Painting, Prepping, & Staining

Two weeks ago I wrote about all the painting we were doing. Last weekend we were painting doors. This past weekend we finally painted the last walls in our home. Frankly, I'll be okay if I don't pick up a paint brush for a while. Sad thing is, I know of a few small projects that we still need to do here and there. Nonetheless, it feels really good to have all the walls, windows, and trim done.

For the last two weeks we were waiting on our contractors to complete some electrical and framing on our load bearing wall (don't even try to attempt DIY on something that technical). So Friday night we got to work on painting those areas.

Friday Night's Agenda
- Finish painting the entryway and upstairs loft
- Paint the great room

We got started around 5:30PM and didn't stop until close to midnight. Here's a few pics of the process:

First, I trim all the edges.

Then JT goes through and fills in the wall space. Don't you just love this color? "Perfect Taupe" by Behr.

 Told you we worked late.

After a good night's sleep it was back at it on Saturday for a good 14 hours.

Saturday's Agenda
- Paint the dining room
- Paint the kitchen
- Tape, sand, and stain 1 coat on the stairs

 Lots of edges to sand on the stairs.

Thankfully JT was a loving husband and sanded all the stairs for us :)

 BEFORE KITCHEN

 AFTER KITCHEN

AFTER DINING ROOM

After changing our kitchen/dining room color 3 times, we finally settled on this green shade. And it's perfect! So by 5pm on Saturday we had 2 coats painted in the dining room/kitchen and it was time to start taping off the stairs so we can stain them once before we left for the night.

Note to self: taping every edge of every spindle and stairs takes time and staining takes a lot longer than painting. Once again, JT and I made a great team. I did the taping, he did the staining. Besides, I wouldn't want my hands and nails to look like this:

You can start to see the great color! 

HINT: The stairs will match our hardwood floors that are waiting for their debut :)

While JT was staining the stairs, I put all the faceplates on the wall outlets and then cleaned up the floors with the shopvac. Possibly one of my most favorite tools we own. This thing cleans up ANYTHING! All the dust on our subfloors and around the edges and in the windows was driving me nuts. Now, it's all clean and I'm so happy. You can even see our beautiful taupe walls behind me.

And here's what 1 coat of stain will do to some beautiful oak stairs! 

Sunday's Agenda
- Put second coat of stain on the stairs
- Install hinges on closet doors and install them

BEFORE STAIN

AFTER 2 COATS OF STAIN

Thanks to daylight savings, it got dark too soon, so this picture on the iPhone doesn't look fantastic... but you can see the potential with white trim and white doors! 

Stay tuned for a really long post after this coming weekend. Carpet is getting installed on Thursday PLUS this beautiful woman is coming into town and I CAN'T WAIT to see her! See you soon, mom!