Renovations Finally Continue

Almost a month ago, I posted Renovations, a blog about moving my sewing room to the main floor playroom, Trystan to the bedroom sewing/guest room leaving Owen where he is and the boys each having their own room after sharing for seven years.  Our progress was interrupted by Michael having to fly to Britain unexpectedly.  His mother was hospitalized and determined to be terminal.  Michael was with her when she died Thursday evening, October the 30th.  He stayed to plan and attend the funeral and clean out her house to ready it for sale.  We didn’t feel like jumping back into the renovations right away when he returned.

Last Sunday we decided we had delayed long enough and I chose and paint colour and we went to Bramalea Paint and Wallpaper on Torbram Road to buy it.  I like dealing with them.  It has been the same owners the whole time we have shopped there, which is almost 15 years.  They keep files on all the paint we have bought and in which room it was used.  After telling the owner that I wanted to paint a pale yellow I asked him to look up the colour that was on the walls so he could advise us as to how to proceed.  He couldn’t find it in the first computer he used, so he went to a second computer where he keeps the archives and there it was.  “Yellow and blue don’t play nicely”, he told us, before advising we do two primer coats in white, then two top coats in the tinted paint.

This is what it looked like before we began.

This is after removing all the furnishings.

Here is Michael ready to paint after the wall repairs have been made, the walls sanded and washed and the drop cloths placed.

Michael cut in the first few feet and then showed me how to roll.  He has always done the rolling in the past while I played the support role.

I only got a few feet done, not really honing my skill yet, when Megan appeared and wanted to help.  Alun painted about 48 square inches before becoming bored and disappearing back into his room.

When Megan got bored after two walls I took over.  By the end of the first coat of primer the walls looked pretty bad.  Three different people rolling with different techniques and skills levels, with the dark blue still showing through, more in some places than others.  However, I felt I had improved my skill quite a bit by the time I finished.

Michael, Owen and I went for a walk.  It was a relatively warm afternoon at ten degrees.  We stopped for a coffee at Davide’s Bakery, a local Italian bakery, which, I am pleased to say, is doing well.  Most of the restaurants in our area are Indian or fast food.

Once we returned the walls were dry enough to do a second coat.  It was getting dark by the time we finished and we were casting shadows, so it is hard to tell for sure, but I think we got pretty good coverage on our second coat.  We will wait and view it in the light before decided whether to buy more primer for a third coat or to move on to the tinted paint next.  We want to make sure we don’t have to do a third coat of the tinted paint as it costs $61 per can versus $25 for the primer.

Michael made us a great stuffed pork roast with crackling and all the trimmings for dinner.