Studio711.com – Ben Martens

Before we moved in (and a little after moving in) we did a lot of painting. The living room, kitchen, family room, upstairs hallway, master bedroom, and master bedroom closet were all touched by the mad fury of paintbrushes and rollers. Thanks to everyone who helped out!

Some of these things might be obvious for those of you who paint a lot, but here are some things I learned that I figure I should remember for next time:

• The computers at Home Depot do a great job of matching colors if you have the codes available. When you decide on a color, have them print off an extra code sticker and keep it safe so you can buy it again later.
• The little $2 sample jars are great for touching up when you’re done.
• The green Frog Tape is more expensive than the blue stuff, but it works amazingly well. I was unsure when we initially picked up our supplies, but after taking the tape off the first room, I was a believer.
• If the four phases of painting are washing, taping, trimming and rolling, the distribution of work is about 20%, 35%, 35%, 10%. No matter how often I paint, I always seem to forget that the rolling is actually the quick part and by the time you get there, you’re almost done.
• Unless you’re painting a small room, you can’t have too much help. Painting scales very well. If you have four people, you’ll get it done almost exactly twice as fast as if you did it yourself. It was amazing how long it took us to do little paint jobs after everyone left.
• Radiused corners might look night but they are a pain to paint especially when you’re trying to stop a color at that corner.

Do you want to paint your house like ours? Here are the colors we used. White is the trim, gobi dessert is the “boring beige” on most of our walls, and shy violet is the color of the laundry room. I’m sure we’ll add more colors as time goes on, but it’s nice to have a small set of colors. The previous owners used a very slightly different shade in every room and left us ~40 cans of poorly marked paint in the garage.

Last weekend we spent a lot more time at the house getting it prepped. We owe another huge thanks to Don, Nancy, Logan, Megan, Andy and Stephanie for coming over. We’ve gotten so much more done than I thought would ever be possible! The projects for this weekend were painting a weird bar in the master bedroom white, painting the hallway (vaulted ceilings), and cleaning out the pantry and painting it. We were home before dinner on both days which is a testament to how much help we had. The house is really looking great!

There are eight new photos available under the House tag. In the photo of Don in the kitchen you can spot our brand new fridge. That was delivered earlier in the week along with a washer and dryer.

We spent a lot of time painting this weekend, and before we got started, I knew I was going to need some ladders. I figured I would need a step ladder and an extension ladder, but being the geek I am, I found one ladder that does both. It’s available from a lot of places, but one of the cheapest is Amazon and you can get it with 2 day shipping if you have Amazon Prime!

It turned out to be even more useful than I thought it would be. You can use it as a regular step ladder but you can set it at different heights between 5’ and 9’. As an extension ladder, it will go all the way out to 22’. And as an unexpected (and probably not recommended) bonus, when you get close to a corner, you can decrease the height of one side of the stepladder to bring you closer to the corner. The same idea applies if you want to set up the ladder on the stairs.

The biggest drawback is the weight. It’s a heavy ladder, but given it’s flexibility and price, I’m very happy that I bought it.

Plus, you get to have this video run through your head the whole time you’re using it. (No, the ladder in the video isn’t the one I bought and the one I bought doesn’t support this configuration.)

After a long and crazy journey, we finally closed on the house on Friday! We were very thankful to finally have the keys in hand and be the proud owners of a house that exceeded our dreams.

Friday night we went over after work to meet with the carpet guy and have dinner on the floor. Logan was nice enough to bring over a little fridge so we could keep beer cold over the weekend.

Saturday morning started with spending a lot of money at Home Depot (a theme of the weekend) and then painting and cleaning. The whole Brandt family came over to help for the entire day. We got the whole kitchen deep cleaned and painted the living room and taped the family room.

Since we were going to church on Monday night this week, we were able to spend all day Sunday at the house. The whole family came over AGAIN and Tim and Chelsea were there too. With all that help, we were able to get both bathrooms cleaned, two coats on the family room and kitchen and one coat in the master bedroom! Tyla and I finished the night by putting a coat of purple in the laundry room.

It was a long weekend, but it was a blast to be in the new house and show our friends and family around. Appliances come later in the week and carpet comes next week. Combined with all the paint and little projects we’re doing, it’s really going through a big transformation.

We can’t thank you all enough for helping out! It would have easily taken us a couple weeks to get this far on our own. We’re both eager to get moved in and have you over for relaxation instead of work!

Photos are available under the House tag.