Painting! (Day 1)

Yesterday was Painting Day 1. We thought tackling the painting of the kitchen would be fairly straight-forward. Prime in the morning, wait an hour or two, then apply the first coat and you're done for Day 1. Day 2 all you'd have to do is apply the second coat and relax. Not so simple. I made three separate trips to the paint store yesterday. I have to give another shout out to the guys over at Thybony Paint in Andersonville. Not only are they the most knowledgeable and helpful people, but they are just kind, and just a great local business that I'm proud to support. The first trip was right before we primed. We needed another roller, extra roller replacements, more paint stirrers, and additional brushes for edging and corners. So while Dave expertly taped off the kitchen, and boxed up everything on the shelves (again!), I hopped over to Andersonville. Easy. Got what I needed, came home, put on my painting clothes, and joined Dave in the kitchen. Voila! We're primed:

After the primer dried, and Lanie'd had a good walk, we got everything ready to start applying the first coat of actual paint. Dave got out the paint to start stirring it up, and it just didn't look right. There was a layer of watery something on the top, and stirring it did little to make it look convincingly good. Too thin, to liquidy, and certain to create a mess. We stopped, packed it back up, and I jumped back in the car to bring it over to Thybony to see what they thought. They agreed something wasn't right, but thought that whoever had originally mixed it for us hadn't shaken it enough. It went back in the shaker and looked a little better. So, they suggested I take it home and try it, and if it was still too thin, to call them and they'd prepare another can (of better quality! and at no cost!) paint for me to come swap it out for. Home I went, and sure enough, taupe-y water was what awaited us, so I called, gave them the paint color, and rushed back over (they were closing) to pick up another can of Ticonderoga Taupe (Benjamin Moore #992 - that's for our records). They had it ready, and were waiting for me, even though the store was closed. So home I went again, and we got to painting. At the end of Day 1, the kitchen already looked great. I'll save the full-reveal for tomorrow after we've pulled all the tape off and put everything back on shelves and in its place, but here's a small taste, mess and painting supplies intact, of what it's looking like:

(I love it with the blue tile!)

(original plan was to leave the shelves white, but we changed our minds... I think it'll look great!)

We've just now finished with coat #2, and it looks fantastic! Full-effect tomorrow... stay tuned!