Interior painting

The painter we hired finished on Thursday May 25th after 7 days of work. We're pleased with the job he did. We hired Jereme Wensel, 607-382-8886. He even touched up some of the cracks we had in the molding that had bothered us.

We used Benjamin-Moore paints
Lazy Sunday: family room/kitchen, guest bed
Orange Blossom: living/dining room, craft room
Baked Pretzel: study
Deer Path: 1/2 bath, main bath
Myan Gold: master bed and bath
Sweet Butter: hallways

We left the trim white. Not sure if we'll change it later or not. Next, we're going to get some curtains and maybe change come accents, like bed spreads. Eventually, we'll get some more furniture so our guests can sit down.

Painting the basement floor

I finally finished painting my basement floor this weekend. It took me a long time (~5 months) because a) etching was harder than I thought, and b) I procrastinated. Although the Drylok floor paint seems to work well, the Drylok etch compound doesn't. I eventually switched to the Behr brand etch. It's tough to get the mixture right, let it stand long enough to etch, and then clean off all the white film. Sometimes I was able to get it to etch the surface so it made it feel rough like sandpaper, but other times it still felt smooth. It's also impossible to get all the white stuff off the surface after the first etching, so you have to dilute the acid with 2 parts water. I found that using a hose to spray the area and a shop vac to clean it up works much better than a mop and bucket.