Accurate Record Keeping of Paint Jobs

Today I painted our bedroom. Since I did it by myself (don't bash Brian, he did most of the prep work and will help tonight with the clean-up) I had a lot of time to think. I mostly thought about how much I hate painting and realized I was standing on a tarp of nothing but painting memories.

There were drips of the green we first painted our bedroom. That painting experience isn't well documented on the tarp because at the time we had carpeting in our bedroom. Brian ended spilling a lot of paint directly on the carpet thus necessitating getting rid of it. We decided not to replace it, but rather added another room to the upcoming floor refinishing project. Since we weren't replacing it we could be as messy as we wanted to be while painting. There were drips of the light purple/gray that ended up being our bedroom color after I decided I couldn't handle the minty green color walls from the first painting experience. Incidentally, I believe that all happened in one day.

There were drips of dark brown which confused me for a little while. Then, I remembered; those were from an old POS entertainment center Brian had in college that we repainted and redesigned. This was around the time Trading Spaces was huge on tv and I believe that's where the inspiration came from.

There were drips from the Alfalfa Sprout living room and hallway, white third bedroom, the quad color scheme of the boy's room (light blue, red, green and dark blue), yellow small bathroom, purple wall in the living room and then all the painting projects from last summer that I did. I was responsible for the living room, hallway and bathroom.

Lots of memories right there on the painting tarp. I'm amazed that for someone who hates to paint as much as I do, I sure have done a lot of it!

The Ranch Goes On Tour

Late last week I got an exciting request. Stephanie, the designer of our beautiful kitchen, asked if they could use our home in the 2008 NARI Spring Remodeling Tour!! It feels so good to live in a space that someone, who doesn't live here, is so proud of they want to show it off.

The tour is going to be the first weekend in May so as soon as it dries up around here I'm going to have A LOT of work to do. The area around our house still looks like a construction zone and who knows what will come up in the flower bed next to the driveway. Not only was it deprived of water most of the summer it had a dumpster sitting practically on top of it too. At least I know there should be lots of pansies and other annuals available the last week in April. We are going to be doing a lot of last minute planting the week before I think.

The same day I committed to Stephanie I signed the contract for landscaping. While there is no guarantee the plantings can be done (really depends on what kind of spring we have) the brick work can be done as soon as all the snow melts. I was encouraged when Judy, the landscape designer, said that the outside work is a reflection of her business and so they will make an effort to get it looking presentable before the tour. I'm starting to stress a little about this!

I've had to submit "before" pictures and next week Stephanie is coming out to take new inside pictures. She took some before Christmas but now that we have the sexy new stove she's going to do new ones. Some of these pictures are going to be published in M Magazine. Stay tuned!