Father's Day 2008

Just a quick note about several fun Father's Day things.

1. Patricia and I had breakfast at Soma Cafe - our house was entirely unusable due to the painting (discussed in post below). This is the first time during the entire project that we weren't even able to make breakfast at the house.

2. My in-town children (Chris and Paul Jr.), Mary Beth Stern, Patricia and I went to the Phoenix Art Museum - primarily to see a show titled "Passport to Europe". You can read about it at my other website by clicking here.

3. Then we went to Arizona Center and had an early dinner at Sam's Cafe. Which was quite sociable and fun, though the food wasn't as good as I remembered.

4. To top off the day, I talked to my dad (and mom) for 45+ minutes later in the evening. We discussed Iowa flooding, NBA finals, remodeling, some of their upcoming visitors, etc. Always delightful to chat.

Painting

Here are a few views from painting days (Saturday-Sunday). We think the color turned out great.

"Finegrain" is hard for me to describe, it's kind of gray and kind of taupe. It's probably a bit lighter than any of the other colors we are considering, but I think that bodes well for the long haul. We did a "200% " mix for the baseboards, trim and interior doors - looks good. White ceilings (But of course it isn't really "white," it is "Cool December.")

Top photo shows a portion of the incredible amount of taping, drop-clothing and similar that was required before the spraying and rollering began. Middle photo shows inspectors in action. Bottom photo shows a comparison of the new and old paint colors.

Passport to Europe

Trip to Phoenix Art Museum is described here.

Not easy to select a paint color

Partly because the colors have such intriguing names. Almond Latte. Sandpit. Desert Suede. Rustic Taupe. Porous Stone. Flintstone. Desert Grey. Restrained Gold. Bungalow Taupe. High Noon. Birchwood. Crushed Stone. Drifting.

And those are just the interior paint choices that were up on our walls.

The winner: Finegrain.

Installing countertops

Here are a couple photos from the installation of the granite countertops. This happened about three weeks ago. We've made some progress since but have a ways to go.