Project: Painting Before and After

Last week Cordelia had been in rare and uncharacteristic form for a couple of days, culminating in a tae kwon do chop to my neck (thanks to Eric for teaching her tae kwon do--wink). I suppose at this point I should realize that when my normally sunny girl turns a bit moody that she isn't just being a two year old, but that there is something more going on. Alas, I didn't realize it until Eric and I started to feel the first hints of an oncoming cold. Ah, then I understood the moodiness, but by then Cordelia was back to normal.

It used to be that when I felt sick I would melt into a puddle of self-sympathy, sipping fluids and laying on the couch in a daze watching movies and keeping a running systems check: eyes-watery, throat-scratchy, head-owwww. Motherhood has changed all that, thank goodness. Now when I detect those first telling symptoms I get dressed in a dress and put on my bright red lipstick in an effort to look the way that I want to feel. No it isn't a cure all, but it does help.

If I have the energy for it I will find a manageable project to tackle. So, logically this weekend as I was fighting my way through a pretty mild spring cold I decided to buy a gallon of paint. You see I felt a strong need to paint our front door a bold color. I blame it on pregnancy and the whole irrationality that comes with nesting. We loaded the family into our car. Cordelia was back in good health and this point and Eric was in the same boat as me. We drove to the local home store and looked at paints.

Eric mentioned words like pastel and baby blue. I uttered words like vibrant and mentioned kelly green and lipstick red. Perhaps I took advantage of his weakened state, but he pretty much just deferred to my judgement. Generally we are capable of long conversations about color, but on this day it was decided in less than 10 minutes. I chose a rather vibrant turquoise-y color and we got a gallon of it in outdoor paint.

Soon we were home and as Cordelia took an afternoon nap I set to work painting our front door. I was so happy with the end result, but the cold did catch up with me and I was a bit less ambitious for the rest of the day, but I had 3/4 of a gallon of paint left and I intended to use it!


Here is what our front door looked like before.


Here is the result of my effort. A little more personality I think!

After the healing and the holiday I was able to grab that vibrant paint, calling to me from the basement and get back to work. Yesterday morning and afternoon Cordelia romped around in the yard as I painted our bench, planter and small table.


Here it the sad looking bench before. It had been left by the previous owner.




Here is the bench after the new paint job. Shazaam! Oh and yes, Cordelia is definitely dressing herself these days--yesterday was actually rather warm, but she insisted on that exact outfit and I couldn't think of any reason to impose my own style choices on her.


Here is the before shot of the table.


Here is the after!


Here is the before shot of our planter. So sad and dingy and not in a shabby chic kind of way.


Here is the painted version. Weeeee

You'd think that would be enough for me, but there is still some more of this paint left and it is outdoor paint. So I will probably tackle out picnic table and a few terracotta pots before I am done. What projects have you been tackling lately?