Paint

Wow, last I posted about the basement was when we were about to start the sheetrock. It's done, and it looks fabulous. I really love the texture that he did. When I say "he" I mean Hector, our Guatemalan friend. He did a great job, but he was a little disappointed that we were painting it yellow. Says he's more of a red kind of guy. Haha. Anyway, that was a lovely experience of white dust everywhere, but it was thrilling to WATCH them work and not have to do a thing.

The next step was to build shelves. I thought that Dave and I would do that together, but unfortunately I scarcely remember seeing him the week that I built them, so I built them myself. Actually Isaac and Dawson helped a little bit by holding up the boards, spackling a little and I even let them fire off the nail gun a few times. (with my help of course) The shelves turned out great thanks to putty and caulk. You see, I'm not a perfectionist and that sometimes makes things a little difficult. But they really do look good now, and I got them built exactly how I wanted them (within the bounds of the studs behind them which weren't exactly where I would want them, but it was too late).

After what seemed like a million years (actually only 4 or 5 days) of caulking, spackling, and clean up, Monday came and we were ready to paint. My friend Hayley, an experienced painter, came to help me get my sprayer set up and going. Now ladies and gentlemen, this is a true blue friend. This poor girl got paint in her hair, in her mouth. It was such a mess. Her husband came and helped and they were there way too late. I was embarrassed to even talk to them again I feel like it was the worst day of their life. In the end, we didn't really get anything painted, we couldn't figure out how to make it work. I threw in the towel and vowed to hold a ceremonial bonfire with this stupid machine. My husband figured out how to clean it, and the next morning at the paint store I figured out three things to do to make it work. 1. strain the paint. 2. bigger tip for the sprayer. 3. I thinned the paint with some water. That day the sprayer worked like a charm and I got the whole basement primed with 2 coats. But a very huge thank you to the Egan family for their help in getting the sprayer going, we could NEVER have figured it out on our own as we have never even seen a paint sprayer before, we knew nothing about them.

The next day was exciting as I started color. Yellow in the main room, guest room, and bathroom. My husband helped me, and we had lots of fun with it.

Thursday I painted the kids rooms gray and the exercise room and under the stairs a color called Tavern Taupe. I think we accidentally brought Tavern Taupe with us from our last house, and it is a lovely color, but really I was just too cheap to buy more paint, so I used it for these two rooms.

Friday I woke up early to start taping for ceilings. Not really that fun. But well worth it in the end. I think I spent about 5 hours prepping for ceilings, but I got them all painted in a little over an hour. Unfortunately, I ran out of paint, and had to go get more. Did the second coat that night, and ceremoniously cleaned out the paint sprayer for the last time, only to realize that I still had to paint two closets.

Saturday morning I woke up early to unveil my ceilings and see how my lines were. Now truthfully, my lines don't matter in most of the rooms because we are doing crown molding. But I was still nervous, I think I had dreams about it all night. All alone I pulled off the tape and I honestly can say I waited for the applause to begin. My lines at the ceiling are perfect. Maybe better than some places upstairs where the professionals did it. No one clapped. It seemed unfair, because I definitely deserved applause. But I was alone. And I didn't clap for myself either. Anyway, that was a good feeling for me, I have been so stressed about the painting because everything else I've done is hidden behind sheetrock, but this was something everyone would see.

After Dave woke up and ooohed and ahhhhed at my awesome lines, we hung wallpaper on the ceiling in the theatre room. Paintable wallpaper, it's kind of a newer thing I think. We faux finished the wallpaper to look like tin ceiling tiles, and it is awesome. We wanted that ceiling to be dark to enhance movies, and it really looks great. Neither of us have ever hung wallpaper before, it was a new experience. The highlight was when our friend Josh came over who is 6'6" and he just stands there and can reach the ceiling. I, on the other hand, have to hop off my stool and move it every 30 seconds. I think it went twice as fast with him there. I'm so excited to see that room finished.

The last task we got in this day was starting the glaze in on our yellow walls. Dave and I do that together as a team, and we have different ideas of how it should look, so it would be very entertaining for anyone to watch us, but we are enjoying it, and can't wait to get it all done.

It would seem like we are almost done now, but we still have a ton to do. I am going to start finish electrical, which will be very fun. Dave is planning on laying the travertine. And we need to stain our wood and hang that. Then we need to do cabinets and finish plumbing, and we'll be very close to being done.

Here are some pictures

My lovely shelves


Notice the book shelf on the left side of Isaac's closet, he's way excited about that.


The boys closets, side by side


The red in our theatre room- notice the ceiling is only half painted. The wallpaper comes in plain white


Our tin ceiling


The boys gray room, hopefully to become Star Wars


The guest room and it's beginning of glaze- notice all the rags on the floor, lovely


Our yellow main room and arches. Welcome to McDonalds can I take your order? Whoops, I mean, they will be glazed soon and you won't feel like you're in McDonalds anymore. That big arch that you see is going to have big, red, theatre drapes behind it. I think it will be pretty cool.


That's it, can't wait to post the finished pictures.