Painting at the new house

I decided since I'm not racing much this year and since Katie's doing so well, I don't really have much to blog about except maybe the new house. Jeff & I bought a new (actually pretty old) house in May that needs tons of work. So I thought I'd recap a few of the projects we've finished and then blog about others as they're happening. Our first project was painting the entire interior of the house, we wanted to paint before doing the floors and at that time we were hoping to move in by June 1st, so the only weekend we could paint was the weekend after closing on the house, that meant lots of late night prep work that first week, but well worth it!

I wish I had come up with the idea of a painting party, but that was Red, or maybe someone before her. But what a great idea! Jeff and I picked up some bagels and coffee and got to the house about 7:30, Peylin showed up a few minutes later and then Ingrid, Shayla and Red. Peylin started the bright green paint in the bathroom, Red and Ingrid were in charge of closets and Shayla started the bedrooms. Paint was going up faster than I expected and I started to worry we wouldn't have anything for others to do later- haha!

Jeff, Shayla, Red, & Ingrid painting, and yes Red & Shayla are holding mimosas and Jeff a bottle of champagne, we know how to throw a painting party!

When Jody and Mel (with Ivan and Baby James) got there, they finished and edged in the Scuba room. Then Emmie, Annette, Carol, and Nicki started the huge job of painting all that brown in the kitchen white! The kitchen ended up being the biggest longest job of the day, I think they put 3 coats (maybe more) on all that brown paneling, but it actually looks pretty good now! And Jenny painted that awful wall paper aqua! Jim painted ceilings all afternoon and evening!

Katherine got extra white paint for us after we ran out (we didn't anticipate needing 3+ coats!) and she stayed late and helped with clean up and even came back the next evening to help us finish up the edging.

Linda, Vanessa, and Mohamed had Ironman Texas the next weekend so they were the supervisory crew. Linda was in charge of media-she did all the videos, Vanessa- touch up and Mohamed- lighting- he helped take down a ceiling fan or 2. Of course they all did a good job of keeping us company too.

It wasn't all hard work, we had a popsicle break and Eastside Pies pizza for dinner on the back porch. And as you can see in Linda's videos, even the work was pretty fun with so many friends!

The hand print wall was pretty fun too. That's the wall we removed, so I wrote "Do Not Paint This Wall" great big on it, later I found paint hand prints and signatures all over it- Fun!

By about 9pm the entire house was painted, Katherine helped us do a little touch up and edging the next evening, but we pretty much painted the entire house in 1 day! Thank you so much to everyone who came over and helped out, we appreciate it so much!

Katherine and I toasting to being finished!