Valuable Lessons

There are so many hilarious lessons that we've been learning through this whole process. Most people with any amount of common sense would have already figured them out, but on our sleep deprived, over-worked brains, we've lost a lot of common sense.

1. There is NO good time to paint the color brown. At night, you can't see what is a shadow and what is painted. During the day, you can't tell what is painted and what is a reflection of the light in the room. Regardless of the time of day you paint brown, you WILL have to go back and touch it up. I also recommend noting the spots that you want to get to when you have the paint back out, because your eyes will deceive you once that paint brush is in your hands.

Black however did not have these same problems. Odd.

2. While it may not look this way at first, the vent covers ARE universally installed. Before installing the 2 covers that were done, I decided to spray paint the third one black to match the new color palette in the spare room. While letting that dry, I started installing the other vent covers only to realize they don't fit the rooms they were painted for. Of course, the cover will fit on the wall, but the door won't open and close accurately. I felt nauseous and incredibly stupid.

I got the vent cover on, but the door was stuck open. I couldn't get it to close all of the way and was convinced something was wrong. I tried Micah's and had the same problem. Ugh.

Once I tried the same plate in all 3 rooms and realized they ALL had the same problem, I began to regain hope that I didn't screw up painting the covers. Jason tried installing them and held back a laugh when they all fit perfectly. I guess it's supposed to look like this. The little lip on the bottom of the plate rests on the lip inside the wall that I thought it was getting "stuck" on. Nope.

We did find out though that at some point two of the vents became too loose, so as soon as the air kicked on, it would slam shut. Micah's was fine, but the other two (that share the same vent) weren't getting air into the room. We found that if we tightened the screw just below the handle, it made it stay open when the air came on. That might explain though why the bedroom was ridiculously hot once we put the vent cover back on. Oops!

3. Paint brushes. I was always told never to get a cheap paint brush, but I had no business even caring about that information until I had to paint something other than my toenails. It is true. And now I know.

I'm not the best wall trimmer in the world, but I'm pretty sure Micah could have cut this ceiling better if he had a better paint brush.

It doesn't look absolutely terrible, but you can already see where some of the rogue bristles have already been trimmed away. At least the damage was only done in the closet.

4. Don't install door stops in the dark or assume the obvious.

The picture gives it more credit than it deserves. The wood at entry point is cracked, and the stop won't go in the whole way because it was done by hand. It does stop the door knob from hitting the wall though....