Post 6: 16 Feet

So, I'm not the best with before and after pictures, but here are some pictures I snapped of our living room just before we worked up the courage to paint.

"Courage?" you ask.  Yes, courage.  I was preparing myself to take a chance on a pretty bold color (or bold for me) in our main living area and Alan was preparing himself to paint 16-foot walls.

Yes, 16 feet.  This didn't seem like such a big deal to us when we first looked at the house.  But when we started to plan the project, we realized that we would have to get up all the way to the top of the wall to cut in the corner -- that was daunting.

The living and entry-way were several different shades of beige, though, so we knew we would have to paint eventually.

Here are some more pictures of the room to give you some perspective of our high ceilings!

When we first came into the house to clean, I grabbed some paint samples from Sherwin Williams to decide which shade of blue we wanted for our living room.  The choices were Rainwashed, Tradewind, and Sleepy Blue.

I put a sample of each on EVERY wall to see how the lighting would affect the color.  

Here is a picture where we found two boards nailed to the wall.  When we pulled the boards off, there was a hole in the wall!  Alan patched the hole and used his new texturing skill to take care of that!

While we lived with these paint samples for about a month before painting, it really only took me a few minutes to choose...

Rainwashed (far left).

So finally, on to painting.  We started by prepping the room -- taking down outlet plates and blinds, taping, and putting down tarps.

And then on to the paint.  

(I told you we had a lot of funky colors going on, but the blue was covering well!)

Once we had painted about as high as we could reach, we knew we couldn't avoid it any longer -- those 16-foot walls were beckoning.  (Thanks to Alan's stepdad, we were able to borrow his extension ladder and a-frame so we didn't have to go buy our own!)

The ladder was a little wobbly, so we started slowly.  

(I promise I stood at the bottom and held it for Alan, but he let me snap a few pictures while he was being still!)

When he got to the top of the ladder, he carefully cut in the corner where the wall met the ceiling.

Don't look down!

As he moved across the wall, it got a little easier to make the trek up the ladder.

Smile!

Alan made it across the wall in about an hour.  Then, he cut in the rest of the walls and windows where I couldn't reach.

The next day he rolled the large parts of the wall to finish out the project.

Click here for the big reveal!!!