I'm pretty sure he's lying...

My husband is amazing with paint. Since I, in contrast, suck so very badly at anything that involves paint, it makes his abilities stand out that much more.

He did teach me how to "cut in" much better than I used to. This is an example of my work, sans painter tape:

Even I was impressed by that sort of stuff, and I don't impress all that easily. Especially over something like painting. Anyway, here's an example of me complaining about how crappy I am at painting...I knew that my husband was going to be painting a fresh coat of white paint on the trim after we finished the walls, but all the same, I felt terrible about messing up at all while I was cutting in. Hence my complaining about even trying.

You can't see it all that well in this photo, but I painted the final coat in the living room when we painted it in 2006 (again, documented here in the run down of the 4 Gallon Miscalculation Debacle of 2006), and it looks pitiful in some places. My arms and hands get tired after a certain amount of rolling. And so lines in the dried paint can be visible in spots. It's kinda embarrassing.

Anyway, a general argument between my husband and I with the garage remodel concerns the paint going up. We are agreed on the paint color for the walls...it will be the same as the paint in the living room, since we have so gosh-darned much of the stuff, still! (Side note: We have an acquaintance that wanted to unload some left over paint she had in her house from a project she did, which she assured us was high quality stuff, and we had planned on using that. The only thing was that she wasn't sure that the colors were all the same, but she wanted to give it to us if we needed it. We accepted her offer, and then every time we saw her, she said she was sorry she had forgotten the paint, but would bring it to us the following week. No joke, this went on for literally months. She finally was able to give it to us at a party we threw to celebrate the completion of the new addition around Christmastime, and we opened the cans last week to see what colors we were dealing with. Only, they aren't really a specific color anymore, so much as they are just a separation of materials that once constituted paint, but now is so old and separate, it just constitutes trash. Gee, thanks acquaintance. Now we have to figure out how to dispose of 3 gallons of crap that is completely useless, and would be harmful in a landfill. Goody. ::rolls eyes:: Moral to the side note: before you give someone something like paint in hopes of being helpful to them in some way, check the quality first. Especially if it's been under your basement stairs for over 10 years. Not that this moral isn't already generally a given amongst most people...)

I am a fan of using paint that we already have in our possession, in the interest of saving some cash, and also using resources that we would otherwise likely just need to dispose of eventually. Our bathroom and bedroom both are different shades of blue, and we have some paint leftover from that project, but it's not a lot of paint. I thought it would be the perfect amount to cover the ceiling in the garage, but Jesse was against that idea. He wants the ceiling to just be white. ::sigh:: I think that's boring, and also a waste of $8. Last night, he informed me that there isn't enough blue paint to cover the ceiling, but I think he's lying. I think he could make it work if he really wanted to. The thing is, I'd do it myself, but painting the ceiling is out of reach for me, literally. It would be very hard for me, as a sucky painter, to complete the overhead job, andplusalso, it would be guaranteed to look absolutely terrible when I finished with it.

So I'm getting a boring, plain, blah white ceiling in my garage. Yay.

BUT! I saw a picture in a recent Elle Decor that I was finally getting around to reading of a high gloss white ceiling that inspired me. So I think that if I have to have white, I'm gonna go high gloss. That will make me happier, I think.

Thing is, I think it'll make Jesse happy, too. Part of his reasoning for not wanting the blue (even a pale blue like we have in our master bedroom and bathroom...) ceiling is because he doesn't want it to feel closed in, or dark at all, as it used to. The high gloss should solve that!

I think I'll go buy it tomorrow, on my lunchbreak...and then give it to him like a present at dinner. :)

::dusts off blog::

Hi! I think the best way to get this baby back on track is to just jump into it, right? Ok then...

The garage remodel is still rolling, although we did finally bid adieu to the contractor when he finished the drywall last week, so the rest of the process is in our hands at this point. We're going through several cans of primer and then painting this week, and hopefully, I'll have some "process complete" pictures up early next week that I can share. The biggest hurdle to get past for now is convincing my husband that using leftover blue paint from the bedroom on the ceiling in the garage is a good idea. He wants it to be white. ::insert "blah" face here:: We're using leftover paint in order to save some money, and also so it just doesn't go to waste. We have scads of paint left over from the Living Room 4 Gallon Miscalculation Debacle of 2006, so we're using that on the walls in the garage. And as far as I'm concerned, a blue ceiling sounds very pretty and fun, and that's the final design aim for the garage...for it to be pretty, anyway...so I think I should win this argument. Maybe I'll hate it, and he can gloat and mock me for the next 4 years. Wouldn't that be a win/win for everyone, really? No? I dunno...

One of the things we decided to do with this remodel is replace the door that leads into the kitchen from the garage. The old one was a stock, inside-use only kind of door that was neither fire proof nor very attractive. It would be putting it lightly to say that we hated it. So we had it measured for a replacement in the future by Home Depot a few months ago, and then we went in and purchased the new door along with all the other supplies for the garage project, so our contractor could hang it for us.

Unfortunately, I don't know if they measured wrong, or what happened, but this is what the door looked like when it was hung:

There was a looot of light and air that was able to get in through the spaces left by the mis-sized door. It was almost a full half-inch at the top!

And the side wasn't much better. I was pretty disappointed with that...
But the contractor was a talented guy. He did his magic, and managed to get the door to come together in the end. More pictures of that completion with the rest of them next week, I promise. In the mean time, know that we are exceedingly happy with our new door, the way it looks, and the way it closes and opens, and everything. Yay!

Not only are we at the point where we pick the paint colors, but we're also at the point where we can decorate the space. We needed nicer, newer shelves than the ones we already had. Considering most of the shelves we had in the space were all thrown away since they were old and falling apart, we don't have much of a choice but to buy more storage options, really. So we got something similar to this from Home Depot last night:

The one they had in stock was a chrome one for $109, but it's similar to that black one, except it has 6 tiers. I'd also like to pick up a set of drawers like this one...
We need a good place to organize all of our smaller tools, and a set of drawers like that would fit perfectly. I'm just trying to figure out if I want to spend the $109 on that right now, or not. I'm inclined toward the thinking that it will be charged to my credit card before the end of the day. Can't be sure, but it's seeming likely.

Anyway, I can't wait to update with more pictures of the finished product! A clean, useful, pleasant-to-park-in garage has seemed like a pipe dream for most of the years I've lived in our home, and to finally be this close to the reality of it is something to celebrate, for sure!