Our first room is painted! And it's bright orange! (Here are three images for you to savor and be amazed at. The unsavory chap in the second photograph is me) I saw this color (Sherwin Williams Laughing Orange) in a magazine, and showed it to Stephanie, saying that I thought it looked great. We'd been having this debate/discussion/frank exchange of differing opinions about the color of the house-- as I think Stephanie said previously, I have a fear that at the end the house will be very tastefully decorated and really really boring. Anyway, to make a long story short-- I badgered Stephanie until she agreed that I could paint the office whatever color I wanted. And I wanted Laughing Orange. Or so I thought! When the first test paint came in, it seemed MUCH brighter than in the magazine. And I had another fear-- one that said that perhaps I'd just squandered some serious bargaining chips on a color I wasn't going to like. Perhaps there was such a thing as "too bright" Fortunately, that is not the case. The room is bright and orange, but it really is quite nice and cheerful. I'm very happy with it, and I think Stephanie is too-- at least more than she expected to be. Score one for the clown. In the bad news department, this is the last room that will be painted by these guys. We are now searching for more painters. Want to know why? Here's the inside scoop. We live in an old house, with really nice molding-- molding that has been mistreated over the years-- painted, repainted, gouged out, painted again,etc. It's a fair amount of work and care and time to sand the moldings back to try to get them to an even state. We explained this to all of the painters, including the one we selected. And he seemed to completely get what was going on, and knew that we weren't expecting perfection, but we wanted him to take the time to get the moldings reasonably close. However, it's one thing to say "Yes I understand and can do that kind of work" and quite another to actually do that work. From the moment they came in to start prepping, they were complaining, and unhappy, and trying to backpedal. We hit a few snags, attitude wise, and that is never good in a worker/work situation. Fortunately, Stephanie, with her years of management experience, stepped in, and with a remarkable dexterity, got him to agree to quit, but finish the work they'd done up to that point (the office) So we're a little bit back to the drawing board. We're looking for a painter that has the skills to prep old molding relatively efficiently, and that we can afford. Stephanie started in on the bedroom and it's hard work to do But she can't do it all, and I think after trying her hand at it, really doesn't want to (I don't have the eye, the coordination, the patience, or really the interest in doing it) So if you know of a good painter who's willing to work cheap...