So I have decided to revamp my life...sort of. I guess it's more of a tweaking than a complete make-over. I'm not trying to change things drastically in my life. That's already been done for me. I have just been on this kick to improve things in my life that I do have control over. The first phase was "Operation: Clean Out My Life". That was a success, but I'm sure will be revisited this summer just in time for another yard sale. The next phase is "Operation: Brighten Up My Life". We deployed this in November when we decided to repaint most of the interior of our house. Needless to say this project lasted longer than we wanted it to. The results of these projects are very rewarding, however I keep asking myself why I decide to take on such enormous challenges. Like I need more things in my life to deal with? But I guess that will always be the ultimate question never answered...why do we do certain things in our lives?
We bought our house almost nine years ago. We have not really done much to it to make it more of our home, until just recently. We have done some improvements: new carpet and tiled the bathroom floors. We did paint our son's bedroom before he was born. It was supposed to be a baby blue color but turned out to be a very, very light blue. It looked white. If we told you we painted it, you'd probably say "Really?" It was that light. You couldn't even tell we spent several days slaving over the paint job. I was pregnant at the time, and so it really wasn't that fun. That's probably why it's been that long since we painted. Not really a good experience the last time. My husband did paint our bedroom, right after I had my first surgery almost 6 years ago so I was of absolutely no help. I did pick out the color, which in the store looked like a lemon custard color. But, once again, when the job was complete we looked at the walls wondering where the paint went. So that's all the painting we had done in the house. Most of the walls in our house are white. There were only two rooms that the previous owners had painted. My daughter's bedroom is truly a baby blue color, and the t.v. room is a light brown color. Everything else...white. Not much color in our lives!
So, in early November we decided it was time to add some color to our home and our lives. We went to Home Depot and stood at the wall of color swatches. And we stood there, and we stood there like a deer in headlights wondering what to choose. We took several of the color books they conveniently have on hand. We took that home, and I think I held up every color there was in the book to every wall we were going to paint. I decided on several colors, then a few days later changed my mind, then a few days after that changed my mind back to my original choices. Ugh! Why was this so hard? Any color we pick will not look the same as in the store anyway. (Isn't that so true of so many things!)
I told my husband to just go to the store and pick out the colors I chose. "Hurry, quick before I change my mind again!" I'm not too happy it was up to me anyway to pick out the colors, but I guess he knows me and that's how it was going to be. Now it was me to blame if the color didn't turn out right. Lovely! We got all the paint we needed for the kitchen, dining area, t.v. room, living room, hallway, both kids bedrooms and our bedroom and bathroom. 3200 square feet of wall surface area, and 1800 square feet of ceiling surface area!! No turning back now. Our monstrosity of a "fun family project" was about to begin. When would it end? Who knows?
Our plan was to have it complete by Thanksgiving. Well, we really didn't think through how much time was actually needed. I mean, there's prepping involved. There's moving furniture and taping. There's touch-up required time. Then there's more touch-up time. Then there's clean-up time. And then of course you have to put everything back together again. We can't live weeks with the house, especiallythe kitchen, in shambles. I just planned on painting the walls for goodness sakes! Of course we didn't get it all completed by Thanksgiving. But we got enough of it done to enjoy the holiday. We decided to wait on painting the bedrooms until after the Holidays, so we could actually enjoy them.
New Year's Eve sounded like a fabulous day to start up again. And so, we spent a long four-day weekend trying to finish up what we started. We could get the rest done in that amount of time, right? Wrong-o! Last weekend (mid-January) we finally finished painting. Something we thought we could finish in three weeks, took two months. Wow! We were a little off on the timing. I don't think we will ever take on a painting project like that EVER again! It was suppsoed to be fun, but I think half of the time we were all bickering at each other. I might start saving now to hire a professional painter for the next time. As I look at the outside of our house, I notice it may need to be painted this summer. (Big sigh!)
With all that being said and done, our kitchen and dining area are now "moonlight grey", the living room, t.v. room and hallway are "autumn haze", the kids' bedrooms are now "sapphire blue" and our bedroom and bathroom are "antique yellow". I love how the colors look and sound. I think it makes us all feel so good. My children feel like they have brand new rooms to live in. We definately have brightened up our home and made it ours. Sure, it took nine years to do it, but we got it done! I'm not sure when I want to do the next project, but as we feel the need to improve our lives, I'm sure we'll think of something.
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