Painting

There are moments when I get so frustrated that we aren't doing more projects around the house.  I make a mental list of everything that needs to be done, and we haven't started any of it, and I get antsy, feeling like we need to do something.  So I look around at what I can do, without help, and launch in.  Sometimes I am awarded for my efforts, and sometimes I'm stymied.

This past weekend, I was rewarded.  Kent has not liked the paint color in the entryway/stairwell/upstairs hallway since the moment we began painting, and the longer we've lived with it, the less I've liked it.  It was too dark and didn't go with the rest of the house, and I wanted to paint.  I was planning on doing it while Kent was at World of Concrete so he would come home to a change, but I didn't want to paint without giving him some input on the color.  So I mentioned that I wanted to do it and asked what color he thought would be good.  He said yellow, I got a bunch of samples, and he chose two he liked.  I painted squares in the entryway, on the stairs, and in the hallway to see which we liked better, and we didn't agree.  He liked the paler yellow, a sort of lemon sorbet color.  I liked the darker yellow, more a lemon curd color.  I thought we needed a higher fat content color to go with the richer colors in the rest of the house.

On Friday last I spent all my kid-free time taping and papering in preparation to paint.  I did do more than is usually required, but I knew that the children would want to help paint, and that I didn't want to be cleaning up huge paint messes, so I covered lots of surfaces really well.  And on Saturday we painted.  The kids helped for a bit with the first coat in the entryway, and then friends came over and they played, leaving Kent and me to paint in peace.

We got two coats done by about 5:00pm, and after dinner I took off all the tape and paper.  I absolutely love the color which brightens up all the space and which looks much better with the other colors in bedrooms and in the family room and living room.  Unfortunately, the second coat was not enough to cover the dark orange that was there previously.  Sunday morning I could plainly see dark splotches all over the walls where the paint hadn't adequately covered.  I was going to need to do a third coat.  Kent said, "Don't paint again.  It's fine.  Let it go."  But I knew that every time I looked at the walls--so every day--I would be unhappy with the coverage and want to paint again.

This week I put on a third coat, doing the entryway and hallway on Thursday, and the stairwell today.  I am so happy I did the extra work.  I didn't retape so it took a long time to do the cutting around the ceiling, baseboards, and casings, but it looks so much better.  The end result is worth all the extra effort.  It makes for a very cheery, sunny entry.  It's a small change that has made a huge difference.

Happy helper painters.