Home-ownership: A 30 Day Series

We bought a house! The process was hard, stressful, fun, exciting, and majorly sanctifying. It started in January and ended yesterday 4/11 at closing. The story is a good one, and some day I'll share it on this blog. For now, I'm going to document the first 30 days of homeownership; all the joys and disappointments (we've already experienced both in just 24 hours).

Day 1: Closing went smoothly! No issues at all. The initial projects that we plan to do include building a fence and painting. The former is Steve's baby. The latter, mine. Steve's is obviously a big project, and he has prepared well by creating a project plan and supply list, recruiting friends to help, and soliciting advice from the "experts." My project became much bigger yesterday as I walked from room to room on a homeowning high and began to notice little chips in the trim of the bedroom... and the hallway... and the living room. The whole interior of the house was painted white, you see. "How kind of the previous homeowners." Right? Wrong. Come to find out the previous homeowners used a cheap glossy latex (I think) paint on the trim and molding, which did not adhere at all. They apparently did not properly prime the oil-based layer underneath. The walls are fine, but the trim? Oh the trim! One light scrape and it's not just chipping but peeling off like sunburned skin.

Exhibit A:

There is a variety of colors underneath from brown to pink to navy blue. Oh yeah! My manageable paint project is now a BIG project, and I SO wish we had noticed prior to closing. Such is life. I'm recruiting friends to come over Saturday for a paint scraping, sanding, priming party. Want to join? We could use all the help we can get.

We are still very grateful. And God is good.