Painting and Repainting

Hah, it finally looks like the master bedroom is move-in ready (again). My sister, her husband, and my mom all came over for 3 strait days this week to help with the work. What started off as a mission to do some simple touch up painting, turned into an effort to completely repaint the master suite. First, we did some touch ups at the bottom of the stairs and the upstairs hallway. This went well. The soft yellow paint is holding up well and the new and old paint blended well. However, next we tried the same thing with the blue paint in the master bedroom.

It is funny how the light works in this house. In the soft light of afternoon and evening things can look deceptively OK. But, in the intensely bright morning light a mediocre paint job can look awful. It was obvious that the blue paint had faded in the three years since we first painted. The new and old paint was not blending well and almost the entire area was in need of repainting. This we did. Now, it looks great. Thanks again to my family for helping out! Pictures below.

Up next, I need to refocus on the remaining code issues. As of the last inspection, the exterior stairs and interior smoke detectors were not acceptable. I need to take care of this by the end of the month (it's August already!).

But, I have something else that I'd like to examine. Almost every winter that we've been living in the house, we've had problems with water in the basement. Some winters are better than others, some much worse. Last year was more typical with some damp areas on the floor of the north side of the basement near the furnace and puddles on the south side near the stairs. However, some winters have been far worse, most notably January 2006. After it had rained nearly the entire month, we had an inch of water over 2/3rds of the basement! Horrible. So, I'm starting to get some bids from basement waterproofing specialists. I'm currently focused on interior solutions where they excavate around the parameter of the concrete floor next to the exterior walls and embed gutter like drain tracks which lead to a high quality sump pump. At this point, I'm not sure how much it will cost. But, I really want a dry basement.

Now, some pictures of the freshly repainted upstairs.

This is the bedroom area



This is the "sitting" area (doesn't every bedroom need a "sitting" area?)


This is the built-in linen cabinet between the bedroom and sitting area


This is the vanity in the bathroom.


Here is the top of the main stairs