Welcome Back!

Sorry to the few faithful that stopped by my blog only to be sorely disappointed to not find ANYTHING new. The end of the semester was wicked crazy, and I've be taking my time and enjoying the start of my summer. Of course, I'm about to go back to work since I'm teaching summer school in June. Instead of trying to rehash the last couple of months how about starting anew and looking forward to summer. Here's my summer wishlist:
1. Strip the border in the dining room and get it painted this week.
2. Go see April, Robert and Duncan in Natchez
3. Have a great time teaching Intro to Lit in June
4. Celebrate Joshua Patrick's arrival on June 4th (give or take a day)
5. Paint the 70s poop brown trim on the outside of our house to a nice pleasing tanish and paint our garage so it doesn't feel like your driving into a dungeon
6. Put up a privacy fence in our backyard! (Hopefully, this may get moved up the list)
7. Read for pleasure
8. Paint our bedroom (The first room to paint with no wallpaper to take down)
9. Get our kitchen painted (There's lots of wallpaper, so I'm calling in professionals this time!)
10. Go to the beach with my family
11. Go see Travis, Julie, and Addison in Jacksonville
12. Go see Keith in Boston
13. Go see Alan's summer ballteam (mostly in June)
14. Relax

I admit it's an ambitous list, and I'm realistic enough to realize not everything will get done, but that's why it's called a wish list. I'm hoping we'll at least get to see everyone this summer even if all our projects don't get finished. I have completed my first summer painting project. I've liberated our foyer from the evil hold of ugly tie-dyed wallpaper! Hooray! As you can tell from the pics, it was very trippy wallpaper and even the lightswitches were wallpapered. It was a pain in the butt to remove, but this is the last area I'm removing our two-layer thick wallpaper. We started last year on our wallpaper removal crusade in our master bathroom. We figured if we screw that up only we'll see it. That's when we discovered that we were dealing with TWO layers of wallpaper. The bottom layer being 20 years old. The wallpaper itself peels off okay, but that bottom layer leaves its backing on the wall. So you have to primer over it. I also discovered if you spackle over the lines it makes the wall a lot smoother. So, here are the before, during, and after photos. Not only do I love the color, but by painting the walls, I think it completely changed the look of the tile on the floor. Orginially, the blue wallpaper really made the floor look blue, but now with the gold color, I think it really brought out the different colors of the floor. Let me know what you think!
BEFORE: It's bad lighting because of the sun, but hopefull, you can see to full effect.
Here's a close up of the pattern and a shot of the lightswitch cover.
DURING:Here's what it looks like with no wallpaper and just the backing and spackle on the wall. You wouldn't believe the mess when you have to sand the spackle because then the wallpaper backing gets standed also and makes a huge mess!
AFTER: The final color. Hopefully, you can see the difference in the floor.
I just realized on the pictures it almost looks like the wallpaper backing and my paint color are the same! I promise they are most definitely not! Here's a close up, although it might not help much.
I also want to give credit to Tori because I used the color from her house, Gold 4,although I think hers is actually Gold 3. I loved how her walls looked in this color, and it definitely doesn't disappoint, so thank you Tori!
One painting project down, Four more to go. I'll keep you updated!