The charity truck came by yesterday and removed four large garbage bags full of old clothing and shoes. The upstairs bedroom carpet is no longer red with swirls of cat/dog hair. Now, it’s just red and my closet is filled with sun dresses and t-shirts (even though it still hasn’t broken 70 here yet.)

Having completed my week of renovation upstairs, I have moved downstairs to the dining room. Not a lot in the dining room aside from a table, chairs and china cabinet. However, it is blue. Not just any blue but a really deep navy blue. Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s very pretty but anyone who watches HGTV can tell you that painting a small room a dark color is not the way to go. It makes the space seem very small and closed. Add to that the fact that the room boasts one small window and you have a rather dreary room. So it didn’t take long to decided that this room project would be painting.

Just a couple of words of advice here. Although I’ve only been at it for two days, I feel I have learned a great deal during my painting experience.

First, I must apologize for the lack of pictures. I have been taking them but, alas, Zeus is still non-functional so I have no computer to download them too. Until Kevin gets him up and running, you’ll have to use your imagination. (Don’t worry, I’ll help you out.)

So I started with a dining room full of furniture and blue walls. (Insert mental image here.) The first task was to empty the room. Here comes my first piece of advice. Paint before you move in. This makes life so much easier. Right now, we can’t get into the guest bedroom or bathroom because that space is filled with dining room stuff. Anything I couldn’t move out of the room got lumped in the center and covered with drop cloths. Unfortunately, this included all the dog food so Artie has been eating good people stuff the last couple of days.

After the room was kind of cleared, I applied a coat of white paint over the blue walls. Since I have decided to paint the room a light yellow, I was afraid the blue would peek though so on goes a coat of white. And, I was right. This morning when I checked the room, the walls were a sort of bluish white color. (Insert mental image here.) I’m hoping that the next coat of yellow will totally cover the blue but I’m not too sure.

Today, I’m going to slap the yellow on the walls and see what happens. Wish me luck.

Oh yes, one last piece of painting advice. No matter how much they cry or claw at the door, do not allow your black cats into a room where the walls are covered with white paint. You will only end up with white walls smeared with black cat hair and a very freaked out cat who runs under the bed to spend the next four hours trying to lick the while paint off her back. (Insert mental picture here.)

So I’m off to Home Depot (again) to pick up some painters tape. I’ll post more (mental) pictures here tomorrow so hurry back!