Week 6 and 7... and 8: Entryway

Ok, so the entryway took 3 weeks... or 4, but in all fairness Mom and I used one of the weekends to paint. So that doesn't count, right?

Following along the path (but not timing) of the 14 Week Home Organizing Challenge, I have been working on the "Launch Pad" or for me, the entryway.

There wasn't much to do here, but honestly I have been running a bit out of steam. The rest of the house and life can only be ignored for so long until it gets cluttered, and I needed to straighten some of that out. So yes, arguably the easiest part of the house took me three weeks instead of one. Sometimes that is just how life goes.

I started with dusting from the top down. Then I wiped down all the wood with Murphy's Oil Soap and vacuumed the stairs to prep for painting.

The old peachy color on the railing spindles and stair stringers went with the old paint scheme, but since we had the interior painted it just looked like an eyesore. I ended up going with the color Eider White (from Sherwin Williams) and using an enamel latex paint. That should help with the durability and helped reduce paint strokes. A lesson learned was to apply thin coats of paint to avoid having drips running down the spindles.

Thanks to Mom and her amazing trim-taping skills, this went easier than I expected. We still had to sand, wipe, tape, trim, and paint so it took a solid two days to complete. Two coats of paint might have been passable, but I'm so glad we did a third coat as long as we had everything taped off.

Eva was quality assurance as always... and only got paint dripped on her once.

By the way, if you ever have to paint walls or trim right up to the carpet, this trick worked like a charm: put PACKING TAPE along the edge of the carpet and let the edge run up onto the baseboard by about 1/2" to 1/4". Using a plastic putty knife (or some sturdy tool), push the top edge of the tape down, pulling the carpet away from the baseboard. If you are lucky you might be able to get the tape all the way under the baseboard.
In our example you can see it pulling the carpet away from the stair rungs.

The tight space makes it really difficult to photograph, so the pictures don't do it justice. The new color really makes such a difference.

 As you can see, Eva was being very helpful with the pictures...
Here it is painted, but before you take the tape off.



Then you peel away the tape, and it is like magic! It has to be one of my favorite parts of painting.





I really can't thank Mom enough. Not only does she lend a helping hand to make things go faster, she helps make it fun. I wouldn't get half the projects done if it wasn't for her hands-on and emotional support. Love you Mom!







Here's to a clean, painted entryway!






Oh, and I told Dear Husband (DH) that I was having a tough week and would like some flowers from him. He was super sweet, went above and beyond, making me a surprise dinner and got me an orchid! I've never had an orchid before. (I was just expecting a bouquet of daisies or carnations.)