Our Circus

Some of you know that we coined our 1st floor in our house the “circus.” See, I got all excited when we decided to buy a house that I already thought about what I wanted all my rooms to look like. WELL, for any homeowners, you know that this doesn’t work. You need to see what the rooms look like before you start planning and decorating. This is how our circus came about. I knew I wanted a blue living room and a yellow kitchen. This was decided BEFORE the viewing and purchasing of our house. Our house has a VERY open floor plan with a kitchen that opens up to a breakfast area and then our living room. The previous owners had the living room painted maroon along with the common wall between the kitchen and breakfast area. The other kitchen walls were covered in this brick wallpaper. I don’t DO wallpaper. That came down and we took the same approach but with blue and yellow. We painted the living room and common wall a dark, dark blue and the kitchen walls a yellow. Husband was EXTREMELY skeptical from the get go and said that we should just paint the ceiling red and we’d have our own circus…..thus the nickname, the circus.

Well, it has been 2 years since the purchase and circus overhaul and we decided that we needed to change it. It was real bad when I’d be a bit embarrassed to let people inside for fear they’d want to know when the next show started. So began the bickering about re-painting the living room and kitchen. We ended with plans to do it our next free weekend.

We planned it for the last weekend. Operation de-circus would be commencing. I was a bit leery about it actually happening since it was talked about for a LONG time now, with no action and we had a bit of a "color blow-out" on the Wed before. Husband is afraid my decorating skills will suck like they did the first time. Since, the “color blow-out” I didn’t see him much until Friday. Nothing was said about the plans. I have a 1/2 day of work and I was planning on taping off the walls and getting it but we haven't picked out a color yet; even though I’ve strategically placed the color swatches ALL OVER the house for his opinion. After work, I had my mental plans for what to do, go to the library, post office, Target and Home Depot to get some materials and Husband called me. He was going to pick up some lunch and I said I would meet him just to see him. He then asked me if I was going to start painting today.....what??? ok, cool. When I went to see him, he was actually all a-go about it and told me to go get the stuff to start since we would have to prime the CRAP out of our blue walls to make it cream/beige.....color still to be determined. So the de-circus-ing starts.

I prepped the room on Friday....moving all the furniture, wiping the walls down and taping off all the trim.....vacuuming, the works. With white primer in tow....we started one coat on Friday. Husband helped when he got home and grumbled a bit about a few things and was still upset about my blue color choice in the first place so it was a grueling 1st coat. He let off some steam by painting bad words on the wall. Coat one down.....still can see some blue but the HD guy said that one coat should be enough. Husband didn't agree and griped some how I didn't buy enough paint and he wanted a 2nd primer coat.

Gunther's (our ALMOST 1 year old Weimaraner) crate was moved to the basement and for safety reasons, spent most of the day down there. Only 1 mishap with the animals this day. Our cat, Howard, was trying to get into the closet he is not allowed and almost knocked my paint tub over and got some white on his paw. Husband had to chase him and throw him into the small bathroom to wipe the paw as I took care of the white on the carpet. NICE.
Friday-we go to sleep tired and sore.

Saturday morning, we get up nice and early to go to Home Depot. Picked out a color.....Cozy Cottage (Behr) It is a nice cream color. Was kind of a hasty decision since we picked it 5 minutes before we left for the store but there are just TOO MANY damn colors to pick from and they ALL start to look alike! Got the paint and stuff and had a tiff about how much to get. My calculations called for 404 ft² of walls to paint and OF COURSE, the gallon covers 250-400 ft². I said 2 would be enough.....Husband wanted 3 but I won with 2. Get home and painted a 2nd coat of primer on the walls and realized we needed more primer. This lead Hubby to go to HD to get more primer and came home with a 3rd gallon of color paint (which we didn't use.....MEN) anywho....today, I wanted to be good parents, so the night before, I stuffed Gunther's bones with wet dogfood and treats and froze them. I did 4 of them and they occupied him for about 2 hours!!! During the 2nd coat of primer, he managed to get paint ALL OVER his tail, on a round spot on his ass and a bunch on his ear. HE NEVER TOUCHES THE WALL UNTIL WE PAINT!!! Back into the basement for him but it was his naptime and he was quiet. He started to snatch things he shouldn't have and running with it. Paper towels, rags….you name it. Husband was trying to retrieve one of these items and Gunther turned his head real fast, not realizing the couch was moved to where he was headed and BAMMM....smacked right into the corner. Didn't phase him but the next morning, we noticed a HUGE bump on his nose with a bit of dried blood behind it. He is fine....I think he broke a blood vessel and his sniffer still works. These damn animals!

Saturday - 2nd coat of primer and 1st coat of Cozy Cottage....watched the game OSU Football game while color and some spackle dried......still tacky so we went out to a REAL NICE dinner.....rented the Rug Doctor that evening and came home and pushed out 2nd coat of color. I DO NOT recommend doing this on a full stomach. Painting now done.....SCORE and we LOVE the color. It really brightens up the room.

Sunday - up early AGAIN.....removal of tape and preparation to clean the carpet underway. Wanted to move the EXTREMELY heavy entertainment center my dad made out of wood (or should I say steel) outside in the garage. Husband was cleaning out a “spot” in the garage to make room for the unit because I don't want to part with it yet. Hours later, I am still inside, cleaning the carpet, removing tape and touching-up paint and no husband.....he's in the garage. This is snowballing and he is cleaning the CRAP out of it. A TON of garbage sits on our curb and we now have a garage that cars can go into!!!!

Finished cleaning the carpet and started moving the room back....plan was to bring the big screen TV from the basement upstairs. I am tough, I can do it I moved the entertainment center outside. We started to move it and got it over the steps and it was wedged on a step and at the end of the basement steps and the wall with husband holding it up, propped on the step. ALL I had to do was lift it one stair at a time. YEAH RIGHT! I realized I couldn’t pick this thing up an INCH. I had to run over to the neighbors to borrow some muscle. Neighbor came over to see husband wedged behind a big screen TV at the base of our basement steps and he helped bring it up.

SO, that was the weekend. I couldn’t wait to get to work to relax!

We now have a Cozy Cottage colored living room.....HOWEVER, it is still a hint of circus since the kitchen is STILL 1/2 blue and 1/2 yellow. The grand plan is to paint this the darker color on the color card thing in the kitchen (Oat Straw) No room for error if we are using the card right?
We have clean carpets, a big screen with all our electronics nicely stacked on top INCLUDING a surround sound system father-in-law gave us we never hooked up, AND a clean garage. Whew. We were NON STOP all weekend.....our feet were burning that night.

The grand plan is to paint the kitchen SOMETIME the coming week.

Any questions?