Peach, Green, Brown...the story of the paint

Labor-Day weekend was suppose to be a painting party at the Gunnerson house. Max and Chelsea were even going to come and help since Max has painting experience. We planned on getting everything primed on Friday night and painted on Saturday and Monday. That is what we planned. This is what really happened.

Friday: Max and Chelsea did arrive around 7:00 on Friday night. We didn't get right to work because Billie Jo enticed us all to dinner with enchiladas and zucchini cake, but by about 8:30 we were hard at work. Max was spraying, Rick was rolling, and I was trying to finish up vacuuming all of the sheetrock dust out of the house (an endeavor I am convinced will NEVER happen). We worked for a few hours and got most of the house done before calling it a night.

Saturday: Back to work and almost finished when the sprayer quit working! Oh well, it was almost time for the BYU game anyway, and we were ready for a break. During half-time Max and Rick ran to Home Depot to trade in the broken sprayer for a new one and soon were back to work. They finished priming the house and started with the paint in our bedroom and bathroom. It was about 10:00 pm when they came in to get us (me, Chelsea, and Giselle) to show us the finished product. I stepped into the bedroom and was proclaiming what a fabulous job they did when I stopped and said, "It looks kinda peachy, don't you think?" Everyone tried to convince me that it was okay, that it would look different in the light, and that it would dry darker. I was unconvinced. Even though Rick and Max were planning an all-night painting party, I talked them into quiting and NOT painting the rest of my house peach.

Sunday: Upon further inspection, the color really did look more peach than tan. What a dissappointment! It was something that I could have LIVED with, but I knew that I would never really like it. We decided to bag the painting for the weekend and just have fun!

Monday: Instead of painting we actually got to enjoy our holiday at Francis Frontier days. The boys rode sheep, played games, and we visited with friends and family. Rick decided that he would go ahead and paint the ceilings since we were doing them white and we would have to try and do something with our "peach" paint. So, he took the evening and sprayed all of the ceilings on the first floor. After I put the boys in bed I went to see how it was going and as soon as I walked in I said, "That looks peach too!" It wasn't until that moment that I remembered my Uncle Alvin (our family painting expert) told me that if we used white paint on the ceiling it would look gray, so he told the paint store to go 1/4 strength of our wall color for the ceiling. Another night of work, and paint, wasted.

Tuesday: Rick took some of the paint back to the paint store to see if they could add some color to take out the peach and make it a little more tan. He came home and tested it out on one wall in our bedroom, which was quickly becoming the test center. It was okay, but in an effort to get the peach "out" they added in some green. It ended up looking a little too green to me and even though I liked it, I felt like I was copying Billie Jo's house. So again it was a no-go.

Friday: I drove to Salt Lake with 55 gallons of peach paint to see what could be done. I went into the paint store a little embarrased to be back. I am sure they thought that I was pretty foolish to order 55 gallons of paint that I hadn't even tested to make sure I liked it! They were also probably annoyed that I was bringing back perfectly good paint and making them remix it. Oh well, I needed paint that I could live with. I pick out a paint chip that I liked and they said that they would try to remix our paint to match. One hour later I picked it up. The paint was no longer the original "calfskin", they had magically turned it into "summer suede."

Saturday: Get out the sprayer and roller (again) it is time for round three. Rick and I painted the ceilings in the ENTIRE house! I was quite worried because against the white primer the celing paint looked quite dark, but Rick told me that we could NOT make any more changes.

Monday: By the light of two spotlights, Rick and Tim got to work on the wall color. Tim cut in the color against the ceiling while Rick sprayed and rolled the walls. The slow work of cutting in only got finished in our bedroom and bathroom, while the spraying and rolling got done on the entire first floor.

Tuesday: The big question. How did the new paint color look? Perfect. Well, not quite perfect. I would've perfered a little lighter, but Rick really liked it a little darker. Now the paint wasn't the problem, it was the paint job. Apparently painting at night with just a couple of spotlights is not the best idea. There were so many spots of uneven coverage that we ended up going back over everything that had been done! I suggested to Rick that instead of painting at night we sould just take the time to tape and mask the ceiling in the evenings and then spray on Saturday. Even though I could tell he didn't want to agree with me, he did.

Wednesday: Rick had to finish up the last couple of roofing items so that the workers could finish the siding.

Thursday: Taping and masking.

Friday: Taping and masking.

Saturday: We did it! Once I got home from teaching yoga we hit the painting full force. Rick was on the sprayer and I followed with the roller. Luke and Noah were in charge of tending themselves (lets just say I found many candy wrappers around the house and an empty bag of cheetoes by the computer) and Eli had to be exiled and spend the day away (with my mom). We still have some areas that we need to touch-up, but I can officially say that the house is painted, and the best part is that I actually like the color! I hope that the tiling doesn't have as many snags.

Rick and Max getting the house all primed.

Daredevil Rick painting the two-story entryway.

Luke had the job of washing all the paint buckets when we were finished with them. A job he didn't much like.

We did take a break from house work last Sunday and went on a fall ride. We drove to Mill Hollow to find some leaves for Luke's school project and took the trail around the lake. The boys loved it and kept asking if they could go fishing in the lake. We gave the same response everytime they asked, "Someday boys, when the house is finished, we'll have time to go fishing." With the painting done, it feels like"'someday" is getting closer and closer.