyer" before:
The foyer runs into the hallway that runs down the middle of the house. We painted them the same color, Behr's "Pecan Sandie."
Here's the hall, before:
Here's Sean, throwing a coat of paint on the walls in the foyer...
... and the hall:
We finished the foyer two weeks ago. Last weekend we tackled the trim in the hall. Holy shiz. SO. MUCH. TRIM. Here's the foyer at "almost done", and then at "done":
That door is one of those "probably gonna paint it... someday" things. It just doesn't match.
Whatever. That room looks so much better than it did with that grimy, yellow(ish?) paint.
I also have a few pictures of the pink bathroom, meeting its demise. Here's one of Melissa, primering that sponge paint into oblivion. I included a before photo, just so you could enjoy it one last time:
The master bedroom has also had its share of work. My dad came up and demolished that ridiculous closet that took up a huge chunk of the room. It's not really possible to take a picture that shows how much of the room that stupid closet took up, so here is a drawing I made to estimate the amount of carpet I'd need:
It actually went like, 3 feet into the room. The drawing shows two. Just trust me: it sucked.
Here is a picture of the closet:
And here are a few pictures of dad taking it out:
Sorry. Huge jump from "closet" to "no closet." I was painting the living room and didn't know he was actually smashing the walls of it out, or I would have been in there cheering and taking pictures.
Here's a couple of dad putting up the shelf tracks in the pantry:
And finally, here's a couple of the living room progression from hideous blue, to "Gentle Doe." (Cute, Behr. Cute.)
I know-- that "after" picture of the living room is pathetic. Sorry. It was pitch black in there, so I tried to shine a lamp on it and get a picture. I'll get a better one in the daylight.
Sorry to unload so many photos at once. The intention was to do a bunch of posts, like, one room at a time, over the past two weeks. Since I didn't get a chance to do that, you have to endure them all at once. Today I'll be taking a crap-load of "afters" before we move all out stuff in there.
There. I feel better. Now I better get back to packing.
This post has been sitting as an unfinished draft for two weeks. I can't even begin to explain how insanely busy this month has been. Between trying to finish up grad school work before Thanksgiving (including doing 20 hours of observation at a local high school), preparing the new house to move in, packing stuff, working, and all the regular living stuff (like cooking dinner, doing laundry...) I've been absolutely nuts. No time for blogging (for real this time!). I had no idea how much work it was going to be to do all that painting at the new house. After we're done with this round, I don't think I am going to want to paint another piece of trim ever again.
Well, it's Friday, and it's been almost 4 weeks since we closed. After two solid weekends of work with help from our parents, and several after-work evening paint parties, I can say that we're almost there (kind of). I can already see that owning a house is a work in progress-- no matter now much you get done, there is always something else that you're like, "well, once everything settles down, I'm going to paint this, too. It can wait for now... but it's definitely getting painted." Or tiled. Or replaced. Or finished. And so on. And so on. Forever.
At least we're pretty much ready to move in, at this point... Which is great-- since we're doing that TOMORROW.
I've already rented the truck, and invited some people to help. I'm not sure that we will get through absolutely everything in the old house, but at least we'll get all the big stuff over there. Saturday night the paint fumes will be singing us a sweet, sweet lullaby.
Can't wait.
Anyway, I have a load more pictures from the first weekend of work. That was like two weeks ago, but whatever. I haven't been keeping up as well with the "in-progress" pictures as we've been working-- I've been sort of reluctant to grab the camera when my hands are totally covered with paint. Soon I'll have a load of "after" pictures to show you, though. And I know you are all more patient than I am, waiting to see the transformation. I might as well post these bad boys so that I can be ready when the time comes to post the rest; so here you go, a GIANT photo-dump post.
The house has this little "room" that stands in-between the dining room and the living room. I guess it's a foyer? If the house was situated differently, it would probably be the place where everyone entered the house... but since the door sits kind of awkwardly over the hill, no one really uses the door.
Anyway. We finished that room.
Here's the "foyer" before:
The foyer runs into the hallway that runs down the middle of the house. We painted them the same color, Behr's "Pecan Sandie."
Here's the hall, before:
Here's Sean, throwing a coat of paint on the walls in the foyer...
... and the hall:
We finished the foyer two weeks ago. Last weekend we tackled the trim in the hall. Holy shiz. SO. MUCH. TRIM. Here's the foyer at "almost done", and then at "done":
That door is one of those "probably gonna paint it... someday" things. It just doesn't match.
Whatever. That room looks so much better than it did with that grimy, yellow(ish?) paint.
I also have a few pictures of the pink bathroom, meeting its demise. Here's one of Melissa, primering that sponge paint into oblivion. I included a before photo, just so you could enjoy it one last time:
The master bedroom has also had its share of work. My dad came up and demolished that ridiculous closet that took up a huge chunk of the room. It's not really possible to take a picture that shows how much of the room that stupid closet took up, so here is a drawing I made to estimate the amount of carpet I'd need:
It actually went like, 3 feet into the room. The drawing shows two. Just trust me: it sucked.
Here is a picture of the closet:
And here are a few pictures of dad taking it out:
Sorry. Huge jump from "closet" to "no closet." I was painting the living room and didn't know he was actually smashing the walls of it out, or I would have been in there cheering and taking pictures.
Here's a couple of dad putting up the shelf tracks in the pantry:
And finally, here's a couple of the living room progression from hideous blue, to "Gentle Doe." (Cute, Behr. Cute.)
I know-- that "after" picture of the living room is pathetic. Sorry. It was pitch black in there, so I tried to shine a lamp on it and get a picture. I'll get a better one in the daylight.
Sorry to unload so many photos at once. The intention was to do a bunch of posts, like, one room at a time, over the past two weeks. Since I didn't get a chance to do that, you have to endure them all at once. Today I'll be taking a crap-load of "afters" before we move all out stuff in there.
There. I feel better. Now I better get back to packing.
Yes, yes, yes, to the whole "it will never be finished" thing. But it will eventually look and feel like HOME, not just a house, and that makes it alll worth it.
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