Into every life a little paint must splatter.

Before you paint you must prime. And we did, like good little house painters. We are old hat at this, since before we moved in, we primed and painted every room in the house, barring those slated for remodeling.

We primed the entire kitchen.



When it came to painting, we very carefully cut in and painted edges and areas that would remain exposed after cabinet installation.



Where cabinets were to be installed, we did not paint.



The color is called rolling hills, and looks very different in person.



Joe and I are happy with the color...it looks good with the colors in the adjoining rooms, and the contrast between the white ceiling and green walls is very crisp.



Now we were ready to install the cabinets....

and TAPE! and MUD! and TAPE!

For those of you who have ever hung sheetrock, you know that, while hanging it can be a pain in the ass, taping it and slathering the walls with mud is an even less desirable task.

First, you tape and mud the seams. (By "mud" by the way, I mean joint compound, and enough of it to build a very small fort.

Joe tackled one wall, not looking very excited.



My dad started on the ceiling.



I think the smell of the compound went to Joe's head... ;)



My mom tackled everything she could reach. I'm not quite sure why she was upside down...



I actually spent that day hanging strips of sheetrock to cover the bottom most six inches of all the walls, since sheetrock comes in 4'x8' sheets, and our ceilings are 8 1/2' high. I also spent much time applying tape and mud, though, being the photographer, there is no evidence of this.



Every seam and every screw hole had to be taped. Or covered in joint compound. Or both.



That's EVERY seam, and EVERY screw hole. There were a lot.



What you see here in one post, actually took abut two weeks in real time. That's because when the mud is dry, you have to go around and sand all of those previously mentioned seams and screw holes to a very smooth finish. Not so bad. Except then you have to apply a wider, smoother, second coat of mud, and again, wait for it to dry. Then, yup...you guessed it, sand it to a very smooth finish. Finally, (and do you see a pattern here?) you have to go around and apply a third, watered-down coat very nicely and super smoothly and wait some more for it to dry. Then, one last round of sanding to what kind of finish? Class? Super smooth! Yes!

This, by the way, makes a giant mess. The result mimics what you would expect to see if you decided to dump a container of baby powder in front of a very high powered fan.

We were covered in sheet rock dust just about every night for a week and a half. Joe did most of the ceiling, working mostly right over his head, and this was the result.



When working, always wear safety goggles, so you, too, can take a picture just like this!



I was working on the walls, and therefore managed to stay a little cleaner than Joe.



My feet got the brunt of it. My sheetrock version of a Teva tan.



This got us ready to prime and paint the whole kitchen.

You guessed it...that's for another post.

Sheetrock is not my friend.

Sheetrock is heavy.

Ceilings are high.

This is not a good combination. Luckily, my folks came up several weekends in a row to help out. We started doing the sheetrock while I still had my kidney stone, so I am heavily medicated and, now, thoroughly surprised it all came out all right. :)

The people we bought the house from had made braces for hanging sheetrock on the ceiling. Unfortunately, they made them a length appropriate for the LOWERED ceiling they were installing. Anyway, we used them and they sort of working.



Joe and I my dad did most of the heavy lifting, while I screwed in the sheets.





It worked ok until Joe knocked our 18V drill off of the top of the ladder down onto my back as I was kneeling on the floor getting the rotozip out of the bag. I won't mention that it landed right above my stone-laden kidney and flopped over directly ONTO said kidney. Nor will I mention how, as I was crying on the floor, my dad nicely told me I was ok, and my mom said that that was one way to knock the kidney stone loose. Ahh, the support group I have. Needless to say, I did not help out the rest of the day.

That day my dad and Joe finished the ceiling.



Over the next week, Joe and I worked every night to get the walls covered.



Including all of the odd angles...



...and tricky corners. Also notice in this picture our Little Giant Ladder and CordPro, extension cord keeper.

These are possibly two of the best inventions, EVER.



Eventually the whole room was done.



Then came taping. But that's another post.

She's ALIIIIVE!!!

I am indeed alive, though you wouldn't know it by the existence of recent posts.

Since I had my lithotripsy, I am like a new person. I'm back to playing volleyball, and Joe and I have been working like CRAZY on the kitchen. Since so much has happened in the last month, I'll make a few different posts to catch you up...

Have fun with all of the new pics!

Die Hardly Working

An AWESOME movie.
It's called "Die Hardly Working", by Zach Lipovsky.