The First Weekend, Part 5: Huffing Paint Fumes

Now that the walls were de-papered, de-paneled, and de-holed, we could FINALLY start painting. We started by pulling all the baseboards off, and storing them in the most obvious place: the bathroom.



At this point, we only had the bedroom and the office ready for a coat of primer. We taped plastic dropcloths over the floor of each room, to protect the nice hardwood floors. Then we painted, and painted, and painted some more. Turns out, the original dark colors are really difficult to cover up...


Bedroom, after the first coat of primer.


Bedroom, after the second coat of primer.


Office, after the first coat of primer.


Kristen's mom, starting on the second coat of primer in the office -- the next day!


Finally finished priming the bedroom and office...

So, then we started on two coats of paint. We used Glidden, flat interior, in a shade called "Wood Lily." It's a lovely off-white color, and it really picks up the warm tones in our wood floor and wood doors.


Bedroom -- all done!


Kristen's mom, putting on the finishing touches in the office.

By the end of the first weekend, we had both the bedroom and the office completely painted and ready to move into. Not that we had any furniture or anything, but still, two rooms DONE. Whew.

I (Kristen) must also mention that we had a ton of help getting to that point. Evan's parents came over not only to help us paint, but they also showed up Friday night to help us unload our moving cube. And Evan's dad has been over several evenings after work to help with projects since that weekend. Evan's sister, Eden, helped paint for several hours each day, around dress rehearsals for Madame Butterfly, in which she sang in the chorus. My mom flew out -- last minute -- from Wichita to help us paint, and take care of other details. And she was completely flexible with where she slept each night, as we didn't have hot water and thus couldn't stay at our house. And of course, Georgia was a huge help with the kitchen.

But our weekend contained even more excitement!


I thought this was a safe neighborhood?

We woke up Saturday morning, early, to find that someone had driven down our street, with a baseball bat, and smashed all the cars! My car (above) thankfully only took a hit to the trunk, but everyone else had their windows and windshields punched out, as well as dents in the bodies. But, on the plus side, we did meet all of our neighbors!