Paint, Paint, Paint the House

LAST week, while I was feverishly sewing, Aunt Mindy came to visit and paint the family room and our bedroom/bathroom including trim.  It was really nice having her here for pretty much a week.  She came in on the Thursday before Memorial Day, went home Saturday evening, came back Monday morning and then left again Thursday. 

She was amazingly laid back about it and worked around our family schedule very well.  And she was VERY patient with me hemming and hawing over what color to choose.  The first color that I had chosen (and purchased) for the family room looked mint green when it got on the wall.  Mindy had spent about an hour “cutting in” (doing brushwork up close to the trim) before I managed to look at it.  Mindy reminded me that I had originally chosen a darker color but was nervous about putting it on the wall.  She went back to Home Depot for me to have them darken what we had.  Unfortunately, the darker color uses a different base, so adding color to the paint we had just made it darker and more yellow and, well, just as bad but in a different way.  She encouraged me to go get my first choice while she watched the kids.  She didn’t seem the least bit unhappy that she had just spent so much time painting a color I had chosen and then rejected.  Thankfully, that was the ONLY time I changed my mind about it.

She even took Thomas under her wing and taught him better roller technique than I have.  He was in charge of painting everything from the middle of the wall down, and Mindy took care of everything above that.

I’m not sure how well you can tell from the picture, but the walls went from dark beige to leaf green in the family room.  The bedroom/bathroom is similar but a little darker and more sage looking.  The color matches well with the quilt Mom made and is called “restful.”  I didn’t have to change my mind on that one though!  I chose well from the beginning. 

By now the family room is pretty much reassembled and much tidier than it was before.  We are still missing the picture over the mantle, but I’m sure it won’t take but a few minutes to re-hang it once we think about it when we have the time to do so.

The bedroom is slowly but surely getting back into shape.  We’ve been sleeping with the bed in the center of the room like an island with all of our furniture surrounding it.  It just goes to show how big our bedroom is that we could still get in and out of bed and walk around our island of furniture.   Every day Michael puts one more piece of furniture back where it belongs.  Every morning Gloria comes in and tells us, “Put bed a wall.”  I think that the bed is the last thing that still needs to be moved at this point, but Gloria has been nagging her daddy about it.  She must be practicing for when she gets married.

Mindy is gone now.  I miss having her around.  She’s really a neat person and I wish I had more time to just visit with her and talk.  If you ever need your house painted, I highly recommend hiring her.  She prices fairly and does good work.  She’ll even travel to do it.  Now if only I could pick out a good color for the hall…