My failure to complete projects that I start runneth over into many facets of my life. Let's take a look at what that means for our condo...
You're looking at a ceiling that I didn't want to have to repaint, so I tried my darndest not to smudge it while painting the trim. But I was painting the windows from black to white, oil to latex, which involved a lot of sanding and a lot of black dust and debris. I resigned myself and accepted that the ceiling would someday, as in the next day, need to be repainted. But the next day came and went and as long as I didn't look up, I was really happy with the way the room turned out!
Two months later, however, I was informed by my husband who just landed a new job - WOOHOO!! - that if I wanted his help, it was now or never. He only had five days before the job started.
So this was our Monday...
As much as I hate prep work, I'm insistent on removing all vent covers, switch plate covers, etc. There's nothing worse than going through the trouble to paint a wall, only to have glare at you forever the paint that scraped the edge of the light switch. So, one might wonder why the chandelier cover hasn't been removed from the ceiling prior to cutting in. The answer is real bad simple. It's that I real bad jimmy rigged that chandelier in the first place and am real bad afraid that it may come crashing down if I so much as touch it with more than a bristle of my paint brush. Ok, it's really not that insecure, but it's bad enough for me to not dare undo it until the day I want it down permanently.
Raise your hand if looking through your photo albums there are twenty pictures of your kids and husband for every one of you because you do all the picture taking. So, when John caught a wild hair and picked up the camera to take a picture of me painting, I thought, 'Should have taken that shower this morning... Well, beggars can't be choosers.'
Then I realized his sudden interest in picture taking had little to do with me and everything to do with the fact that he was way sick of painting and wanted to abandon ship on me.
But he got back on the horse.
Before you see that framed picture in the background and think we've gone overboard with our love of Annie, just know that we didn't spend a fortune on it and that I got it printed for $2.50 at Office Max on their engineer print machine. Read more about where I got that idea here and here.
By the way, this was the paint that we chose to use on all our ceilings. It's Sherwin Williams Brilliance. A few months ago I was at Home Depot and decided to repaint our bathroom, so I bought a cheap gallon of America's Best Ceiling Paint. It's not the best, despite its name. Especially after using both brands back to back, I can say with much confidence that that extra ten bucks at Sherwin Williams would be well spent. Not to mention that SW Brilliance is a much more brilliant white - I know, who would have thunk it? And America's Best is a dull white at best...also, much thinner in consistency and requires two coats, no question. SW spread better and we only needed one coat.
You're probably waiting for the 'AFTER' pictures and in that case I would recommend you reread the first paragraph of this post. I have a problem. I don't finish things.
So, here's where we are now. Kitchen cabinets are painted - did that last month. Ceilings are painted. Annie's room is completely finished as far paint goes, although no art is hung. And the walls in the kitchen and the trim aren't looking lurvly. Nor is the trim in the living room.
A lot of people have strong opinions about whether you paint the trim before the ceiling and walls, etc. If you have two planes you are painting and one of them is at all textured, definitely paint that first. For example, if you have a popcorn ceiling next to sheetrock, start with the ceiling. If you have crown molding, I think it's hard to get paint in all the grooves and waves without getting it on the ceiling, so I like to paint the ceiling last. However, I only had a ceiling painter for one day so I'll be going backwards with the trim.
And if - God help you - you are painting brick (like we did in Annie's room), DEFINITELY wait to paint the baseboard, molding, and ceiling until AFTER! It's hard to get paint into all the nooks and crannies. You end up with a brush looking like this:
Brick is rough. In every sense of the word. Rough on your brush, rough on your pocketbook and rough on your life. It took a lot more paint than planned to get great coverage and it rolled from one afternoon into a three day project. So, make sure you're good and motivated before you start. It helped us to know that as long as this project lagged on, our baby girl had to sleep at her grandparent's house. The same grandparents who tried to poison her. Kidding, mom and dad. We don't blame you. By the way, we'll let you know when the hospital bill arrives...
All that to say, I pushed through and painted her bedroom's ceiling, drywall, brick, trim, window and door with as much speed as possible. And areas in the rest of the house, like the one in the picture above, are still suffering from neglect.
Plus, we spent some much needed R&R at Grandma Mary's last night and left our trim to sulk another day.
A little peek-a-boo action at dinner:
And have I ever mentioned that Annie has a deep fascination with dogs? Dog was her first word, and when she can get a hold of them, Griffin's dog bowls are her favorite toy.
She crawls like a dog and even barks back at him on occasion...
So, being that we were outside and only minutes away from bath time, we let her indulge in doggy time!
How could you say no that this face?
But today it's back to the grind.
Oh, and a shout out to the makers of blue tape. Your product made my day. Thanks again. So glad I spent the time 'protecting' my drywall, only to have it rip off as I peeled the tape!
