Notes From the Bottom of a Paint Can

I know I said I wasn't going to spend a lot of time posting about home improvements, but I'm afraid that's pretty much all that's been going on around here.

The young(ish) couple we bought our new house from had some very definite ideas about home decorating. One, unfortunately for us, was that walls need to be painted with very dark, saturated colors. The dining room was a dark salmon color with an even darker stripe about 24 inches wide of what could only be called "oxblood" (about the color of a pair of Bass Weejuns). The oxblood color even extended to a square in the center of the ceiling. Two of the walls in the master bedroom were deep brown, and the living room and my new sewing room were blue.

I was optimistic enough to think that a couple of coats of our preferred cream-colored paint would have the place looking light and airy in no time. We began painting over New Year's weekend. And painting. And painting. By the time we had applied the third coat (primer, then two coats of regular paint) to the dining room and we were still seeing shadows through the paint I was getting a mite discouraged.

My daughter and her husband came to the rescue this past weekend. My daughter worked for two summers on the paint crew for the local school system and she actually enjoys painting, even the cutting in around the woodwork and the ceilings. The two of them brought some much needed energy and enthusiasm, and by Sunday afternoon we had more or less finished the dining room and gotten a good start on the bedrooms and the living room. As luck would have it, I got two snow days this week so my husband and I were able to paint some more, and I think we're almost there. Almost.

For now, at least, we're leaving the other rooms for another day. The kitchen (green, blue, tan, and dark mocha) and the bathroom (dark pumpkin) can wait for another day.