House renovations, more painting...

Yep, still painting over here. But it's almost done, HALLELUJAH, and it's time for another house update.

1. Our white woodwork!

I always brace myself a bit when talking about painting our woodwork white and Nate thinks I'm highly sensitive to it, since nobody really disapproves as strongly as I fear they will. As I said before, I know that keeping original dark woodwork is really important to some people and I respect our home's style and age. However, after living in a home from the 1920s for 4 years, knowing that all.this.wood is just NOT our style and doesn't fit our vision of our house, I knew I'd want white woodwork whenever we bought a house. It's brighter, more modern, and cleaner to me although I'm sure some disagree. And it was also a HUGE pain in the butt to convert it all, as expected, but oh so worth it. Pictures first, then details:













So we still have to paint all of the actual windows but we are waiting to do that until we can take the time to really care for these ancient babies. And it's a lot of work just to paint the frames on the outside since we don't want to paint them shut, and with old windows you have a lot of really different parts to consider. We plan to really clean them, caulk them, replace some weights and maybe some of the glass, too. So whenever that happens we will also paint the remaining parts of our windows. Also, we have yet to do any doors and for now, most of them are still off the hinges. And of course, the entire kitchen woodwork is still natural for now but that's nothing compared to the huge list of 'to paint' projects that began this process. And we DID keep the built in buffet and windows above it natural in our dining room, and I really do love it that way.

If you are at all curious on HOW we did this massive project in a few weeks, I'll briefly touch on that now. I kept track of how much time we spent on this woodwork painting project because I just knew it would be insane. I was right: 8 hours of just prep work, 12 hours to spray the primer and first coat of paint, 5 hours to caulk the cracks, and then 20 freaking hours for me to paint ONE final coat with a brush. That's 50 hours, folks. And a few fits of rage were thrown in there for fun.

To prep the wood we sanded it all down really well with sandpaper, then wiped it down with a damp cloth and then a tack cloth. Then Nate demanded to use his spray gun for the primer, since that isn't something I could do by hand anyway in my pregnant state, so we had to tape off all of the walls and cover the floors very well. Nate had his first breakdown with the sprayer when using the primer because it was a LOT harder than he thought to get in all the nooks and crannies with different angles on the gun. We waited 24 hours for all of that primer to dry and then Nate agreed to do the first coat of latex paint with the gun, too. Like I said, his two coats took 12 hours and my one coat by hand took 20 so you do the math. After the sprayed coat of latex was done, we realized we had to caulk the cracks in the woodwork or it'd look horrible. This caulking business was my LEAST favorite part by far. So tedious and annoying but it really did make a huge difference, just like all of the articles online said. You can see why we had to do it in these pictures:



So after that was done, I had to sand it down a bit again. And then I got to work on my brushed coat--and really, even with the expensive Benjamin Moore Advance paint we used, it needed a THIRD coat in places to really look nice. I'm a pro with cutting-in now, what can I say? I absolutely love how it all turned out and during Nate's day of 'I will not do this anymore because my sprayer hates primer and I might kill someone before painting this stuff by hand' attitude, I was really nervous we'd made the wrong decision. But once that primer and the first coat were on, my heart really skipped a beat when I came downstairs and I almost cried (again, for the third time that day) seeing it all come together. The white wood makes it feel like home to us. And I hope we never, ever have to do a 'full paint' project again. Touch ups over the years are fine, but man---that was rough.

2. Sunroom ceiling:

This wasn't too bad considering the woodwork debacle. But I really wanted the ceiling in here to make the crown molding pop. Can you even tell the ceiling is two shades lighter than the walls? I hope so. :)



3. The baby's nursery:

Remember how her woodwork was yellow, and I hated that with a passion? Converting it all to white, to match the rest of the upstairs bedrooms, was quite the task. It was my first taste at painting woodwork and so I knew what awaited me downstairs in the future. I think it took a total of 10 hours just to do her room, but maybe that included lots of daydreaming breaks as I pictured my baby girl coming home to this room:)





And I might as well throw this in here, too--- the rug that will be in her room looks like this:



And fabrics have been purchased for my mom to make a quilt, Roman shades, a bedskirt, and changing pad covers!!



I'm so excited to see it all come together I could barf. Still have to paint the crib a hot pink, find a rocker, and make a few art pieces but it's really not TOO far off anymore. Just seeing the room totally painted is a huge step and that rug makes it even prettier. Many more updates on her room will surely come along soon enough.

So yeah, lots of freaking painting. Have to do the woodwork in the kitchen, the kitchen walls, the half bathroom walls, and the upper full bathroom walls and trim. But honestly, I'm thinking most of this will have to get done once we move into the house. Because, um, we are moving NEXT FRIDAY if I haven't freaked out enough about that on this blog. Can't wait...slash...am scared we might die in the process.