Finance Gets Personal

Our house is almost 10 years old, and as far as we can tell, has never been repainted. I did some touch-up work in the fall, but paint is peeling and things are getting ugly!Now, I’m not sure how much it would cost to hire someone to paint the house, but I’m guessing about a couple grand. So, we’re going to do it ourselves.

We live in a nice upper-middle class neighborhood, and during the two and a half years we’ve lived here, I’ve never seen anyone paint their own house. And all my friends and coworkers think we’re crazy. Oh, and did I mention we have a two story house and my husband is afraid of heights? So I’ll be spending the better part of a week (maybe that’s a little optimistic) on a ladder. Whatever.

We’re taking off 6 days around Memorial Day Weekend, and are planning on having all the prep work done before then so we can start painting right away. And if we don’t finish in those 11 days, we’ll have the whole summer to finish. If we get in too far over our heads, we can hire someone to finish it.

I know sometimes people have all their friends and family over for a “painting party,” but I really don’t want to subject anyone else to this. Plus I’m pretty anal about how things look, and I don’t everyone calling in this favor for the next 10 years. We’ve painted the inside of our house, and I’ve painted lots of houses on summer volunteer trips, so I think we’re up to the task.

I just hope it doesn’t rain.