Thursday morning dawned cold and wet.  Perfect.  I threw on my paint clothes and headed to my brother Woody's house.  He and his wife have lived there for twenty years and raised two wonderful kids, who have flown the coop.  They would like to get the house on the market in the not too distant future, assuming we all have a future, and assuming people will still be able to get mortgages in that future.  Anyway, they decided that some updating and decorating was necessary, so they've been tackling projects for the past year or so.  Wood works at home, as I do, so he was there to let me in.  I didn't have to let myself in and do anything in secret, like I did with my Mom's bathroom.

They've knocked down a wall between the kitchen and dining room, replaced the floors with a lovely wood laminate, put in all new granite counters and a spectacular tile back splash.

All of which was dragged into the gutter by the walls, still mustard yellow after all these years.

Every other room in the house has been redone, with the help of a color specialist from Hirschfields.  Good, job, Color Guy!  Rich, mellow, jewel tones throughout the house!  The dining room is a lovely, warm shade of brown.  The kitchen is supposed to be the same, but due to time and exhaustion, Woody hasn't gotten around to the walls in there.

I was very excited to do it for him.  As I've written here before, I enjoy painting walls.  It's instant gratification.  I'm also very fast, as I only tape if I have to and I'm very comfortable with a brush in my hand.  I did have to do a little taping in the kitchen, as there's a soffet that hangs over the cupboards, leaving an inch and a half that I had to paint upside down.  I tried to do it tape free.  Ooooops.  I'll go back over the white with a small brush when the second coat of brown is done.

Anyway, I couldn't wait to cover the yellow because of what it was doing to all the other, beautiful elements in the room.  I knew that the proper wall color would allow the rest of it to shine like it should.  THat color was like a horrible hairdo on a lovely girl.

Fortunately for me, Wood and Kathy have bought all the best tools for painting.  They have lots of high end brushes, rollers of various sizes, a really nice drop cloth and step ladders of different heights.  That makes the job fast, fun and easy.  It took me close to three hours.  I really didn't think it would take that long but those darned soffets meant I had to paint a lot of square inches that really counted as ceiling.  But it made the room sing like a bird.  A second coat will look even better but just getting rid of the yellow was like scraping the clown make up off a face.

I did  it while Kathy was at work.  She called today to thank me and say she loved it.  I hope she does.  She has a tendency to get sick of colors at light speed, but the place looks wonderful now and the important thing is getting the house sold.  They live in a great neighborhood and have an enormous back yard.  The chances are very good that who ever buys the place will eventually blow out the back and build a huge new kitchen, but in the meantime, there's going to be a beautiful little gem of a kitchen to work in.

Spellcheck wanted me to change 'soffets' to 'soviets'.  Maybe I should've...

 

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