The builders are winding down their responsibilities for the build as our responsibilities ramp up.  I took the week away from work to spend time getting a good start on the house.  We spent most of the week priming and painting.

We set a deadline for ourselves to have all of the spraying done by today.  That is because the sooner we were done with spraying the house, the sooner the electrician can come back and outlets and switches installed.  Presently we have to run a 100 foot extension cord from the breaker box (outside) into the house.  Then we plug in a power strip and plug tools, extension cords, etc. into the power strip.  Thank God no inspectors showed up while we were working because they would have a heart attack.

But I was able to get the entire house sprayed with a coat of primer and all of the parts that we are not doing by hand with a roller, sprayed with 2 coats of paint.

The days that I sprayed the living room, dining room and kitchen were exceptionally hot for this time of year, maybe the mid 90’s.  Standing down on the floor (at human level) it was extremely comfortable with the high ceilings.  But up on top of a ladder painting them was absolutely miserable.  Not only was it well in excess of 100 degrees up there, with the respirator and all the other painting crap I had to wear, it was brutal.  I could only work for about 20 minutes at a crack before having to come down and rehydrate.  That made for a slow couple of days.

Tina did the bathrooms and laundry room by hand with a roller because it is just too confined of a space to work well with the sprayer.

They both came out exceptionally well.

Tina told me a week or so ago that she wanted to do some “accent walls” in the house.  I had never heard the term before, but when we started this whole project we decided the ground rules for it were that she could do anything she wants to the house as long as she leaves MY garage alone.

Saturday, she “accent walled” a wall in the master bedroom.  So now we are the proud owners of a big damn purple wall.

And two smaller purple walls (also in the master bedroom).

When she explained “accent wall” to me, I was hoping for a southern drawl or maybe a charming Irish lilt.  When she showed it to me, the first thought that popped into my head was: This is a hair-lip Pakistani accent screaming “Yanquii go home!!!”  But I have to admit, it did kind of grow on me after a few hours.

She has plans for another “accent wall” in the living room:

This one is going to be Burnt Orange.

We also got a toilet set temporarily because the outhouses are going away this week.

Outside, they got the slab poured in front of the garage and for the propane tank and also got the gas line run.

Finally, Smiley got the fence done.  It looks great!  I do not know if the picture does it justice, but that fence is absolutely perfectly straight.  You can only see it if you look corner to corner on the gate side, but he set the gate about 3 feet back from the corners to make it easier for me to pull a trailer in.  We could not be happier with it.