House Painting: Part 2

We have been very busy since the last house painting update. After work this week, I powerwashed the retaining wall on the side of the house one night. I also cleaned the front walkway another night, which was begging to be washed... 

Here's a better picture where you can see the difference between the clean left side and the dirty right side.

After I was all done, the walkway looked almost brand new!

The weather forecast said that it was going to rain all weekend, so I was disappointed that we wouldn't be able to get any painting done. On Saturday I did some shopping while Alan watched the Iowa football game. Afterwards, we realized that it still hadn't rained and decided to start painting the front of the house at 4:30. 

I didn't think we would get much done, but we painted for 3 hours and almost finished the entire front wall! On Sunday morning we started at 9am and Caitlin came over to help too. We finished the rest of the front pretty quickly. I also worked on painting the front porch. 

BEFORE

AFTER

 Here is a closer picture of the freshly painted front porch. I picked out a color called "Raffia Cream" from Home Depot. It is just a bit lighter than the original porch color. You can see the difference if you look at the house numbers, because I didn't paint the wood background.

While I was working on the porch, Alan and Caitlin were working on the chimney. They scraped all of the sides and painted the back side from the roof.

 Can you believe we finished the front this weekend? We haven't painted the window ledges yet because we're not sure which color we want to use. We might use the same cream as the front porch or might just paint them the same color as the house. Which color do you think would look better?

House Painting: Part 1

We're painting the outside of our house! Every time I tell someone that they say I'm crazy! That may be true, but I don't care!

We started at the back of the house and scraped off all of the peeling paint.

Last week we painted for two hours on Sunday, and we also painted one night after work. We were able to get most of the back wall done:

On Saturday, we worked from 8-10 in the morning and almost finished the back wall. We had to stop to watch Iowa football (right in the middle of the day!). At least they won the game!

Today we got a lot of work done, we worked from 8:30am until 4pm! We started by painting one side of the house. Caitlin came over to help for several hours. It was great to have an extra pair of hands!

After finishing that wall, we starting scraping and then painting the wall by the front door.

While Alan and Caitlin were painting the wall, I started caulking the cracks in the ceiling and walls of the front porch. We are going to eventually paint this area a lighter color than the rest of the house, although I haven't picked out a color yet.

As if that weren't enough, we also used the power washer today to clean the house. I got up on the roof to clean one side of the chimney, and Alan cleaned the other side. Alan washed the side of the house too.

After all that work, we were exhausted! Now we have two sides of the house done, and only two more sides to go!

Summer Projects

Here are some pictures of projects that have kept me busy this summer:

In the spare bedroom, aka my sewing room, we installed shelves in the closet. The previous owners had a stackable washer/dryer in the closet, and when they left there was absolutely nothing in the space. No hanging rod, shelves, or door. Here is the awful before picture:

I primed and painted the walls, and Alan installed the shelving unit. Then it looked like this:

Finally, I found some baskets at the Container Store for gift bags and boxes, ribbons, etc. I also cleaned out a white flower pot and put wrapping paper in it, so now all the gift wrapping supplies are in one place. So organized!!

We also worked on a couple of projects for the guest room. Alan sanded and I painted two nightstands we already had. Here is Alan hard at work using my new power sander:

The after picture of the nightstands is below. But first, I also made a new headboard for the guest bed. I used a piece of plywood, 1" foam from JoAnn's, and an extra brown curtain that I had.

Here I am drilling holes in the legs so I can attach it with bolts to the bed frame:

Here it is after I attached it:

And here is the finished headboard and nightstands!