Color Anyone?

We have been working overtime to paint the house, along side our painters. After much angst, we painted the front two rooms two shades of green -- the dining room is a dark green and the living room is a medium green. You can see the two shades in this picture:


The painters painted the new part of the house. After about 12 samples of color, I finally chose a yellowish color. Every time I go into the house I like it more. I think it is bright and really makes the family room and kitchen look nice. It goes quite well with the cabinet color as well. You can see the color against the cabinets here:


Our latest color issue is the color of the trellises. As you can see in the pictures below, they are next to the green and brown of the porches. So, should be paint them green or brown? If you have an opinion, just email me so that I can add your input to my continuing obsession over color. Next week, obsessing over the color of grout!

Trellises

Todd, Matt and Jim worked together on Thursday and Friday to build the trellises over the kitchen window and the windows and doors in the master bedroom. They add some nice character to the house -- they are very in keeping with the style and do in fact help shade the windows. Of course, now I have to paint them, which will take awhile since they have so many nooks and crannies. I will definitely have lots of practice painting when this remodel is over!

A Very Laborious Labor Day

Obviously we didn't get the memo that Labor Day was supposed to be a day off. We spent the whole weekend working on the front two rooms. On Saturday, we fixed all the holes, sanded the spackle, tsped the walls and got it all ready to paint. We then spent the next two days painting the walls and ceilings. The painter told us to put 25% of the color that is going on the walls on the ceiling, so Saturday we painted the ceilings light green. I have to admit that I was totally freaking out at how green the ceilings looked when we went home on Saturday night. It was totally awesome how once we painted the walls, the ceilings looked white! We are going to do that in the rest of the house too, because adding a little color to the ceiling makes it look much less stark against the walls and gives the optical illusion of white ceilings. By the end of the weekend, we got both the dining room and the living room painted -- both of them are green, with the dining room really dark. The best part is that the whole family worked on the paint! The girls were actually a really big help.

It's Starting to Look Like a Kitchen!

We started with our great wood cabinets, which you can see in the picture above.

The painters have been working hard on the cabinets, staining and clear coating them, and they look fabulous. They had to take off all the doors, pull out all the shelves, and get all the shelves together, before taping off the insides of the cabinets. It took them an entire week to prep the cabinets, stain them, coat them, sand them, and then coat them again. You don't realize how many pieces there are in the cabinets until they are all spread out. When they were working on the doors, they hung them all up individually so that they could dry without touching anything. Molly said that her room looked like the big store room of closet doors in Monsters, Inc. You can see what she means in the picture below:


The other exciting thing that happened last week was the installation of the soapstone counter tops. They are so cool! We had this huge slab for the island, so it took three guys to bring it in and lift it up.



Now, it has all come together and looks like this:



Next stop, interior paint!

A New Sewer Line

Finally, the big thing on Jake's list is under way. We desperately needed a new sewer line -- the old one was getting crushed by the roots of a big tree and had almost completely collapsed in the street. It is not cheap, however, since they need to dig up most of the street to get to the main sewer line and then repave 5 feet in each direction. Of course, we have had the mildest summer on record and they chose today -- the hottest day of the entire year with temperatures in the high 90s -- to start digging up the street. Equally painfully, they waited until the first day of school to block off the street and make a big mess. All we really care about, though, is that they get it done! We can't wait to not need to rout out our sewer line every 2-3 months, usually at 10 o'clock at night!

By the Sweat of Our Brows

The exterior of the casita is all painted by the sweat of our brows. My mom came out and stayed with us for a week to help me by taking care of the kids and running errands and stuff, but she went above and beyond the call of duty by helping to paint too. The regular painters are there right now and they couldn't believe my mom out there painting -- our work got their seal of approval.

The building looks really nice. The exterior is the same color as the house. I painted most of it with a roller and brush, so I am now intimately acquainted with it. The underside of the eaves is the same as the trim color on the main house, and the green and brown will be the same on the main house as well. It took forever to do that green and brown trim -- the darker colors just don't cover as well. We all think it looks really great, however. The brown posts and beams really look sharp. My painting clothes now have many colors of paint on them!

Exterior Paint -- What a Difference!

I know I am late in posting this blog -- we were gone for a week and then I have been spending the last week working hard on the house. The painters are here, and they spent last week painting the exterior of the house. As you can see, the paint makes the house look awesome! The tiles really pop and the colors match well. The painters have moved on to the inside -- I'll post the pictures of the staining of the cabinets in progress soon. All I can say right now is that it is a really messy process, with stain getting everywhere. Also, you can't really appreciate how many doors and drawers are in your cabinets until they are spread out drying everywhere in the house! The painters are really nice guys, who are working super hard to make everything look great.

I have been working hard painting the exterior of the casita. I'll post some pictures soon on that as well. I have also spent a lot of time finishing the trim in the old section of the house. We chose to put up craftsman trim in the new section (see previous post), so I needed to make the old section match. Fortunately the contractor ended up doing some of the old section, so all I needed to do was finish the hall and do the trim around the doors and windows in the living room and dining room. It's lucky I only had to do a little, because I am really slow at it. Molly took a picture of me taking down the old trim around the front door, which you can see below. In fact, Molly took all the pictures posted in this blog.



As a little extra info, the big patch of drywall next to the door is where we had to retape the drywall after fixing all the dry rot around the front door. Also, at the right in the picture you can see the terrible louvered doors that they installed on my laundry closet the first time around -- we have much better doors now.