Our painter is AMAZING!!

It's been awhile, huh? We hit a lull...then work got busy...then there was more fighting about the lull...then people got to work and shit got done.

We went with our own painter, not the one the contractor wanted to bring in, because our friends used him and he did a great job AND his bid was significantly less (think about what YOU could do with an extra 10k)!

So every sub-contractor has their own timeline because they all have other jobs. Makes perfect sense to me, which is why people hire a General Contractor in the first place...let them juggle all of the subs and different timelines. Our GC needs some coaching and his guys definitely need a little work ethic, but I digress. Our painter needed to be done by December 16. The way things were crawling along there was no way this was happening so the Husband had to have a little chat with our GC. His sheetrock sub really came through in the 11th hour. There was one guy working from 5:30pm until who knows when. Not sure why they didn't send him with...I don't know...HELP, but he busted ass to get things done. HIS boss came a few days into the sheetrock project and was profusely apologizing to the Husband because even he thought it should be further along. Magically, the sheetrock, taping and mudding was done the next day. If only our GC got that mad about the lack of progress.
 
So, our painter came in later than scheduled (because of our GC) and worked 4, 16 hour days. Ceilings, trim, doors and walls are all painted. Done and done. He's amazing and pretty much got us back on track to be done by the end of December. We didn't add a lot of color because we wanted to keep it easy for our painter and we wanted it to be bright (aka white). I'll add more pictures of paint when my phone cooperates with me and my constant photo demands.

Downstairs Master closet (pocket door)

Downstairs Master closet (and bathroom door) Paint color: Sand 

Downstairs hallway (DOORS!!)

Downstairs laundry/half bath (toilet on left, w/d on right)

My flipping advice:
1) I know I've already said this, but see if your GC will let you get some of your own subs. We just got an invoice for $4,000 for our GCs guy to tile the downstairs walk-in shower. That doesn't include tile...just labor. What does that man make a year???? If your GC says no, I'd find another GC.
2) I would also have a weekly check-in about budget with your GC. If they don't have any overages in writing that I've signed off on, I'm not paying it. They cannot make those decisions without your approval. 

How to choose the right color!

I made the title of this post seem like I knew the answer to choosing colors. Well, I don't.

We knew we wanted to paint the outside of the house, but we weren't exactly sure what color. Our guru Realtor said "White House - Black Trim"! She's pretty savvy, so we thought those would be our colors. Well, some of our windows have wood trim and some have plastic; that's normal, right? I started getting nervous about painting plastic trim and then the Husband was all "...but what about the door?". So now we have to decide a door color, BUT we have 2 doors on the front of the house, 2 on the back and 1 on the side (great escape plans in the case of a fire or crazy Bainbridge Island serial killer).

Red! A red front door would pop against a white house with black trim. Well, according to our Realtor, red is out. No more red doors people, no more! What she told us next hit us in stages. First stage was judgement (of her, not the color suggestion), second stage was appall, third stage was Google, fourth stage was acceptance, fifth and final stage was love. Emerald green! Yes, that is a thing! 

I did, however, make the executive decision to forget the black trim and paint everything white. This may seem like it would be too much white, but this ranch style house needs as much light as possible.

These pictures are the stages and the last one is not the final final final result, but you get the general idea. Emerald green. Thanks, Cassie!

How will we ever choose INTERIOR colors? Oy vey!

My advice:
1) Go nuts on Pinterest/Houzz to find cool paint color combinations. Something might look awesome on a 2-story colonial, but on your ranch might look awful. As long as you have a little time, take it to find the right combo.