It gets worse before it gets better

Before I get on to today's details, let me take a moment to note that this is our 200th post! Pretty amazing. I had no idea we'd be able to keep it going for this long.

Now on to our regularly scheduled program. The problem with any major project - home repair or not - is that often it take a while to come together. And it usually hits bottom before getting better. We finally decided to tackle the last bedroom in the house (or technically the "not-bedroom" according to the jerk appraiser a few years ago) - what was evidently one of the kid's rooms (complete with height measurements drawn on the wall). For the last few years, it's just been storing random furniture that didn't otherwise have a place. Time for an upgrade.

It didn't look bad but it just wasn't our style. But of course with the prep and painting, it was going to look awful.

First, as we have done in every other painting job in the house, we took off all the switch plates and cleaned down the walls with TSP-PF cleaner. That's trisodium phosphate-phosphate free, to you. And don't even get me started on how name something that includes the fact that it does not, in fact, have the main ingredient in it, which is like milk-free milk or something. But it's better for the environment and still works pretty well. While getting up close and personal with the walls while scrubbing them, we noticed they were in pretty bad shape - including staples everywhere and pock-marked drywall.

Once the walls were clean, we went back around to all those messed up areas, pulling out staples, nails, etc.Then it was time to spackle the damage and calk the edges where there were cracks in the walls. (Of course we thought we had done a thorough job but when we started painting, we noticed new spots that we had not caught the first time - some we spackled and some we ignored.)

Then it was time to set up for the painting. Isn't the room looking beautiful?

But we're nothing if not quick and (more or less) efficient painters. A day later, the yellow was almost gone! Thank you, primer. And this is the last yellow in the house! (For anyone who remembers the early days of this place, almost every room was yellow: the office and main bathroom, the living room, the upstairs hallway.)

So it may be a mess, but at least we are just about rid of the yellow. Stay tuned for our big color reveal.