Well, we finally made it through painting the nursery.  Geez, I thought scraping the wall took forever.  This paint job seemed to take twice as long.  You see with Derek currently in Grad School, taking 3…count them 3 classes this semester, on top of his full time job he doesn’t have much spare time right now.  This is why I have made it my responsibility to prepare Grayson’s room before his arrival.   My poor husband already has his hands full with class, work, projects, AND a pregnant wife.  I must admit he does help out from time to time.  I personally think he rather enjoys the time away from his studies, and painting almost seems like fun compared to studying, and working on projects.

Derek’s mom came and helped us paint the room, because we had to prime the room like 57 times…okay more like 2, but it totally felt like 57 coats.  We finished with the room looking like this…BARE!

It took a few test samples to come to a decision, but we finally decided upon a color called Online.  I think it fits our geek lifestyle perfectly. If you didn’t realize the magnitude of our geekiness you can read about it here, here, and here.  I’m sure I left out like a zillion other geek posts, but in an effort not to totally bore you I will not link to those. We purchased samples from Sherwin Williams and thew some test squares up on the wall.

They look a bit bluer in the photo than they do in the room.  The top color is Online, the bottom left is called Uncertain Gray, and the bottom right is Network Gray.  We were uncertain about the Uncertain Gray (hardy har har!), and the Network Gray was just a bit too dark for us.  We wanted something that would give the room some character, but also act as a nice neutral back drop to any art we put on the walls.  I didn’t want a color that was too overwhelming.  I also didn’t want to go with the traditional blue for a boy.  So we decided on a nice gray with a tiny hint of blue.  I absolutely love it!  Oh and don’t worry…since I was the one doing the bulk of the painting, and to protect our little guy in the future we only used No VOC paint from Sherwin Williams called Harmony paint.  The only harmful fumes in this house occur when Derek takes a visit to the porcelain throne.

Since little bit L O V E S going into Gray’s room to smell the outlet, and I now begin to drip with sweat trying to get off the couch; I can use every ounce of fresh cool air I can get my sweaty little skin on.  Oh yeah, I forgot to mention….the windows in this room are painted shut. So no fresh air that way either.  Thank you previous owners!

To prevent Wrigley from furring up the room while I was painting I made a lazer barrier on the door.  Okay, so it was made out of painter’s tape, but it did the job.  She never figured out how to get though. The dog who can break her way out of a steel crate couldn’t figure out how to bust though tape.  Hmmmm.   Instead, she just watched me like this the entire time.  So cute.

First coat on the walls.  One more coat to go!  Whoopie!

Once everything was dry I had a little help with the tape removal.  Did you know dogs that are preoccupied with raccoons that live under your house make an excellent used tape collector?  They do!

Once all the tape was carefully scored and removed the room looked like this.  I had to score the tape on the floor because it had been down there so long.  Typically you remove painters tape when the paint is still tacky, but I didn’t want to tape, un-tape, and re-tape for EVERY SINGLE COAT, ya know!

I think the blueish gray looks great with the brown floors.  I never dreamed those two would complement each other so well, but they really to play nice together.  The green piece of furniture is a buffet that we picked up at our local Pottery Barn Outlet last Christmas and we had been using it for storage in what use to be know as the guest room, but now it has been re-purposed into Grayson’s changing table.

Just slap on a changing pad and a basket for some diapers and other baby booty necessities and voila a changing table for FREE!  I think traditional changing tables are kind of pointless.  You can only use them for so long, and then you have to find some place in your attic to store the dang thing once the kid grows up.  Using a multifunctional piece of furniture like a buffet or a dresser works just fine for me.

What’s your take on the color?  We didn’t intend to name our child GRAYson and then paint his room GRAY.  It just kind of happened.  The crib just arrived too.  Pictures coming of the assembly soon.  Grayson’s grandpa and daddy assemble the crib…it was so sweet.

We decided it is time to paint the house, and if this is to get done at all…we will need to complete the project in the next few weeks.  Derek starts back to school in August/September (I can’t honestly remember).  I’m sure not going to paint that dang house by myself; unless using a can of spray paint will suffice.  In that case, the brick, siding, and trim will all be a nice glossy black!  Over the past year we have repaired a few minor imperfections to the exterior of the house, but have only gotten around to priming these areas.

While prepping the house for a makeover, we inspected the exterior of the house for any wood that may need replacing before the BIG PAINT.  Lucky us, we found that one of the bay window’s exterior wood was not exactly wood, but interior paneling.  YEA!!!!  Obviously one of the previous owners repaired this window at some point, and thought that using an indoor material to repair the outside of the house would be a smart defense against rain, snow, mildew, mold, and other glorious nasties one would dream to have growing in their walls.  From a distance, being shielded by a curtain of shrubs, the window’s paneling looked fine, but within 5ft of the window you begin to see the moldy horror.

Upon Derek’s initial inspection the paneling was mushy, and appeared to have mildew/mold growing on it.  So, Derek purchased “real” wood, cut it to length, and preceded to remove the nasty old paneling.  After he removed the 1st of two layers of the paneling, knowing my phobia of slugs, Derek called me outside to show me the slug breeding farm lurking just below the 1st layer of paneling.  THANKS BABE…I OWE YOU ONE.

Those little nasties are just icky and slimy.  I swear we have some that are a solid 5 inches in length.  5 inches…that’s got to be some sort of a record, or a genetic mutation at very least. I told Derek not to dump those chemicals in the ditch next to our house.  I mean it was only time till we had slugs the size of stray cats, and stray cats the size of St. Bernards. SERIOUSLY.

Throughout the day Saturday the front yard looked more like a trailer park yard sale as opposed to a quaint mid-century neighborhood.

I guess Derek decided to use this bush as a seat.

By the end of a long, hot Saturday Derek had successfully replaced the paneling with proper symmetrical wood boards.  I helped him caulk, and prime the boards once he finished.  We made sure these board were watertight.  So much that the house would have to flood from the inside, and the water would have to build up so high that it seeped down through the window sill, flow down into the plaster walls, and wet the board from behind to even begin to water-log these babies.

Next step :: paint everything else.