Painting the House

Louise has been after me for a couple of years to paint the house - not just the outside but all the interior and the trim.

We've lived here for 20 years and I've had the exterior painted a couple of times.  We had never had anything painted on the inside except for the kitchen cabinets, which were painted about five years ago.  I would rather do anything than paint and I'm old enough that I don't do anything on ladders anymore so any painting has to be done by someone else.

Interior paint is apparently like women's clothing.  What was in fashion when we built the house is not in fashion now.  The walls were all beige but Louise wanted them to be gray.  After a couple of years of putting her off, I realized that I was going to have to do something.

Finally, I started looking for a painter and one guy was highly recommended to me.  I started trying to contact him in May and he would never return my calls.  After three or four months, I remembered that I had used a member of my shooting club to paint the exterior several years ago so I decided to call him.  Harold said he would be glad to paint the house so he came out and took a look.

We developed a plan to paint the exterior and have it done by September 23, when we were hosting a Nash cousins family reunion.  The interior work would be started after the reunion.  Harold is in his mid-70's and he warned me that he was slow.  Although his son and grandson helped him some, he as basically a one-man show.  He is a third generation house painter; his father and his grandfather both painted houses.

Harold, with his son and grandson, got the exterior painted just before the reunion and it looked nice.  We didn't change the exterior color but painted it just for maintenance.  After the reunion, he, with his grandson, B.D., came back and started on the interior.

If you ever do decide to have the interior of your house painted, take a vacation and don't come back until it's finished!