One More, Plus, Some Time Off

We got two coats of paint on the master bedroom this week/weekend. Here's a before and after:

Before and After

What we did: removed 3 kinds of wallpaper, spackled, sanded, primed, painted 2 coats on the ceiling, and painted 2 coats on the walls of Behr's "Dusty Olive."

It turned out really well. As we started painting, I was worried it was going to be too evergreen, but the color dried to a nice green with blue/grey undertones.

Sunday, I drove out to the house, but I just didn't have it in me. I putzed around for a while, cleaned a few things, thought about painting a third coat on the kitchen, and ended up outside, hacking the last of the ice off the driveway from the freezing rain the weekend before.

Then I headed back to the condo, edited a manuscript for a while, and watched a movie with the husband.

We're feeling close to being ready to move in, and we have a couple people lined up who would like to rent the condo, so just pray that everything goes smoothly over the next month or so, especially since my husband has started working a few hours at his summer job, and therefore is even more busy!

And, my evenings are so busy, I won't be at the house again this week until Thursday. Eek. Well, it will get done eventually, one way or the other. Wish us luck as we start the final push! :-)

More Before and Afters

Things are moving along at the house. We still need to paint the kitchen, 2nd bath, and master bedroom before I'll really feel like we can "relax" a little.

But here are a few more "before and afters."

Family room

Before and After In the family room, we painted two coats on the ceiling, spackled holes and sanded, put two coats of the same grey on the walls as is in the living room (Sherwin Williams "Morris Room Grey"), and painted the beadboard white. We still need to replace that gorgeous green carpet, so please ignore its hideousness.

Entry

Before and After

Again, please ignore the ugly green carpet on the stairs. In the entry, we

removed wallpaper, spackled holes and sanded, primed the walls, and put two coats of Behr's "Havana Cream" on the walls, and painted two coats on the ceiling. It's quite reactive to light, sometimes looking straight-up cream, and sometimes more heavily the yellow I really wanted. You can see in the "after" picture of the front door just how different the shade can be. It's quite light on the wall closest to me, but above the door, it looks more yellow. Overall, a nice, calm color that I'm pleased with.

Before and Afters
and
I Got Hacked

My dad and sister called this morning to let me know my email got hacked. Which meant my Facebook account got hacked as well. Which meant that by 8:15 this morning, I was a great big ball of sunshine [read sarcasm].

I'm hoping both Gmail and Facebook can restore my accounts, or at least shut them down so the hacker claiming to be me can stop sending emails that I'm stuck in London and I need money. Never even been to London, folks.

On a cheerier note, we now have two rooms in our house finished. Here are a couple before and after pictures.

Dining room:

Before and After Living Room:

Before and After

The dining room was a major pain because we had to remove two chair rails, two kinds of wallpaper, repair the wall where the chair rail had been affixed, sand, spackle, spackle, sand, prime, etc. (The blue in the dining room is much bluer in real life.)

The living room was "easier" because we only had to prime the walls and put two coats of white on the trim (which was previously cream) before we painted the walls. There was some spackling and sanding, but not to the extent of the dining room.

Voila. Two rooms done. Lots to go.

February 1, Again

Last year on this day, I posted why I hate February.

This year, I'm heading into February on a decidedly more positive note. I still hate all of those things about February. And it looks like tonight and tomorrow will be blizzardy. But this year, I'm going to try to think of things that are good about February.

1. I don't have to remove any more wallpaper. Most of the walls in our house are prepped and ready to be painted. Not that we don't have a thousand other things to do, so the painting probably won't go as quickly as I think it will, but we're close.

2. I'm writing a novel this month! It's my fourth, but this time I'm taking a class on novel writing, so I have structure, a general plan, and 18 people to cheer me on as we go through this together. And my main character works in a bakery, so I get to write about baked goods all the time. Yum.

3. It's my birthday in a couple weeks. I'm not a real fan of big celebrations, but we've been working on the house so much lately, Kent and I haven't had a "date night" that doesn't include painting or sanding in over a month. My birthday is a great excuse for us to go out.

4. Okay, I couldn't come up with a fourth, but at least I tried.

Hope you all have a lovely start to your February!