Paint Job

The day after Quinn's birthday, Mike was informed that the living room was finally going to be painted. Dec was going to a friend's house for an outside birthday party (where he was the only guest - and this family keeps their bubble even smaller than we do) for the afternoon, so we had one less energetic 6-year-old to keep out from underfoot. [Fact: the kids don't remember how to play with their other friends anymore. D was so nervous to go to Kyle's house. But he warmed up and had the best time! I suspect they will relearn quickly ...]

Sunday morning, after we sent Gpa V on his way back home, the living room was emptied into the dining room and the taping and wall scrubbing began. Quinn was SO excited about the painting and was extremely unimpressed with how long painting prep takes. We kept telling her that the prep work is longer than any of the rest of it. Then once the prep work was done, we had to edge and paint the popcorn ceiling. It was like we were trying to torture her with the wait!

After the floor lunch picnic in the dining room/living room mess, Quinn was ready to paint. Fiona was ready for the furniture to be back where it belonged and decided to make a bench out of the entertainment center so she could read her book. Moral of the story: painting is putzy work and people here do not like furniture in the wrong rooms. 

Because we were painting the ceiling, we had fully dropclothed the floor. So when it was finally time to start trimming out the walls, we handed Quinn a brush and let her help! That was all well and good, but what she really wanted was to roll. So once the trim work was done, Mike let her help with that too! We got the first coat done, retrieved our buddy from his friend's house, ate dinner, put the kids to bed, and then Mike and I brought in a lot of lamps to finish the second coat that night. 

Monday morning, we pulled off the tape first thing and then Q and Mike put the living room back together. It was our first week without Nanny J, which was the other reason for the project timing - no worries about the house chaos impacting the nanny! Everyone was thrilled with the return of the furniture to its normal place (although we did rearrange things) - and they tell me that they are "getting used to" the new color. It's still green - just a darker olive green. Personally, I love it!