Rewind!
Just back a few weeks.
Let’s go back to this topic of our living room FINALLY getting painted. I wanted to show you the transformation properly and give our painter, Carlos the due credit. He totally deserves like eighteen posts in his honor. I am even thinking about getting him a Christmas present because I feel like he is family now.
The rooms that needed Carlos to intervene were the living room and the foyer and the stairway. All those spaces had REALLY high ceilings. The vast amount of woodwork and prep and then time actually painting were going to be intense. But I knew that once it was done, I would need to LOVE the color because there were no re-do’s so picking the right color the first time was number one priority. The living room especially was a catch-all of old furniture. We didn’t really do much in terms of buying new things when we moved in so over time, it hasn’t ever looked better.
We did do the nooks behind the couch….adding the shelves and painting those….but the built-in’s, crown molding, floor molding, window molding and door molding all needed to be freshened up.
You can see on the far left in the photo below I started priming one section of the molding. That’s about as far as I got. I started looking around and got discouraged so the one pillar of molding was primed for about two years. I have a friend who told me that looking at it made her eyes hurt 🙂
The problem with the color was that the warm colored trim and the pale lime green of the walls created this weird almost neon glow. It wasn’t soothing or comfortable. One time I watched a documentary on color and how they can affect you. The moral of the story was….don’t paint your room fuchsia or you will go legally insane. I think this color combo was my fushcia.
The foyer and the stairs also had a ton of tan trim. I don’t know if I am going to put the gallery wall back up. I haven’t hung anything back up on the walls yet. Every morning I walk down and it is so nice and refreshing to see a clean slate and a nice wall color.
This is the view from the upstairs hall. I’m not in love with our existing light fixtures…but one thing at a time, right?!
At the end of the hall we put the book cases and somehow that rug was put down. Weird I know.
So here is what happened. I finally decided I was sick of the wall and the trim. I said to Jeremy “what I want for Christmas is the trim to be painted and I would like Christmas early this year.” I am so subtle like that. So we talked about the money thing (we knew that it would be a lot and we had saved for a long time) and he said that he thought it would be a good time because the Petersiks were coming soon and then Sherry and I could fawn over the wall color together. That’s what good friends do…stare at walls together 🙂
I called my mom who gave me Carlo’s number again and I called him. He is sometimes hard for me to understand (he drops his voice a lot so I end up being about six inches from his face listening to his words. Do you know someone like this? Basically I end up being a space-invading close-talker. It’s awkward.) and on the phone he told me that he would be available to come the very next day to give me a quote. I knew from my mom dealing with Carlos that his wife goes everywhere with him (adorable!) and that you should definitely have a number in your head for the amount you want to pay.
Carlos came. We wheeled and dealed. And then he said that he would start the next day. THE NEXT DAY. That meant we had to clear out the entire floor in a matter of hours. That night we moved everything from the living room and foyer into the dining room/office and we picked up our supplies.
Also…we did cartwheels 🙂
After it was all cleared, we felt old.
Seriously. All that lifting!
You can really tell the difference in trim color here….white vs. tan.
Don’t worry….Jeremy removed the map the next day 🙂
And there is all the stuff crammed into the dining room.
It is crazy to think that everything fit but it did. It was actually good to move everything out because then as I put things back in after it was painted, I purged the books we didn’t need or decor that didn’t look good.
Ahhh….ready for paint!
So tonight I hope to get the next stage together – the painting stage! We actually went on vacation when Carlos was finishing so we don’t have a ton of photos but enough to make height-adverse people pee their pants. Ladders are scary, people! Also…don’t judge me for the dust bunnies under the furniture. I get all itchy just thinking about them 🙂
Was the part about him being hard to understand relevant at all to the story? I feel like that is where you get into trouble- you bring something like that up about someone who is Mexican and there is no point at all in mentioning and it comes off as offensive.
Why is it necessary to include that you can’t understand him on the phone, if not being able to hear him on the phone didn’t even affect the outcome?
I’m also dealing with some funny off white trim and color choices that aren’t my taste. It’s funny how long we let those things go, but I really do think it helps us figure out exactly what we want.
So glad you were able to check this one off the list! Looking forward to the next post!
I know you pride yourself on being real and honest on your blog, but lines like this seem particularly unkind. “He is sometimes hard for me to understand (he drops his voice a lot so I end up being about six inches from his face listening to his words. Do you know someone like this? Basically I end up being a space-invading close-talker. It’s awkward.)” I guess you’re just assuming that Carlos would never look at your blog, but you can tell the same story without sort of insulting tidbits that aren’t useful to your readers.
Yay for new paint!!! I should have painted everything as soon as we bought our house but I did it over time… too much time… and I now love some of the rooms. The wall colors need changing, but you gotta love bright white trim. I had different colors of trim in every room of my house – true story. Chocolate brown in my living room, dingy white Craftsman ( some) in the dining room, baby pink in one bedroom, baby poop brown in one bedroom, natural wood in another, dingy white non-Craftsman trim in the third bedroom, avocado green in our kitchen, and pinkish brown in the bathroom. It’s all white except the kitchen because I can’t stand to think of painting again. And I continue to make believe my kitchen looks like yours and not mine so I ignore the avocado green as much as humanly possible.
I love the time lapse video and seeing little Max with you guys. Can’t wait to see those ladders!
It is relevant when I get to the second part of the story…in the later post that I have yet to post. And I never said he was Mexican. Even if he was (which I do not know if he is or not), I think you are jumping to conclusions unfairly.
xo – kb
I flat out told him I couldn’t hear him. That’s not insulting or unkind.
xo – kb
Yes. It will become relevant in the second part of the story!
xo – kb
I love the time lapse and Max’s cameos. I chuckled when the bouncy chair got left on after he was taken out of it. Yep. Happens here all. the. time.
My darling mother-in-law, who is not Mexican, not that it matters, also does that same thing, especially on the phone. I am constantly asking her to repeat herself and/or speak louder. Not a racist thing, no racist implications, just the way some people talk, and I believe Katie when she says it will become relevant to the story. Chill out, people.
I thought the close talking story reminded me of a Seinfeld episode! I didn’t think it seemed offensive at all. Looking forward to the next post, we want to hire someone to paint our tall living room ceilings within the next year. I just love your trim work in your house!
Your house is like a beautiful museum compared to my teeny tiny house! ha ha I love seeing photos of it, and love knowing you got it as a foreclosure and how you’ve slowly made it your own! It’s beautiful! (At any color) and perfect for your large family. I just felt like sharing that today 🙂 Love your blog. It’s one of the few I still read!
I agree it isn’t insulting or unkind, HOWEVER if I were Carlos I would have been embarrassed reading that line. Probably because it is super random and not relevant to this part of the story. I saw in another comment you said it is actually relevant at some point… maybe it would have made more sense to just include it there? I just think maybe it wouldn’t have stuck out so much then. Just another perspective! 🙂
I agree with you Katie. You never said he had an accent (Mexican or not) just that he was a low talker. People are assuming, because we have seen pictures of him before, that you were referring to an accent. I don’t think you said or did anything offensive. (But everything is offensive these days – so who knows – lol!)
Katie, you rock. And in the wise words of t-swift, “haters gonna hate”. I didn’t see anything wrong with what you said. Any person that speaks low and doesn’t project their voice can be hard to understand, no matter their ethnicity. Can’t wait for the next livingroom post!
P.S. I also don’t think even if you had said you couldn’t understand him because he had an accent that would have been a big deal either. You stated a fact, not a slur.
I think it’s racist to assume his race. Maybe people should stop looking to criticize and be more focused on reading for what it is. What these posters do not realize is that they are confirming their own stereotypes! “Oh Carlos is______,so she must mean_____”
Get a life,people. Go help a charity or someone in need instead of coming in here on your high horse.
I’m going to tell a similar story from a different perspective. My husband is European originally but has lived in the U.S. for over 20 years. He speaks very quietly, so the low talking plus his slight accent makes him very hard to hear/understand, especially on the phone. I constantly ask him to repeat himself. Everyone tells him to speak up all the time and no one would ever accuse me or others of being offensive.
I think people are coming from the right place when they are defending potential racism. I would much rather live in this world than in the past when people were blatantly racist and no one said anything. Sadly, racism still exists today. That being said, I would be super angry if someone jumped to conclusions and unfairly accused me of it when that is not in my character at all.
Wow people are so snarky sometimes! Why even take the time to comment…if you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all. Are you a Sagittarius Katie? I feel ya and understand ya girl 😉
So so tired of people acting all insulted and put out from innocuous comments on social media. Geez people, get a backbone. I actually hope the commenters stop following you. They don’t get your refreshing honesty and humor.
EEEEEk! Yes!
Racists to assume his race when there is a picture of him? How uneducated and naive are you.
Watching y’all clear out that room made my back ache. lol I keep thinking I need to invest in some new floors but then I realize that would mean basically moving the entire contents of my house outside or wherever and I’m all, forget it. I’m too old for that. 😉 So kudos to y’all!
As to the unnecessarily unkind comments, I just wanted you to know that all I took away from that part of the post was a hilarious mental image of you all up in his personal space. My brother-in-law is basically deaf in one ear and I’m a low talker so he and I tend to have personal space issues while conversing, as well. It’s pretty funny. At least he always smells good, though I do always pray that my breath isn’t assaulting him. lol So sorry that people are so sensitive as to jump to unkind conclusions. As my nephew has started saying recently, they need to dig out them wedgies. 😀
I absolutely love your blog! It often shows what a wonderful personality you have, and what a great and loving person you are! I think the people that follow your posts and love to read them as much as I know that too. As I read the comments I thought even if Carl read your blog he probably would have had a smile or two about your post. It was not geared toward any kind of racism. He would probably be more put out that a few people gave you such snarky remarks over something that they should have clearly not even brought up themselves. I talk very quiet also and people have to all “up and close” 🙂 Please keep on being you, your so refreshing in a world of so many people who like to put on “fronts” (hey, my teen taught me that word..lol)..
He did see the post and he also got a bunch of jobs from it so he called to tell me thank you and that he and his wife liked it 🙂 I was so excited to hear from him, I even told him I need some more quotes once the holidays are over 🙂
xo kb