Painting, and Avoiding The Naughty List

It was an exciting week here at the Goodfriend house, and for the first time in a long time the excitement doesn't have to do with drainage! (although Derek did finish the French Drain in the front, and put the extension into the backyard on hold for now) This week we decided to host a painting party and get the inside of this house looking like a home! Most of the day Saturday it was a party of one... me. But it was nice to finally feel useful around here. While Derek was busy at work, I did a deep cleaning of the house (not brilliant to do to kick off a painting weekend, doh!), which included a dusting of the walls, as suggested by Derek. It was this 2+ hour task that brought me to a frightening conclusion...

Walls are really, really stinking dirty! I mean EEWW!!! This one wasn't even CLOSE to the worst. This was after 2 swipes, yes TWO swipes. I think I need to add wall dusting to the semi-annual clean fest list. Although, I might need to grow a few inches first...

You see a dining room table, I see a stool! But really, I was concerned with safety...

I coulda broken a leg, but I wasn't going to risk getting dust in my pretty baby blues (yup, I'm a genius). After Derek got home from a hard day's work, we got to painting...

I took care of the short stuff, and did the tall stuff. Except for this.....

Yup, I stood on our hideous built in entertainment system storage unit, and painted all 3 coats of paint up there. After only 3 hours, Derek and I got one coat on the entire living room/dining room, and one wall in the kitchen. We were beat though, and ready for bed. The next morning, I had the brilliant idea to run 10 miles before I painted for the day...

But, alas the day took a dramatic turn for the better...

reinforcements arrived!!! We're soo lucky to have Brodie and Sara as friends. Not only did they let us live with them for 5 weeks, but they came and spent the day helping us paint too! By the days end, we were tired and sore, but we did all of the rolling in the kitchen, living room/dining room, entryway, and hallway, and we started the trim. It's a dramatic difference!! Take a look:

Living room before. I like to refer to this color as Colonel Mustard
(who committed a murder in the living room with the paint brush!)

Living room after
(although this picture doesn't do it justice. I'm pretty stinking tired... too tired to take quality pictures.)
Colonel Mustard was the worst color to cover. It took 3 coats, yup THREE coats!

Another angle of the living room after that includes a look at the entryway, and a smidge of the hallway

Kitchen before. White blah, and BRIGHT yellow.
A BRIGHT yellow that doesn't match the Colonel Mustard on the other side
of the wall, which is visible from the kitchen... yeah brilliant people lived here.

Kitchen after. Again it doesn't to it justice, but it'll have to do.
The color in the main living area is called Lemon Whip.

So that was the big progress we've made thus far, and it was all with a goal in mind. PARTY!!!!!! Yup, 9 months after moving in we're finally having a house warming party/holiday brunch, and maybe it's because I'm finally in a home I own, or maybe it's just a burst of insanity (which can't be ruled out), but I'm really excited about Christmas this year. Like weird excited. I've never been one to do much decorating. We always put up lights outside, and I have a few things to decorate the inside, but unless you look in the one or two spots in the house where my random gifted Christmas nick-nacks lie, you'd never know it was a holiday season in my house. But not this year! For some reason I've been really excited about decorating the house for Christmas, and I've been excited about it since October, yeah, weird I know.

Which brings me to the second part of my title. You see I'm a firm believer that the holiday season doesn't start until Santa crosses the threshold of Macy's at the Thanksgiving Day Parade, and that Christmas decor should go up not even one second before, buUuUuUuUuUut... I couldn't help it! I absoutly HAD to start. Plus I plan on making alot fo the things I'm going to use as decor, and crafting takes time. So I started.

Isn't this AUH-MAZE?!?!? Pinterest baby!

These candles will be wrapped in candy canes as soon as I pick some up... Pinterest strikes again!

Fortunately, I think this is the one offense Santa will over look when he's making his naughty and nice list. All the other stuff I've done this year.....

let's just hope he's a forgiving man.