Painting & Landscaping - May 29 - June 1, 2007

A couple of weeks ago, I took a day off work to paint the baby's room. Shawnna and I had settled on a lavender color (Cheerful Whisper by Behr) which goes very well with the decor we picked for the room. After taping off the room and getting the brushes, roller and paint ready, I began to transform the room into a space fit for a princess. Three and a half hours later, I was tired, hungry and finished painting. I took a step back, looked at my work and thought, "It needs another coat... CRAP!" Some people enjoy painting and think it's relaxing and therapeutic - I don't. The thought of painting the room with a second coat wasn't pleasing.

Enter The Paint Pros. Luckily, we had been talking about hiring a painter to paint some other rooms in our house for a while, so I saw an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. We hired The Paint Pros to paint most of the interior of our house. The living room, staircase and upper hallway are green (Prickly Pear with highlights of Hawaiian Luau from Kelly-Moore). The family room, dining room, and kitchen are a neutral beige/brown (Soft Buckskin with highlights of Bourbon Street from Kelly-Moore). The master bedroom is a lighter neutral color (Baked Biscuit with highlights of Soft Buckskin by Kelly-Moore) and master bathroom is Soft Buckskin. While they were at it, I had them do the second coat in the baby's room as well. It took them 4 days with 4-6 people working to complete the job and it really looks nice.

At the same time, we had the landscapers who did our backyard (Tracy Landscaping) re-landscape our front yard as well. Over the years, we have replaced some of the plants that were originally planted when the house was built, but it needed an overhaul to look complete and match our backyard. So, we had them rip everything out and start fresh. We added a mow strip, a few boulders, black lava rock, 3 birch trees, spotlights, a bunch of smaller plants and flowers with a new drip system. The whole project only took them 2 days to complete and now our front yard is presentable again.

With the landscaping and paining now done, we were able to cross a couple of big items off the list of things to do before the baby comes and takes all our attention. Everything looks so nice that it's almost like living in a new house again.