It may seem that I have been procrastinating on keeping this thing updated lately...that may be true, but at least we are getting somewhere with the house! Wow- the past few weeks have been nothing but a whirlwind. Shortly after the last post, Frank's parents drove all the way from Michigan to help us paint! Let me tell ya, Frank's parents are some serious troopers! Our house was a complete wreck, but they were up from 7 AM until MIDNIGHT (at least) every single night they were in town, painting away. We were able to knock out almost the entire house (including ceilings) in almost a week. And that includes priming every square inch of walls and ceilings too. I cannot thank them enough for helping out like they did. Frank and I ended up taking some days off work to help- it was nice having company for a week, but I wish I could have been a better host!
All the wall colors ended up being just a tad darker than what I expected...but I'm still happy with how it's turning out. Here's a quick run through of the rooms we painted:
Living Room/Kitchen (Benjamin Moore: Thicket)
Dining Room (Benjamin Moore: Rustique)
Don't you love the light fixture we got? It reminds me of candles when you put it on the dimmer...pay no attention to the missing glass, long story.
Foyer (Benjamin Moore: Livingston Gold)
Half Bath (Benjamin Moore: Charlotte Slate)
Bed 1 (Benjamin Moore: Elemental)
Bed 2 (Benjamin Moore: umm...forgot this one...we'll call it mellow yellow!)
Bed 3 (Benjamin Moore: Coriander Seed)
Master Bedroom (Benjamin Moore: Blue Echo)...pay no attention to the mess!
Wow...that's a lot of paint. And I didn't even show you the 40 foot hallway!
Off topic. You may remember the cat from an earlier post- where it jumped out of the attic and in my face and scared the living daylights out of me. Well, the cat returns. Frank was grabbing some fans from the attic around midnight while Frank's dad and I were inside trying to put up a light fixture. We heard this really loud crash outside, but figured Frank must have dropped something. I look out the window and see a flashlight rolling across the floor of our carport, and Frank was laying on the ground. The cat jumped out at him while he was holding a heavy ceiling fan and walking down the attic stairs, and he fell down, broke the fan...and almost broke his face! Poor guy...luckily he was mostly okay except for some bruises and scratches, but he was soooo mad. I'm surprised that cat is still alive. He was ready to end it's life after that little episode...I don't blame him! We have now put a piece of plywood over the opening, but I'm pretty sure it still sneaks up there because I hear it running around at night. I'll have to post a pic of our intruder...we'll save that for another day.
Anyway- back to painting. The reason we had this crazy painting extravaganza was because Frank was leaving for S. Korea on Feb. 7th, and we wanted to paint as much as possible before the floors are installed while he is gone. The night before Frank left was craziness, we hung up a lot of light fixtures, put up baseboards...
****sidenote****
Apparently I make up for my poor nailing abilities by my ability to measure things correctly down to the 1/16th of an inch. I measured all the cuts for all the bedroom baseboards and they were all perfect, we had a great system going with me measuring and Frank cutting. We knocked out all 4 bedrooms within a few hours!
...painted, moved all our boxes out of the attic and into the master bath, and then around 11PM we finally started packing for his 5 week trip overseas. It all worked out, though. He left bright and early on Feb. 7th and he'll be working in Korea until mid-March. He's only been there a little over a week and he already went skiing! This weekend he and some buddies are going to check out Seoul. I told him to buy me a t-shirt that says "Korea's got Seoul", ha. If he doesn't, I will be VERY disappointed! Thank goodness for Skype, we get to talk pretty much every day. I don't know how they did deployments in the old days, when you had to wait weeks for a mailed letter to communicate...but I know we have it pretty good :). Oh yeah, Frank is growing out his deployment mustache for this trip...yay...can you hear my enthusiasm!? He's goofy lookin' with a 'stache...haha.
Everything else is going well here on the home front. I now have the whole house to myself and it's a little overwhelming at times. I'm trying to get it ready for the floors to be installed. I think it will feel a million times more like home when that's done.
In other non-house related news- Frank and I went to MI the weekend before his parents came to paint for my first (his 5th, I think) Godchild's baptism. Our niece (Lucy) is the sweetest baby, although all babies are sooo sweet...
And in other very EXCITING NEWS....my best friend is engaged!! Her now-fiance proposed on Valentine's day. Kind of crazy that my best friend got engaged exactly a year after me. I am so happy for them, they are such a sweet couple and perfect for each other. Congrats guys :)
