7 Quick Takes- New Homeowners Edition

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My quick takes are a bit sparse today, because we've had a crazy week of painting (which is what we are still doing as you read these takes today!). We spent many days taping, then painting trim, then untaping in anticipation of my parents' arrival to tape some more and paint the walls. A four day weekend of painting.... yes, I do in fact have the best parents... why do you ask? Anyway, as new homeowners, we have learned some very valuable lessons.

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Lesson 1: For example, when choosing a color of white for your trim, the smartest thing to do would be to take the paint color cards to the house and find what one is already on there. If you don't, you will have to paint every centimeter of trim AND all of the doors in the house because the two shades of white won't match. And you won't realize this until you've already purchased non-returnable paint and have painted almost half of the trim, so take it from me- that's not the way to go.

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Lesson 2: Another trim lesson...What looks white in the store may not look white in the house. After soooo many days of very hard work and short nights of sleep, we went over on Monday night to examine our handiwork. And that's when we noticed it. Our white looks ivory.... We are hoping that the change in wall color will make it look white again.

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Lesson 3: Husbands don't know the difference between ivory and white. We had a 10% coupon and were standing at Lowe's trying to pick out a new blind for the living room because the one there was broken. Steven went home to measure the blind and I told him to check if it was white or ivory. He said white, so we bought white. Every single blind in the house is ivory And now that the trim looks ivory, the white blind will be painfully obvious. But since they cut it to our window size, there's no going back. There's something painfully humorous about the previous owners having white trim and ivory blinds, and us having ivory trim and white blinds.

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Lesson 4: Buy a few nice drop cloths and a bunch of paper towels. Nice drop cloths are expensive. But those cheap ones will stick to your feet, move easily, and make it impossible to paint the trim. So we bought two nice drop cloths, and then realized we couldn't go from room to room because if paint was on it, we would just be dragging it across the carpet. So we bought 6 rolls of those blue paper towels that hold up and lined the rooms with that, with the drop cloths in the middle. We could immediately move the drop cloths, and could move the paper towels to another room as soon as an hour or so after. It made it so much easier.

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Lesson 5: Murphy's Law totally applies to home ownership. Thankfully handy friends and parents ease the blow (for example, the $950 repair our AC needs is being taken care of for $650 by someone Steven went to church with when he was little). Learn to laugh and roll with the punches. I spent an hour being severely moody and upset about the trim. Then I decided that the thoughts of painting it again, even a few years down the road, was enough to make me want to curl up in the fetal position and stay there So, now I'm laughing about it. I'm hoping that either my eye adjusts or that ding-y trim work in houses will suddenly be 'in'.

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Lesson 6: Don't plan your moving date for a few days after painting is over. Because painting still won't be over, and then you'll be painting around furniture and boxes. Luckily we realized that before it happened, so we moved it back a week well in advance. Oh and bonus lesson: make sure your husband has awesome friends who will help him move while you enjoy the AC and your comfortable desk chair at work. You know, because they are moving on a week day, and you just used a bunch of vacation days to paint. *Darn.*

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