Summer Painting Time!

There’s no motivation for sprucing up your house like inviting a bunch of people over. For me, it’s our annual family reunion in July. This is our 6th consecutive, which is pretty cool, I think. We usually have about 75 people, so you understand my motivation now. ‘Course, they mostly congregate outside, down by the barn and out by the pool, but the elders stay indoors if it’s too hot, and everyone needs at least one bathroom trip.

You’d think since we host the reunion every year that my house would be in pretty good shape already . . . wrong! Four years ago, my mother-in-law moved in after suffering a stroke. With her came an over-abundance of stuff. She moved out in January of 2008 (doing well, I might add). But Stuff didn’t budge. Then MIL came back again this past January. And Stuff invited new friends along.

This past weekend MIL deemed herself well enough to move back to her own place again. (I can’t find words to illustrate my “happy dance” so just use your own imagination.) I told Stuff it’s time he and his friends take a hike. May take some time, but the wheels are in progress.

Also in 2008 I cared for my grandbaby up until March 2009. I had no idea what I was in for, taking care of an infant-turned toddler for 5 days a week for nearly a year. I loved my time with him, but I literally had no time for myself, not to mention my house.

But now, Now, it’s just my husband and me. So, bless his heart, here I come with paint cans from Home Depot. And bless their hearts, or at least Behr’s, they’ve come up with a wonderful new paint, Premium Plus Ultra, paint and primer in one.

I told Paint Gal @ HD if I liked the paint, I’d blog about it. So here I am. We love it. LOVE it! Coverage: great. Color: true to chip. Easy clean: great. 5 out of 5 stars, if anyone wants my opinion, which I doubt, but that’s okay.

DH says it’s a “sticky” paint – probably the primer. But it goes on smooth. Now, I haven’t actually rolled it on – my job is to ‘cut in’. DH rolls on the walls faster than I can stir the paint and pour it into my trim cup. And the coverage was wonderful.

Oh yeah. I decided to finally follow my own advice and use a little feng shui. With all “visitors” out of my house and DH giving me carte blanche on colors, I picked some fabulous (IMHO) colors for my bathrooms.

Doesn’t show too well on my monitor and Behr doesn’t have colors for this paint online yet. But I’ll tell you the paint matches the chips quite well. The bottom swatch is “Cucumber Slice” which will go in my half bath in my Family area, according to FS. Above that is “French Lilac” for the bathroom in my Wealth area.

Any of you who know FS know the challenges with a bathroom in the Wealth area. Plus it has a skylight. Hence the lilac paint. But I love it and think I can pull of a spa-like effect.

The next 2 swatches are dining room and living room – Crepe and Maize, I think. The top 2 are for our bedroom and bath. Fairly neutral taupes on the warm side.

The other thing that I think is cool about this paint+primer is I can use a lower sheen in my baths. I went with satin. Semi-gloss and High-gloss can get just too shiny for me. This is supposed to hold up well in moisture as well as be easy to clean. If it doesn’t live up to it’s claims, I’ll let you know.

For now I’m just grateful to have my home back to just me & DH, to be blessed to have a huge family coming in July, and to be able to share my blessings with my online community.

Happy Summer Painting!