Choosing Paint

A word of advice from someone who knows:
When choosing paint for you next painting project, please allow us to recommend Valspar paints. In particular, their signature series. This is something we are very passionate about. We have tried a number of paints over the years that we have been married and what we have found is that Valspar Signature Series is head and shoulders above other paint. It coats better, it doesn't run as easily, and it will cover almost anything in two coats. It is a little more expensive than other paints, but you really get what you pay for. And plus, with other paints, you end up applying more paint to get the same coverage, so you end up spending just as much.

We've used Behr and Pittsburgh, and those aren't too bad, but other brands, in particular Olympic and Dutchboy have left us wanting.

We tried to save a few bucks by going with a plain white Olympic, but we found that it didn't coat well, it was runny, and it took two gallons to do just one coat on our closets. We will be returning the third can and getting a good quality paint to finish it.

So when you get ready for your painting project, stop into Lowes and pick up a gallon or two of Valspar Signature Series and your project will be much more satisfying.

Painting - Take 2

The painting is winding down. We now only have the laundry room and a second coat on the closets left to go. We are hoping to get those finished up in the next couple of days. On another note, our power has officially been trenched in as of yesterday! That line still needs to be hooked up, so our temporary line is still the "hot" wire, but soon they will get that changed. 

Here are some more pictures of our painted rooms:

This is the girls' room. The bottom is a darker purple color (like grape soda)
and the top is a pinkish purple (like raspberry sherbet).

Our bonus room is a gray color called "Wet Pavement". Not the prettiest
room in the house, but it will definitely be good for what we intend it for.

We really like how the master turned out. Jeremy had his doubts about
whether we could pull off the stripe in here and in the girls room, but
it turned out really nice. We really like the light blue/ dark brown combination.
 A special thanks to Adam for use of his laser level! 

Bernadette and Clare were out of town this weekend. They went to stay with
Grandma Patti. We missed them a lot, but worked hard so that when they got
back, we could surprise them with their room and ours. They loved both of them.
Bernadette wanted to showcase our room in this shot.

Painting - Take 1

We are making good headway painting. As of today, Wednesday April 13th, we have the school room, kitchen, living room, dining room, office, entry way, stair well, upstairs hallway, guest room, baby room, and master bathroom completed. We still have a small amount of the girls bathroom to finish as well as the master bedroom, the girls bedroom, the laundry room, downstairs bathroom, and bonus room to paint. Also, we will put a coat on the closets. Lots left to be done, but with our great help this past weekend, we made great progress.

The school room is a pale orange.
You might notice handprints on the walls - those were intentional.

 

The bar area in the kitchen. Our kitchen, dinette, living room,
and the entry way are faint maple - a light brown color.

The living room.

The dining room is a deep red - almost cranberry in color.
However, the light coming in makes it look kind of pink in this picture.

This is a little better idea of what it looks like.

The office is a deep green. It is called Grandmother's Linen.

The stairwell and upstairs hallway are a deep
steel blue called Twilight blue. 

Bernadette shows off the upstairs hallway.

The guest room is a periwinkle. 

The baby room is a canary yellow - very springy.

The girls bathroom is a sky blue.

That is just plastic - we aren't crazy enough for a green shower... yet.

The master bathroom is a lighter olive.

Some of the colors are hard to see on a picture - the flash makes it difficult to show the real color. You'll have to come see for yourself once it is finished. We are working hard on the master bedroom and girls room as those rooms are getting a special paint job.

Cabinets

We had a little difficulty picking out our kitchen cupboards. Jeremy wanted something kind of dark - Kati didn't wan't a lot of grain to the wood. We settled on birch with a briarwood stain. Tuesday evening, a guy showed up and started hanging our cabinets. We were very excited with how well they turned out. By the way - we intentionally didn't paint the bottom of this wall as it will be covered with cabinets as well.

Getting Primed

Our painting crew showed up late Friday/early Saturday. It consisted of the 5 of us, Jeremy's mom - Patti, Jeremy's Grandma - Karen, Jeremy's brother - Adam, Jeremy's cousins - Meg and Melissa. Another of Jeremy's cousins, Abbey, watched the girls all day - they wore her out. Kati's brother-in-law brought his boys out to help with some staining as well. We didn't get a picture of them, but here are some you might enjoy.

Kati and Felicity

Meg, Grandma Karen, and Melissa taking a break

Grandma Karen, Abbey, and Patti

Melissa, Meg, Grandma Karen, and Adam

Cleanup

The drywallers are all done and so we headed in to clean up so that we could paint. Here are a few pictures from that adventure.

Bernadette helping with her dust mask on.

Clare hard at work - enjoys washing down the walls.

Felicity just wants to help.

Kati getting some air and emptying a bucket of dirty water.

Siding and Septic

We've been busy, so these updates are getting slower and slower, but we got our septic system installed. While we don't have the water to flush a toilet, it now has a place to go. Also, the new siding has arrived and they have two sides done.

The septic system is in. They had to dig three long trenches.

Our blue house - the east side of the house is now sided.

The north side is sided as well.