Exterior of farmhouse is painted!

Before and after...I rather miss the blue, how it blended with the sky.  BUT do so love red.  I also put the wood supports back on both porches and replaced rotten siding where the roofing runs into contact with vertical walls -- primarily the lower level rooflines on the porch and "ell" addition. 

Change of focus - Mom's House

My mother bought a house 11 years ago so she would have someplace to call her own when she visited her grandkids. I know she would add "and her daughter" but I am a realist, and when her grandkids came on the scene they were quite the attention hogs. As it should be.
She is here about 3 months out of the year so liked having her little house. At about 900 square feet and built like a tank it is a solid, if petite, place. She is gearing up to sell it this spring and I recommended Javier to do painting before she got here from Michigan so she was not asphyxiated by fumes. I told him what she told me - which was the ceilings need painting. I unlocked the door, gave him some paint, and drove to Lowe's for more paint. When I returned he had me follow him around. "It looks like a little hole for a mouse back here... (behind her fridge) want me to patch that?" "I pulled off some of this where the hole was and there was a whole 18" paper hornet nest (in her shower)." Do you want me to paint over the green paint around the doors (incomplete paint job)" " Do you want me to attach her baseboards and sink the nailheads and paint?"
So a ceiling paint job turned into a Javier fixit couple of days. God bless that man. Did I tell you he charges me $150 a day? If he brings his cousin I pay $300. And a day is as long as it takes the job to be done?
Did I tell you I pay my plumber $150 an hour?

Dining room paint job

Finished room color. SO exotic. SO unusual. Called cottage white. I am a color wimp.

My bay window in the dining room is showing signs of 'tilt'... they windows don't quite seal anymore. Sigh. Note my old emergency princess phone?  Supposedly us earthquake prone landlubbers need one because cell phones will not work when the big one hits -- they will be overwhelmed and calls won't go through. 

Amanda waiting for me to finish painting. I am somewhat messy about it.

I used to like painting but my teeny dining room cured that. With five doorways what seemed a two day job has taken ten. I did strip all the door hardware and refinish them... taking off YEARS of overpaint. And I did get to see one of the early paint colors - rather a blue green with the consistency of a milk paint... and I did get to curse 100 years of painting the trim without sanding which makes a big rumply paint mess ... gee, am I complaining?

Painting project - Wilder's room

Our house has three rooms and a forced bathroom upstairs. I say forced because it was definitely added late... like in the 90's late.... and a creative mess of plumbed octopus arms supply water and drainage. Next to the bathroom at the very top of the stairs is a room that we have never used. The night I took possession of the house we yanked all the carpets and threw them out the window. There was so much wicked stuff in those carpets it sent my daughter into one whopping asthma attack and was our first foray into Kitsap emergency services and their strengths, or more apparent, weaknesses. But, as usual, I digress.
So this room. It had the carpet pulled, and then it sat. For three years. It became a dumping zone for all things extra. Or, if I had clutter about the house and people coming over I just put it in a bag, opened the room door, set the bag down and closed the door. (Should I be telling this story showcasing my ineptness at project completion or clutter control?) Wilder's current room is next to Rose's, but you have to walk through his to get to hers. I figured he needed his own privacy, so began to tackle the nightmare I made in the room at the top of the stairs.
How To Finish A Room:
1. Luckily, I have friends with mad organization skills and first we cleaned it out.
2. The floor was the original unfinished wood, which I am painting. (After much soul searching about refinishing vs. painting. The rest of the rooms upstairs are painted wood flooring so I might as well be consistent.)
3. As usual, the previously done finish work is uneven and haphazard... like there is base molding ON THE CEILING but none on the floor. I am going to put molding where it normally goes. Radical, I know.
4. My other friend Tina told me I needed to paint it. I argued, which is my way, it was a somewhat retroish teal green- very sixties farmhouse. She worked me hard, and I ended up repainting it. I am so glad she argued back. It took a week to pick the color, a radical manly yellowish green... which once it was on the wall immediately turned a bland neutral "off-white." I have mini (really really mini) photos on a blog page I will link to. To see the vibrant green the room used to be click here...
5. To do the finish molding.. I bought a new toy, which somewhat terrifies me. And got a 30 minute tutorial from Dan at Lowe's. It has been so long since I haven't been helped by a kid 25 years my junior at those stores that I really appreciated his words of "how not to lose a finger." I don't even know what it is called, but it will cut things quickly at an angle. I included a photo. I am a tool chicken. (But not afraid to learn! Ok, technically I am scared, but not enough to stop me from cranking that big puppy on and slicing me some base moulding...)

Painting sheet overlayment on floor

When we moved in, we stripped all the carpeting out of the house. Under the carpet, pad etc in the living room was solid sheet wood. Not composite plywood or pressboard, but a smooth surfaced wood. Having my budget sucking dry by getting rid of asbestos tile, buying new (used)furnace, kitchen sink, stove, fridge, and new electrical on two floors of the house I could not strip that and refinish what is under there or foot the bill for new wood floors.
So I painted it.
I painted it a serious blue with a serious floor paint that stunk to high heaven but for two years has not scuffed or gotten ugly. Pretty good paint. One cheesey thing I did was I only painted the edges that would show outside the oriental wool carpet we had down. (There is a reason for this, mainly the hundreds HUNDREDS of carpet staples that were scattered pell mell and everyflippin' where on that floor.) Some of those staples were not totally pulled out. After tearing my fingernails ragged, cutting my fingers, going through two staple pullers, I was done.
We put down a new carpet yesterday, and it covers a smaller area than the old rug. SO I needed to add some more paint to the floor. That magnificent floor paint had not been sealed tight when closed two years ago.
There was a 1/4 inch solid surface that I peeled off. I stirred the paint underneath for ten minutes and then painted.
30 hours later it is still not dry. I think I figured out what that layer was on the paint. The dryer dried out of the paint and made that solid top. I have been painting the floor with the gooey tint base that is not drying. Hopefully not attracting dog dust bunnies to it, but I am fairly sure it is.
Note: Four days later, and with a little unintentional dog hair added, it is dry enough for the carpet. yay.

House - Painted stairs

Yes, this could be considered a rather bold color... and yes, I did really like the white that the owners had the stairs painted, it was very "original" but with KIDS and their FEET and DOGS and their MUD and CATS and WHATEVER IT IS CATS DO my white house interior does not stay very white.

Some parts of it are even a dingy sorta dirtish color.