Let There Be White!

Sometimes you don't even know what you don't know until you know that you didn't know.

I knew from Day One that I was going to have to paint the ceiling in the living room.  For one reason or another, the ceiling above the fireplace was dark and sooty.  I don't know if the previous owners had a fire without the flue open, but judging by the darkness, it's likely this was over the course of time.  So who knows.  It looked like an 1800's house.  But I was ONLY planning on having the living room ceiling painted.  Frankly, outside of the fireplace, I didn't think the ceilings looked that bad in the rest of the house.  When I would walk into the house, I would never find myself saying, "Hey, these ceilings are dirty."

Boy, oh boy, was I wrong.  Sometime amidst the conversations with my painter, he recommended painting ALL of the lower floor ceilings.  I wasn't going to argue!  Hey, if my painter is recommending and volunteering for something, I'm all in!  So all the ceilings it was!

I bought a five-gallon bucket of ceiling paint and left it for him.  Well, today was the day he started, and I can't even begin to describe the difference such a simple decision is making.  The rooms are brightening before my very eyes.  It's truly incredible!

Out with the "white" and in with the real WHITE!!!

Notice any difference?

I didn't know that the ceilings weren't white until I saw what white looked like next to them!!!

Needless to say, I'm ecstatic about the decision.  It is obviously going to add some time for the painter, but the house just looks sharp.  He has his work cut out for him, but what a change!

The one place where I knew I had to paint the ceilings.  Above the fireplace was black!

What a difference!

I love it!

The house is going to pop!

Now on the outside.  One of the projects on my list was to rake up more of the pine tree needles.  I am wanting grass to grow all around the trees, so I started raking.  And I just couldn't believe the amount of needles being pulled up!  No wonder grass wasn't growing!  It COULDN'T!  There was no room to breathe.  I would fill up almost an entire truckbed full of needles!

Raking up the pine needles.

Sooooooo many!!!

A bed full of needles and branches!

And speaking of not knowing what you don't know...so I went to remove a couple of patio stones from out of the ground by the deck.  You could just barely see them, but I knew they were there.  So I took a spade and popped them out of the ground.  But after I saw both of them laying on the ground, I saw a pattern starting to take shape...it looked like the beginning of a patio walkway!  So I took my spade and jabbed it into the ground at the exact spacing from the two that were now out of the ground.

Hmm...two stones out spaced this far apart.  I had an inkling of something more...

CLANK!!!  Ouch.  Bad idea.  The spade stopped instantly.  Though it looked like it would pierce the earth, it hit solid stone.  ANOTHER one.

Well, I knew exactly what I had now.  So I just started jabbing into the "grass" and finding buried treasures of stepping stones.  It was so crazy I went and grabbed my dad to show him.  I was literally turning up stepping stones from what looked like lawn.  Over...and over...and over again.

Just what I expected...a stone path!

All but two were HIDDEN under the earth!

I had to cut the house work short as I had brakes to replace on my truck.  I received a bid of $992.00 to fix a broken brake line, and I said nope, I'll do (most of) the work myself.  So on to the next project for saving money...

And just for fun because I love how it turned out...the deck again!

So much better!