Veterans Day Mission: Surprise Matt

Matt has been working very hard on the basement for quite some time now. He is in school every night, but it seems every spare moment is working on the basement. I'm so proud of him. The one thing Matt really hates is painting so I devised this plan to completely surprise him and get it done for him. On Tuesday night I impatiently waited for Matt to leave for class. As soon as he pulled out of the driveway, I ran downstairs and began priming the entire other half of the basement. Stupid me bought oil-based primer and no paint thinner, so at 9:30, when I finished and was trying to clean up quickly before Matt came home, I had white speckles all over my arms. I hid in long sleeves and hoped he wouldn't notice the few on my face and in my hair.

Yesterday morning, I woke up with Matt. When he left for work, I bolted downstairs and started with the first coat of our paint. I got the entire half of the basement done in a matter of about 6 hours. I called Matt at work and told him I'd be at my mom's so he wouldn't expect anything at the house to be done. I painted all of both rooms and got everything cleaned up with time to spare. When Matt came home for dinner around 5:30, we sat down to eat together. He talked at dinner about how he had to go down in the basement and get started on painting and how much he didn't want to. It was so hard for me to keep a straight face. I am officially the worst liar. After dinner Matt headed downstairs to get started and, for a few minutes, I thought he was actually screwing with me. He took about ten minutes at the top of the stairs looking at the trim. He finally went downstairs and he didn't notice the paint in the first room because the light wouldn't kick on. He was down there for at least a full minute (which felt like eternity) when I heard him yell "Hey! You painted!" Haha. It was nice to do something nice for him and have it be a surprise. It was one less thing he had to do. :)


Also, because it was Veterans Day, I'd like to make sure I mention how thankful I am for all of our veterans, my grandfather, Mike, Tony, Joe, Kyle, Rich, Andrew, Nate, Jess, and all the rest of the men and women who currently serve and have served our country. It is something that I know I could not do and it makes me appreciate those people that much more. Thank you, Veterans!

Paint by Numbers

Matt spent the entire day on Sunday sanding the basement. I [conveniently] had to go to PJ's baby shower and couldn't possibly avoid that to help Matt sand. In truth, I felt pretty awful that I wasn't here helping Matt but in the end, I was glad. I hate sanding! Anyways, Matt sanded everything Sunday and I went down Sunday night and helped him clean. Monday morning, my cousin Tony came over while we were at work and primed the entire basement for us. It took him most of the day but it looked great and we were psyched to have one more thing done down there. We decided to go with a beige color, Stonington Beige, for the basement. It's the same color in my mother's living room and we both like it so I picked up the paint and called in the troops. I was lucky enough to have one of my favorite college friends, my roommate Mal, come out and help us out. Between her and my family (my parents and my cousin Tony), we were able to get the entire basement painted in less than two hours. Apparently painting by numbers really does the trick. I'm not sure about the color yet. It's hard to tell without good lighting down there. Matt didn't like it at first. He and I perceive colors differently and he was sure that at the top of our stairs, the color looked to brown. I saw green. Regardless, I think I might go have them lighten the other two gallons just a little so that when we do the second coat we can lighten it up a bit. It is a basement, a movie room, and a bar room so I don't want it to be too bright, but maybe just a little lighter will be nice.