Painted, $290

So I picked up Mom on the way home from work on Friday night.  Mom is staying with us until Tuesday.  The main reason we asked her out was so she could dog sit while Ali was at a conference all day.  Secondarily we wanted to use her painting experience to help us pick out a color to use in the dining room.  Third we hoped she might want to help paint too.  All three worked out great.

Mom and I went to Lowe’s Saturday morning to pick up two gallons of the paint we picked out the night before.  The color was called “sandy shell”.  As we checked out we asked the clerk about job opportunities at Lowe’s since Lowe’s and Home Depot could be two possible good fits for mom to reenter the workforce.  She said they weren’t hiring right now but mom could get her application in online so when something comes up she would be in the pool of people to be considered.

While we were away Ali did a nice job of getting all of the trim work in the dining room taped off in prep for painting.  She actually had to take off to some luncheon so mom and I were going to start the painting while she was gone.  In order to minimize the furniture moving I shifted the main table to the one wall, thinking we could get 3 walls painted and then move stuff back to do the last wall.  In my head I figured it would be a 2 day project. I was wrong.

One of the most annoying things for me is trying to paint the ceiling line in a room.  In our other painting projects I have tried using various edgers to get the job done.  I never had great success in getting a consistent and clean ceiling line.  In the living room I decided to tape the ceiling line this time.  I figured what the hell, taping the trim works great, why not do the same thing with the ceiling?  In the past I shyed away from taping the ceiling because it seemed like it would be a large pain in the ass.  Once again I was wrong.  Taping the ceiling wasn’t hard or a very lengthy process however it made a huge difference in both the amount of effort to paint the line and also in the quality of the work.  As I pulled the tape away I had a beautiful, straight, crisp line.

Mom and I worked diligently.  By the time Ali got back from her luncheon we had two coats on the three walls.  All that was left was to do a bout a 10 foot section on the last wall.  Ali couldn’t believe how much we got done.  She jumped right in to help us finish.  Ali went around and did the touch up work since that is her specialty.  The first paint hit the walls around 11:15, we were pretty much done and cleaned up by 4:30, pretty amazing.

The color looks great, Mom, Ali and I all agree.  We plan to use the same color when we take on the daunting project of painting the rest of the large living area.  The color matched everything in the room well.  It is weird how a simple change of color can change the entire mood of a room.  All of a sudden our dining room feels warm and classy.  Throughout the rest of the weekend we all spent many moments just admiring the change.

Our Sunday was a nice contrast to a pretty bust ass Saturday.  After doing some inside chores and putting in a couple of miles on the treadmill I joined mom by the pool.  It was hot as hell yesterday.  You couldn’t stay out of the pool very long before you were sweating again. Ali was gone again for a good portion of the day but joined mom by the pool when she got back.

Speaking of hot, that is what Ali and I were when we saw the $290 electric bill.  Now we have had bills this high before but this was different.  This was the bill for June.  We were gone for two weeks out west!  During that time the computers were off, the water heater was off, the tv’s were off, everything was off except the pool pump and the AC that was set at a steady 82 degrees.  It should not have been that high.

I noticed that yesterday the AC was on pretty much all day.  The system didn’t appear to be able to cool the house down very efficiently.  It lead me to my hypothesis of why the bill was so high.  I think the AC system once again has water pooled down in the vent under the air handler, choking off air and thus making the system very inefficient.  I plan to rip the air handler open tonight after work and take a look.  I fully expect to be vacuuming out several gallons of water.  I have to do something to fix this problem long term.

My truck gets it’s new tonneau cover installed today.  I threw my bike in the back so I could simply ride to work after dropping off the truck since it was only about a mile from my office.  I look forward to not having to use a rock to hold down the broken, flapping cover.

If you want to see all of the pictures from the painting project go here.