A Little Home Improvement

Growing up with a father who was a professional painter, I took color on our home's walls for granted. Every time we moved, I got to pick the color of my walls (lavender in San Antonio, then sky blue in El Paso, and mint green in Auburn), and in two of my bedrooms, I was allowed to paint an accent wall myself. As you can tell, I'm not shy about color choice--I LOVE color.

So, having lived the last five years colorless (four years in college and then one year without color by choice), I was ecstatic to move into an apartment that leveled no painting stipulations on us, save that we paint back to the original color before we move out.

When my mom asked if she could come visit us, it was clear what the project at hand would be. Following are some pictures of the last four days in our apartment. They included five gallons and one quart of paint, one "special" paint brush (courtesy of my dad), several not-so-special brushes (i.e. cheaper :), one wrong color, lots and lots of blue tape, and one very understanding husband. Oh, yeah--and lots of paint fumes! :)

Hope you enjoy our trip out of white and into the land of COLOR!

For starters, while Mom and I played, Kevin still had work to do. He set up his post outside on our porch to grade papers by the light of a lamp we plugged in inside. He also listened to his iPod.


The Before Picture:

Lydia's attempt at artistic photography. This is our callbox. If you come visit, we can talk to you from our apartment. Pretty spiffy, huh? :)


The first strokes of the first color: Sage.


Painting around the front door:


It took an entire night to do just two walls!
A well-deserved bowl of vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce:


And the next day, we moved on to the second color. It looks yellow, but it's really more of a tan.


Rolling the dining room


A little touch-up from the top of the entertainment center.


Final product:
I LOVE that red!

To celebrate our achievement (thus far), we went out to dinner at Applebee's. Unfortunately, we didn't get a picture of Mom, but she took this one, so it counts for something, right? :)

And on to the bedroom:

Finished product:

Hard to tell, but we did paint the other three walls (the not-blue ones). They're a light beige.

We hope you've enjoyed this journey with us. We've greatly enjoyed our time with our new walls, and we'd love for you to come meet them.

Many thanks to Mom for coming all the way from Texas. We love the tangible evidence of your visit, and we love you!