paintbrushWe’ve lived in our new house since mid-December (almost 8 months now) and have finally begun the task of repainting the inside rooms. We chose a nice neutral color for the living room, dining room, foyer and hallways. It’s a Ralph Lauren color named Oatmeal and we like it a lot.

So now comes the task of moving furniture and rugs out of the way, covering said items with dropcloths, masking off outlets and other non-paint type things, spackling, sanding and finally painting.

Two nights ago I removed any fixtures in my way and moved all the furniture.

Last night I pre-sanded and spackled.

Tonight I will sand down that spackle, respackle if needed, and hopefully begin painting. My sister-in-law Anne is coming over tonight to help me.

I have three evenings to complete the painting because lots and lots of house guests are coming over on Sunday to celebrate Erin’s 2nd birthday. It’s gonna be tight. Real tight.

Why did we wait all this time to paint and then decide to do it all in four workday evenings? I’m not going to stress out about it. Either it gets done or it doesn’t. Our guests are all either close friends or family – all of which understand that we lead hectic lives and haven’t lived in our house even a year yet. Visiting the house mid-project is perfectly acceptable and nobody is going to disown us if they see spackle on the wall, or the molding is only painted on two sides of a window.

This is real life. Nobody should expect Better Homes & Gardens when visiting my house.