Mudding and Paint Chips

Paint chips. We knew we wanted a combination of whites. It wasn't as simple as it sounded!

Though not as tedious as watching someone caulking every little hole on the exterior siding, there is a bit of a wait with the drywall. First comes the layer of paper tape that is adhered by “mud” to all the seams of the drywall, and the holes from the screws or nails are filled in too. Oh, and the Pros filled in all of the holes poked in the wrong places, huge gaps around outlets, and other mistakes that we made! Then after all that is dry, it is sanded. Then another layer of mud goes over all that but just covers a little more territory, then once that is dry, it is sanded. Then another layer. It goes on for I don’t know how many turns until that last layer of mud is quite wide.

In order to do these multiple passes, the drywall team had to come back numerous times. That was fine, until they progressed to a point where we forgot to build a wall, or we needed to suddenly move a wall about 6 inches, or put in an arch that somehow wasn’t done earlier. That is when we said, “Uh, we’ll call you,” and the Pros went and get another job to pass the time. Then of course when you call, you are on the bottom of the list. 

Nevertheless, we progressed  to the point where we could pick out paint! 

While I was in confusion over shades of white, my daughter knew what she wanted. A bright yellow called "Chickery Chick" caught her eye. It looked about like the yellow you would use on a curb or a fire hydrant. I was buying samples of something a little more pastel. 

Before we could prime the rooms, all the walls had to be sanded, dusted, damp-patted, cleaned. It was hard! Every speck of dust had to be gone otherwise the paint would not adhere. I tried all kinds YouTube contractor's methods, but I still missed some spots that would haunt me later. 

With electricity at the house, Interior work could go as the days got shorter.