Paint

It was nice to see the paint go up - it was a sign that we were actually getting close to finishing up.

Probably the biggest challenge with the painting process was choosing the colors. When we built our last house, we choose boring white and were always disappointed with it. Although neutrals are "safe" - we found later that the houses we liked the most were those that used more bold colors. Narrowing down the color is not easy considering that you have to consider all of the other color choices that are in the house: counters, carpet, hardwood, cabinets, woodwork, etc. It took us months to finally pick the colors.

We chose colors from a different paint manufacturer than the one our painting contractor used. However, we were told not to worry as the contractor's paint supplier would be able to match the colors exactly. Well, it turned out that they in fact did not match the paint exactly. The main paint color ended up much more yellow than I thought it would be; when we put our original paint color swatch up against the walls, it was immediately obvious that the colors were not the same.

However, my wife really like the color, and told me to be patient and see how it turned out when completed. Although I was nervous, I trusted my wife. She ended up being right - after the house was completed, I ended up liking the color much better. I still think the color swatch we picked would have looked better, but I like the color that we ended up with well enough.

One thing, however, is that the main color looked terrible with the tile in the master bathroom. It really clashed. So, about a day after the painters left, we found ourselves in the master bathroom with buckets of a new paint color. We liked the new color much better.

All in all the painting went well, however, some of the painters employees did some rather sloppy work in some areas. Fortunately, the painter returned after we moved into the house and is fixing the problem areas.