Rethinking It

One of the perks of having a house that's 80% done is that you can still make significant changes that don't require major effort. Looking back at November and December, we were very much in "git 'er done so we can move in as soon as humanly possible!" mode. We have now been living in the house for almost four months, and RJ has pretty much recovered from his plantar fasciitis/bone spur repair. It still aches at the end of the day, and probably will for a while as with any foot surgery. Though fortunately, the pain is nothing like it used to be. In any case, he's full speed ahead for a job that must be completed in a month. My point: the time he has to work on our house is very limited.

I wasn't planning on repainting anything this week. We'd talked seriously about the fact that we should. The jewel tone color (almost ruby) I'd picked for the ceiling, once paired with antique white walls, red oak flooring and the blue stained pine in the kitchen, looked...well, terrible. The photo I'd used as my inspiration had a jewel tone ceiling with the stark white walls and trim of an old city apartment. But our house had way too many other colors and tones going on to pull the ruby color off successfully.

Unexpectedly, while I was in Denver last week for an acting job, the friend who I was staying with gave us a $30 gift card and a five gallon bucket of unused primer as a house warming gift. Awesome. When I got home to Creede on Tuesday, I figured what the hell. In a month, Creede Rep would be starting up and I'd have no time to do stuff like this. We had about two gallons left of the color we painted the walls initially (vanilla bean) and I had free primer. I spent the gift card on a couple gallons of a lighter white (to lighten the vanilla bean juuuuuust a smidge), some paint tray liners and super shitty rollers (more on those later). After my gift card, the grand total was only $16! Yes!

Now, it wouldn't be a Berry Mann blog post if I didn't point out something that sucks about this process. I don't know if any of you have ever painted a ceiling, but it sucks balls. I've gotten better at it. I'm more comfortable using an extender and roller kit. But it's a damn hard job and quite a shoulder workout. Your neck gets sore from constantly looking up, and using your upper body to smoosh paint all over the ceiling is not an action the occasional painter is used to. And you have to be somewhat coordinated or you'll get paint everywhere and in places you DON'T want it to go. (Side note: When not feverishly rushing to move into our house, I found taking things slowly makes for a much better job done.)

That said...about the shitty rollers. RJ had told me to buy the nice rollers but I didn't listen. Ms. Budget-Friendly thought, oh, the cheap three pack is okay it's just primer plus I can just throw them out when I'm done. FAIL! The thing about shitty rollers is--they don't hold much paint, they streak and run and are just altogether terrible things of the devil. But when a fantastic roller cost $5 for one, and the crappy ones cost $5 for three...well, we all make mistakes. The unfortunate result being, (though I did buy a better roller for the actual paint) there are visible roller marks all over the ceiling. The good news is that it's a very light color and not terribly noticeable unless you feel like starting at our ceiling. And it makes the house look old, which is an aesthetic RJ and I like. But I learned my lesson with the cheap rollers. Never again. NEVAH!

After you spend 4 1/2 hours priming over a ruby colored ceiling, the painting is like heaven. Paint is thicker, it goes on more smoothly and therefore takes less time. So, I had the whole thing finished in another three hours.

But why stop there?! I mean, the tarp and paint supplies are already out, the furniture is moved out of the way, let's do it! RJ and I met at the local hardware to look at paint colors for the wall. We'd talked about an orangish red for the living room. It would bring out the beautiful red oak in the floor and still create the visual pop I'd intended with the failed ruby ceiling. For an additional, yet reasonable 40 bucks, I walked out with a gallon of "Crush" and a cheap gallon of a mis-mix to use as a primer. A mis-mix occurs when a paint color doesn't turn out right and/or isn't what the customer wanted. They'll sell it for a big discount just to get it out of there. Oddly, this particular mis-mix was eerily similar to the ruby color we JUST painted on the ceiling. Weird. In any case, I was off!

Why the hell use a ruby colored primer you may ask! There is yet another crappy thing about painting I learned about while finishing the outside of the house last May. One would logically think that a dark color would easily cover over a lighter one. It's actually the opposite. If your primer isn't darkened, you'll spend the entire day putting on coat after coat after coat to cover that light color. For the siding we had them put as much black as possible into the white primer, so it would be grey. For those of you who've seen those photos, you'll notice this. And while a second coat is usually needed to even everything out, red covers grey easily. And actually...any darker color will work.

Clockwise from top left: 1. Priming ceiling. 2. Priming finished. 3. Ceiling painted and wall primer on (bizarro). 4. Finished! (Well...you know)

While hanging the artwork back up tonight, I found that with a colorful wall, I no longer needed the "art wall". I moved several pieces to other parts of the house. And honestly, even though we still have no trim or baseboard (yes, yes, RJ knows!), it's feeling more and more like home. And I keep being reminded that I really like making things!

A novel thought. Art in the dining room. 

Little extra awesome things:

We moved the refrigerator out of the center of the kitchen and it looks way better. After living with the small retro fridge at the cabin, a modern day side-by-side seems HUUUUGE. It had become the focus of the kitchen and that shit just ain't right.

We have drawers in the kitchen! RJ spent most of Tuesday making them perfect. We still need doors on the cabinets (as well as the rest of the cabinets) but it's the little things, folks.

As the weather is getting warmer, I installed screens on all the windows we have screens for. Colorado may not have many mosquitos, but man does it have flies. Horrid creatures. I spent 30 minutes Tuesday night chasing about seven of them around with a fly swatter. Dagnabbit. Screens!

Now I just need some baseboard and trim...someday.