My Mission

As I mentioned previously, I started painting. We live in a old ranch house that has lots of potential. Alas, ranch houses are not a priority when it comes to running a ranch and keeping the books in the black. I call this my little crooked house in the desert. I'm not going to detail all the things that need to be done to it, because those are not the things that make this our home and I'm a glass half-full kinda gal. I love this old house. We've made many good memories in this house. However, after 10 years of living here, the 70's paneling must go. :) I've avoided it for the simple reason that I have been afraid to tackle it. I have come close to ripping it out, but in an old ranch house, that often causes more problems. A few years back we had to pull the paneling in our one and only bathroom due to a leak and the sheet rock was in less than desirable shape and I'm no sheet rocker. So painting it is. We've got paneling in the kitchen, living room, dining room, and one bedroom. Sigh. I'm starting in the living room and I finally took the plunge by just slapping on one paint brush loaded with some left over paint in the middle of a wall one day:

DH asked, "Why did you do that?"
I answered: "Because now I am committed. There is no turning back. I have to do SOMETHING."

I'm sure the thought that I really OUGHT to be committed has crossed his mind in the past and most certainly on more than one occasion. :)

I researched online and read about sanding and filling in the crevices and more sanding and removing all the dust and priming...all before painting. I am not afraid of work, but I was going to be tackling this all by myself and that just did not sound appealing at all.

Now for those of you asking, :Why doesn't her DH help? With 128,000 acres to tend to, DH is covered up and  the last thing I want to do is give him another thing to do. If it really mattered to me, he would find the time. We're a team and he's always willing, but I know what he has on his plate and I've got this and truth be told, I think I get an odd sense of satisfaction by tackling this by myself ...not unlike a 2-yr old who insists, "I DO IT".

A few weeks ago, we were at a friend's house. They live in a old ranch house too and they had painted their paneling. It looked really nice so I interrogated her about how they did it. She said Kilz and paint. The end. Now THAT is doable! So thanks for pushing me over the edge, R. :)

So then I fretted over choosing the right color...for a couple of weeks. This should not be this hard, but I was paralyzed by the  endless choices. Eenie...meenie...miney...moe:

I spent way too much time making this decision. One friend told me to throw a dart. I got orange.

Ummm...not working for me. but you are funny T.

Another told me that it was not a tattoo so if I didn't love it, I could paint over it. LOL - that made me laugh.

Now one of these friends lives in Michigan and the other in Colorado. They ought to be very thankful they live so far away or I would be dragging them over here for moral support. Personally, I think they planned it that way. :)

I lived with numerous paint chips on the wall for weeks. I looked at paint colors online for days. By the way, I found out that paint colors online are not true to the actual colors. The ones I chose on the computer looked completely different in the store.

Home Depot seems to be a regular stop for us these days:

I've got a sweet Home Depot story about this trip. There was a darling, little girl, about 3, with her grandpa. She was in the cart and every time we passed each other she would pipe up enthusiastically, "Hi Cowboy!"  We chuckled every time and DH would grin and wave and say 'hi'. After about the 4th time, with the same greeting, she added, "Where are your cows?" We couldn't help but laugh out loud and thus a conversation ensued. Ended up the gentleman was her great grandfather and he and his wife were raising their great granddaughter due to a really, really sad situation. What a blessing they were to each other...and to us that day.

 My haul last week. The gloves are from the Farm Store.

I'm pretty excited about a new pair of gloves! They're not for painting, but they come in mighty handy for just about everything else around here and by the time I got the last pair, they had already been worn out by DH. I'm excited to have some that fit and don't end up hanging on the fence every time I turn around when they pull off.

Then I finally took the plunge and dove into the 5 gallon bucket of Kilz:

 I finally brought home some samples and brushed them on the wall and chose one.

What a difference! Our 9' ceilings look 3' taller.  All of our furniture is dark - leather furniture, oak bookcases, beautiful old dark piano, dark tv console. It all sunk into the dark paneled walls and disappeared.

I like our furniture and now you can actually see it. It seems to have given our piano an extra charm and I'm thinking its about time I learned to play it...and dust it. :)

I got my exercise too. Lots of trips up and down the ladder. I started out by adding 37 paneling nails in all the loose spots. The paneling has a thin strip 12" from the ceiling that covers the seam between the 8' sheet of paneling and  the 12" piece that goes to the ceiling and that made for a lot more cutting in that had to be done with a brush. I used a thick napped roller for the rest, but I still had to pay lots of extra attention to the grooves in the paneling. I'm glad its done.

The color doesn't translate to the camera very well - it just looks like cream. All that trouble for it to look like cream in pictures? Its warmer than that and it's called Rye Bread. Good thing I like rye bread.

I'm thinking the associates at Home Depot are breathing a sigh of relief now that I have stopped loitering in the paint department. Not so fast boys. I've still got 3 more rooms to tackle.