From "EEEK!" To Chic - The Floors!

I've taken a few days off - been wearing myself a little thin - and now I'm on vacation in Cali. But on Saturday I got a bunch done, thanks in large part to my mom. She introduced me to the angle brush to do all my cutting in around the trim...til now, I've been using just a small painters brush, like for canvas painting. Hopefully it will go a lot faster now.

Another thing I learned - Behr Primer & Paint in 1 is totally not worth the extra $10 per gallon. The paint people at Home Depot said it would just take one coat, even on yellow walls. FALSE. It didn't even put an even coat on the white walls in the kitchen. I was pretty annoyed with that, my mother could testify. I spent a lot of Saturday afternoon complaining about it.

The best part of Saturday is that we started painting the floors. Another helpful hint: paint swatch colors can be lightened or darkened at the paint counter. I brought an espresso brown swatch to the counter, but the guy told me that the special Behr Porch and Floor paint couldn't be tinted that color. He showed me a walnut, but I told him it was too light. He said he could darken it by adding more black tint. The color came out way better than I could have imagined.

Another tip- if you're painting a wood floor, I highly suggest Behr Floor and Porch paint. My mom painted most of the floors with just a brush while I finished painting some walls, and she was surprised how well it was taking to the floors. It really only needed one coat -- if I was going for perfection, maybe two coats, but I think it looks 100% better just with the one coat.

So here are some pictures of Saturday's progress. I didn't get a chance to go back Monday, on account of a bad cold that started Sunday and had me in bed until Monday morning. And now I'm on a little vacation until New Year's. Definitely have a bunch more to do, but energized to get it all done.

So Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Talk to you in a week!