Well another week has escaped us and all that we have left on the primer coats are the cabinet shelving boards. When all is done they will be a minty-olive green that will compliment the other half of the cabinets that are a cherryish-walnut color.



I really appreciate all the feedback we got on our last post as Kristin and I have been debating on latex or alkyd based paint. The guy at Sherwin-Williams was strongly pushing his latex trim/cabinet paint but honestly we are still up in the air about it. And really we are leaning toward the latex based as I don't think Kristin will go near an oil based paint and I need all the help I can get. When I say debate I mean that I want oil based and Kristin wants latex.

Tags: Cabinets, Paint

Now that we are moved in, we are in a struggle to catch up on all the things that we have been neglecting for the past 6 months. That in turn makes the going a bit slow, although we clearly have our original motivation it just happens to be spread over many things.

This weekend we painted kitchen cabinets. I don't know how many of you out there have ever painted raw wood cabinets yourself, but I'm sure if you've begun the work then surely you are still at it, because it takes FOREVER. Sunday morning I began at 7:00 a.m. yes a full two and a half hours before my wife even got up to help me. None-the-less even after she got up we painted steadily throughout the day and into the night. I think we finished abut 8:00 p.m. and "finished" is a relative term meaning that we'd had all the friggin' cabinet painting one could handle. AND, as much as I hate to admit it that was just the drawers. Two coats of primed sponge-rolled on with sanding... If you do the math, 3 doors equals 2 coats X 2 sides. Ugh, As much time as I'm spending on the primer coats, I dread to think about how long the finish coats will take.

Tags: Cabinets, Paint

Where have we been, you might ask. Well, we have done in two weeks what needed to be done in one but should have taken three. We painted the whole house (post coming soon about color selection) and moved in. Yes we are living amongst the wreckage of a half put together house, but at least we have water and electricity, sort of. We are cooking outside on the grill and eating off paper plates and plastic forks every night, however, we managed to keep out a couple of wine glasses. I mean, after all, wine from a plastic cup? We’re not savages...
    We are loving it and it feels good to be this far along. It has been a long, grueling six months trying to get to this point, but now it seems that it’s all down hill from here. Woo Hooo! In fact, Kristin and I did something that we haven’t done since we started the project. We went to a MOVIE! And a Sunday matinee at that. What? Blowing half a Sunday afternoon? There must be some sort of Renovation Police who would have loved to have told us to get back to work.
    The picture in the upper right hand corner... Yes I am sweating my ass off, while I’m painting. I find this funny because when we started the project, I was freezing my ass off.
    Anyway now that my computer is unpacked, it’s back to blogging. I’ve got lots to tell you about so check back soon.

Tags: Paint, Moving

Well the sheet rock is up and so we decided to spray the primer this weekend. If you have gutted your house down to the studs and put up new drywall, then I highly suggest spraying on the primer. It is much much faster than rolling.

That said, I’d like to offer up a few tips that I figured out the hard way.

• 1.Cover your floors, even if it is just the subfloor.
• 2. If you rent a sprayer, be prepared to shell out some extra $ for a good working tip, because the one you get will be a piece of $#!*.
• 3.Buy an extra 5 gallon bucket of primer (since you can return leftover primer, unless it’s tinted). Otherwise you will end up going to the home center mid-job, looking as I did (above). And yes the cashier laughed out loud at me.
• 4.Wear a shower cap.
• 5.Start early, first coat before lunch, second coat after. I started right before lunch and second coated after dinner. After the second coat and clean up it was 1:00 in the morning on a work night.

One other thing, here in the south we always complain about how everything is closed on Sundays. The one instance that it actually works out in your favor is with rental places. If you rent it on Friday then you have to return it on Saturday. BUT, if you rent it on Saturday, then you don’t have to return it until Monday; and you only get charged for one day!

Tags: DIY, Paint