Repainting the house

I feel a little foolish and extravagant – but very relieved – to have successfully repainted after being very unhappy with our first attempt.

It was already dark by the time I got down to Placitas from Santa Fe last night, so I went over to see it first thing in the morning, before the sun had come up over the hills. I loved it right away, even in the dim, dawning light.

This was the original color, which we thought was too pink (we didn’t paint it this color, the previous owners did).

Here’s our first attempt to repaint, which came out too dark:

They always say to learn from your mistakes. The relationship learning from this mistake was: if you take the time to reach a genuine consensus, you will have a better decision than if one person capitulates.

My workplace is an example of the traditional yellowish beige color I wanted.

If I had gotten my way, the house would have been too YELLOW. But when John got his way, it was too dark. We are both very happy with this final color – but it took a lot of time and patience to get it figured out.

The second piece of learning from this exercise is: in large quantities, light paint will look lighter, dark paint will look darker, and paint with a “slight tinge of…” will look TOTALLY like whatever color you thought it had just a little tinge of.

I love how well this color shows off the brick trim. I’m also really glad we spent the extra bucks to put some brick trim on the new courtyard walls too.

Just in time for moving day!

The cabinets aren’t installed yet, but looks like they might get the refrigerator in. It’s a tight squeeze; going to have to take off the fridge door to get it through. (No, John didn’t suddenly grow a foot taller – that’s Santiago.)

I love this shot with the u-haul reflected in the window.

By the way, if you’re new to the blog and very confused by all these different houses and multiple moves, this post explains most of it. To the extent that there even IS an explanation.