Renovating the 100 year old farm house my mom grew up in – making it a place for us to grow old in.

I called on my crew (my aunt, my mom and Joe) and we got the house clean last week. Instead of golfing on Wednesday night (like I sometimes do if I’m willing to take a night off from working on the house) we attacked the house with a fury. Between the four of us we had it emptied, swept completely and every last corner vacuumed. By the end of Thursday, with all of their help, we got all of the windows, floors and everything else that we didn’t want covered in primer/paint, cleaned and then covered in tape and plastic. I rented a paint sprayer to have from Friday night to Monday morning expecting to prime all day Saturday and then paint all day Sunday. Joe got off work early on Friday, picked up the paint sprayer, met me at the hardware store then we picked up ten gallons of primer and started with the promise that the house would be primed, ceilings, walls, everything ready for paint by the end of Friday night. An hour in and I was on my way back to town for yet another ten gallons of primer, in the end we used all twenty gallons.

Priming with a sprayer

The next morning Joe and I went to town again and picked up ten gallons of white, flat trim and ceiling paint. Note: I know, I know, not everyone would have chosen flat paint… actually most people would not have chosen flat paint but we will only be painting in flat in this entire house because its just what we like. An hour into him spraying on the white paint on the bead board ceilings and on all of the trim and he sent me BACK to town for more white trim and ceiling paint. (If you’re counting this is my fourth trip to the hardware store for primer and paint so far.) So we had already bought the two five gallon buckets of white trim paint that they had in stock so I had to buy individual gallons of the white trim and ceiling paint so I bought seven more gallons of it and just hoped it would be enough! This was father’s day weekend and they told me to get the rest of my paint by the next day (Sunday) because they were having a sale of $7 off every gallon. So, I bought six little paint samples and brought them back with me and realized I would be getting all of our paint for the whole house this weekend too! By the time I got back (with lunch in tow) Joe was two hours in and only ended up spending another hour painting before all of the trim and ceilings were done! And the glorious glorious white made the entire house light up like it was Heaven and, at least to me, it is Heaven.

Painting bead board

We pulled the tape and plastic off of the windows and went back to town to take the sprayer back and go back to the hardware store for more paint. I still was not happy with my choices for the office so I bought two more samples while they mixed the paint for our master bedroom and the rest of the house. I bought them out of flat paint so we were only able to get the two gallons for our master bedroom and four gallons (out of six) for the rest of the house so we ordered and paid for what they didn’t have in stock. After that Joe and I called it a night. The next morning I went back to the hardware store and bought two more samples for the office and finally had my office color, it only took six samples to get it right argh! So then I went back to the hardware store (seventh time since Friday night!) and bought/ordered my color for the office finally! While I was gone Joe taped the Master bedroom’s ceilings and trim off and we decided that, what the hell, we might as well get that floor painted and finished. In a couple of hours we did just that and the entire second floor of the house was finished! (Sorry, no pics yet of the master. We hope to get the rest of the house painted this week then I will post pictures!) It was time for a well deserved break so we treated ourselves to margaritas and Mexican food.

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