Phase two took over our home last week. Phase two and a few other projects (insert sneaky side glances here). I’ll get to the projects later.

We tackled the rest of our basement and wow! It makes a huge difference! Don’t get me wrong, it’s a lot of work. There is a long process of prep (which I’ll cover in a few jiffy’s) and the 13 corners and 4 doorways made it a lot more work than just the small 3rd bedroom with 6 corners and 2 doorways.

I’m going over the steps to prep trim from my own experience. I will be covering the actual painting later on. It’s tricky with carpet, but we figured out a trick that I think is amazing and it works really well.

You could tape off the hardware if you wanted, but since I am also painting our doors it was MUCH easier to pull the doors off and take the hardware with it.

This is a step you really don’t want to skip. You don’t believe me? Look at the picture below… That was after two rinses and starting again. Yuck!

Caulking was really important for us because our trim was never sealed to the wall. I learned this the hard way in the 3rd bedroom. There is a slim crack between the trim and the wall – after you pull the tape off there is a very distinct black gap between the trim and the wall. It was not nearly as “clean” looking as I’d hoped, but no worries, I fixed it.

Sorry about that sidetrack. Caulking is important for really clean lines. And I love those clean lines. It’s also T I M E  C O N S U M I N G! This was by far the longest step besides painting (including dry time). It’s important when you caulk that you wipe the caulk off with your finger or a damp rag. I found the most success with a damp rag – more wet the dry, but not drippy. It worked great and my hands stayed clean.

Allow for the caulking to dry completely (dry time will be on the caulk tube) before you start taping. I went ahead and taped everything around the trim besides the carpet. It took a lot of time, but was worth it for me. I’m not an expert paintbrusher and the safety of the tape made painting go a lot faster.

After the tape is on then paint away!

The ledge wasn’t completely finished when I took these photos, but we got the trim done on Friday morning – right before our big delivery!

WE BOUGHT A COUCH! It’s our first big purchase in the new house! We love it and it looks so good in the basement!

We’re happy couch owners and we will soon be happy rug owners! I can’t wait to show you that.

Today starts our week with my littlest sister so we are busy busy.

Happy Monday! Are you tackling any big projects like painting your trim white? I hope so, because it’s exhilarating!
Love, KJ

I don’t think you can necessarily tell from this photo… But we have started a project in the new house! A very large and long project…

I’ll be honest, I was getting a little bit stir crazy and needed something to do besides empty boxes and feel confused on where to put things and make things messier than they were when I started. I needed a project that I could see the progress of and then live with the change.

When we first walked through this house I saw a lot of brown. I love brown, like a deep dark walnut brown, but the brown in our house was not dark walnut. So, I mentioned to Mike that I’d love to have white trim and he kinda gave me wide eyes… “You want to paint all the trim in this house white?!?” were his first thoughts. Ok, it’s a lot. Ok, it’s daunting. Ok, it’s not just the trim but the doors and the cabinets and literally everything made out of wood in this whole house. But yes, I wanted to paint the trim in our brand new home white.

On Thursday morning I got the go ahead from the Mr.

On Thursday afternoon I took some paint swatches from Home Depot and held them against our trim.

On Thursday evening I caulked around all the baseboards in the 3rd bedroom. There was a very slim little gap between the wall and the boards. If I was going to paint all the trim in this house white I was going to do it right.

After the caulking I taped the walls real good and lightly sanded and wiped down all my surfaces.

On Thursday night I put my first coat of primer on the brown and I felt extremely exhausted (and also extremely accomplished)

Ever since Thursday night I’ve been going up and down our stairs putting on new coats of paint. I’ve also starting tackling the doors for the closet and the hallway and I’ve started painting inside the closet.

At this point we are absolutely in love with the final product and I’m not sick of painting yet. There was a moment on Saturday that I sat down for too long and wasn’t sure if I was going to get back up (ever), but I’m not sure if that was paint related or really sore from yoga class related. Either way we’re jazzed about the new state of our guest bedroom and cannot wait to tackle our family room downstairs.

So, now you know what I’ve been up to. I’ll have final photos up on Wednesday of the room and some other things we’ve been up to in this new house, so stay tuned!

Happy Monday!
Love, KJ