Was it Really a Surprise?

We have lived in the house for 1.5 years. Ahh....1 year and 9 months. In that time I have talked about wiping out the beige that covered every wall of the house - oooohh.....ummm...like every month. In fact, I do believe if we were to scroll back through the blog entries we would find SEVERAL references to how much I wanted to paint all the rooms in the house. We did the basement this time last year when it was refinished - okay, we didn't, but Tony and his crew did. Granted the walls were Brand New and had to be painted so we chose the COLORS that we wanted (I use capitals for COLORS because beige is not a color and should be in small letters - making a distinct difference in my Love for Color). Then last spring? Maybe spring into summer - I started the process of painting all our bedrooms. It was spring - I distinctly remember BigGuy complaining and us trying to get our bedroom done before some weekend school related event going on. Yes, I mention BigGuy complaining. He Does Not Like To Paint. Which probably explains why after getting done with the bedrooms (they turned out great - even BigGuy was happy we did it) we were supposed to segway into the first floor rooms. Never happened. I got tired of all the "murally" painting in the bedrooms and then without any back up enthusiasm about painting (meaning BigGuy supporting me) we just never did it.

I did however make a plan for that finish work (as I liked to think of it since I see it as the "end" of painting - at least for awhile - BigGuy points this out on every occassion he can). It was to start in Sept. after the kiddo's went to school. Only life happened and again - BigGuy didn't seem excited. So I set the plan for November so when we had people in for all the events in late November & early December we could WOW them with our new look. Only BigGuy didn't think that was a great idea. Drat - I was Shelved again. And BigGuy didn't seem to mind at all.

Skip to this past Friday. I am pretty certain that I talked about painting since Christmas ended. "We will get started in Jan." "Do we have the money to buy paint this weekend?" "What do you think about these colors for the room?" All these things made it seem apparent to me we were painting - very soon. Then Friday we dropped the boys off at preschool and headed to Lowes. AND PICKED OUT PAINT!! BigGuy helped - he seemed okay with me picking the colors and the guy behind the counter was helpful too - he seemed a tad more into it then BigGuy. And we WERE picking color -
Terra Cotta Trail - 2 cans please
Secluded Garden - 1 can please
La Fonda Antique Red - 1 can please
Safari Sun - 1 can please
Florentine Clay - 2 cans please

First thing Saturday morning I was pulling off light plates, outlet plates, taping the white trim, prepping the room by moving furniture and starting to cut in. My plan was to do as much as I could by myself. If I didn't bother BigGuy then he wouldn't complain. I knew he would show up eventually and help get the high spots. And he did. On Saturday he actually started helping very early on. I was happy. However, part way through he made a comment about how my painting just "Comes on like a Storm" - huh? Maybe a storm that rolls in so slowly that you see it coming FOREVER!! and you wonder when the heck the rain drops are going to fall and why it hasn't happened already!! Where is the reality in not knowing that for the last 1 year and 9 months we would be painting all our rooms on the first floor? I knew the rooms were marked for that day - the paint in the garage kinda solidified it for me.

Again though - BigGuy didn't complain - he just seemed baffled that we were painting after just buying the paint the day before. Hmmmm......is there a time line - should we have waited another month AFTER buying the paint?

Who knows - but here is a Before & After on the first 2 rooms down. The Kitchen is a whole other blog!