While most people spend July 4th grilling, drinking beer and setting off fireworks, we spent it painting our house. There were three reasons for this: 1. Home Depot has a giant paint sale every 4th of July weekend, and when you are buying 10 gallons of paint, you need all the discounts you can get, 2. we rented a paint sprayer on the 3rd, and since the place we rented it from (Handy Andy) was closed on the 4th, we could return it on the 5th for no additional charge. We essentially got an extra day free, and finally 3. Michael's last day of work was Wednesday (coincidentally his birthday) and he decided to take the rest of the weekend off, so he had plenty of time to get the painting done.
We decided to start painting early (6am), so that I could help out before Will woke up and I'd have to stay with him. Wouldn't you know it, but the damn paint sprayer seemed to be broken. We followed all of the instructions from the guy at the rental shop, and when that didn't work, I downloaded a user manual from online. That didn't shed any light on the problem either. It would turn on, but not suck up any paint. Finally we realized that the paint intake tube was likely clogged and needed to be taken off, and have the debris removed. Unfortunately we needed a special tool to remove this tube, and we didn't have it (which is saying something since Michael is a tool guy and has lots of them). So Michael took it to the Home Depot rental department (not where we had rented it), to see if they could help him troubleshoot the problem, while I stayed home with a now awake William (it was now 9am). He returned at 10 am, with the machine newly de-clogged and ready to go. Neither of us were very pleased with the rental company for renting us a machine that would not suck paint. Nonetheless, with the sprayer now working, we finally started painting at around 10am.
Once we began, the process went fairly smoothly and by noon, half of the house was painted. One mitigating factor that I initially thought would make this all harder, but instead was a blessing in disguise, was that William was sick. He had a low grade fever and was just a little listless. All he wanted to do was sleep. This ended up being fine as he napped most of the day while I was helping Michael paint. Despite the late start, we finished painting at around 4pm, and by 5pm, had cleaned out the sprayer and took all of the tape and plastic off of the windows. Its lucky we have a small house, or we could never have finished that quickly. While the plastic was still on, I was not sure about the color. I had hemmed and hawed over the color decision for months before finally picking one, and now that it was up, I wasn't sure. Then we removed the plastic, and I got to see how it contrasted with our white trim, and suddenly I loved it again. It turned out perfectly. The only thing that will make it even better, will be to add some dark shutters and paint the door red. We also still need to repaint all of the trim (the old white paint on there is flakey). The garage door will also be repainted the same color as the trim (pure white). So there is still a bit of work to be done, but for now, the vast majority of it is complete. Our biggest project of the summer is nearly done!
While most people spend July 4th grilling, drinking beer and setting off fireworks, we spent it painting our house. There were three reasons for this: 1. Home Depot has a giant paint sale every 4th of July weekend, and when you are buying 10 gallons of paint, you need all the discounts you can get, 2. we rented a paint sprayer on the 3rd, and since the place we rented it from (Handy Andy) was closed on the 4th, we could return it on the 5th for no additional charge. We essentially got an extra day free, and finally 3. Michael's last day of work was Wednesday (coincidentally his birthday) and he decided to take the rest of the weekend off, so he had plenty of time to get the painting done. 
We decided to start painting early (6am), so that I could help out before Will woke up and I'd have to stay with him. Wouldn't you know it, but the damn paint sprayer seemed to be broken. We followed all of the instructions from the guy at the rental shop, and when that didn't work, I downloaded a user manual from online. That didn't shed any light on the problem either. It would turn on, but not suck up any paint. Finally we realized that the paint intake tube was likely clogged and needed to be taken off, and have the debris removed. Unfortunately we needed a special tool to remove this tube, and we didn't have it (which is saying something since Michael is a tool guy and has lots of them). So Michael took it to the Home Depot rental department (not where we had rented it), to see if they could help him troubleshoot the problem, while I stayed home with a now awake William (it was now 9am). He returned at 10 am, with the machine newly de-clogged and ready to go. Neither of us were very pleased with the rental company for renting us a machine that would not suck paint. Nonetheless, with the sprayer now working, we finally started painting at around 10am.
Once we began, the process went fairly smoothly and by noon, half of the house was painted. One mitigating factor that I initially thought would make this all harder, but instead was a blessing in disguise, was that William was sick. He had a low grade fever and was just a little listless. All he wanted to do was sleep. This ended up being fine as he napped most of the day while I was helping Michael paint. Despite the late start, we finished painting at around 4pm, and by 5pm, had cleaned out the sprayer and took all of the tape and plastic off of the windows. Its lucky we have a small house, or we could never have finished that quickly. While the plastic was still on, I was not sure about the color. I had hemmed and hawed over the color decision for months before finally picking one, and now that it was up, I wasn't sure. Then we removed the plastic, and I got to see how it contrasted with our white trim, and suddenly I loved it again. It turned out perfectly. The only thing that will make it even better, will be to add some dark shutters and paint the door red. We also still need to repaint all of the trim (the old white paint on there is flakey). The garage door will also be repainted the same color as the trim (pure white). So there is still a bit of work to be done, but for now, the vast majority of it is complete. Our biggest project of the summer is nearly done! 
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