No Painting on Saturdays!

Well I suppose we can, but we better have planned it out during the week. Let me back up--we moved here (pop. 7500) from there (pop. 100,000). So far the perks of living in a small town far outweigh the cons. One of the cons being there are no paint stores open on Saturday.

We had decide on two colors for the dining room. A golden browny yellowy kind of color for above the chair rail and a reddish winey sort of color below the rail. So we head out Saturday to get some quarts to test drive the colors. We head to the store we had gotten the color chips from---CLOSED. Store # 2----CLOSED. Drive 7 miles to the next small town (pop. 9500) Store # 3----CLOSED. We then realize, we are going to have to go to the City.

It is amazing how quickly we have become small town snobs. The city is really not that far, and we both commute there for work. So why is it such a big deal today? Maybe we are just weird. I don't know too many couples in there twenties that would purposefully move to a tiny town and then dread going somewhere that not only are paint stores open on Saturday but, stores are open after dark.

Anyway, we get there, order up some paint-we had to do the color matching thing because the sample chips did not come from there. We get home and I am about to explode in excitement to get some color on the walls. We threw a little red on---looks pretty good. Then the yellow......... It is the most hideous thing I have ever seen! It looks like a school bus massacre. Good thing we only got a quart. So we will have to get the yellow remixed. But not today...it is Sunday...and I don't want to go to the City.

Not a craftsman, but didn't destroy it

The contractor that sold us the house was not what you would call a craftsman, and he probably wasn't all that concerned about keeping the integrity of the house. The vinyl trim on the exterior, and the new solid pane windows are probably good from a maintenace and energy standpoint, but they do make it hard to tell what the house used to look like. There are very cheap and well, frankly ugly light fixtures in every room of the house. The kitchen "renovation" does not match the character of the house(cheap oak veneer cabinets, beige laminate counters roll vinyl floors). Someone at some time turned the breakfast nook into a laundry room. BUT we of course new all of that going in, and we do have things to be thankfull for. The bathroom still has the hexagon floor tiles, and black and white wall tiles. All of the doors and door hardware are original, the wide base molding is still here (don't know where the crown molding went), the hall still has the textured plaster walls, and the floors are in fairly good shape (only two rooms left with carpet).

House Background

We don't know too much about our house's history yet. It is listed in the tax rolls as being built in 1936. We have learned from neighbors that the last residents lived here for about 20 years. They lost the house, and a contractor bought the house in mid 2004. The contractor did quite a bit of work (new roof, windows, kitchen) and listed the house for sale in late 2004, when we bought it.