The Painting Project

Hi all. Sorry I haven't posted in a while. We took a trip up to Connecticut to visit my parents, and then this week I finally started painting. We moved into this house last November - Jacob was just a few weeks old! - and have been slowly making changes ever since. Mostly over the winter this involved sealing up the house from drafts - tightening all the window locks, adding weatherstripping around the windows and doors, installing door sweeps, insulating outside wall light switches and outlets, inserting glass doors over our fireplace, and putting foam insulation on our garage doors. I also installed an Energy Star thermostat that we got as a housewarming gift from my in-laws (what a great idea for new homeowners!) - replacing the old dial-style wasn't nearly as difficult as I thought; the instructions were very simple to follow. I think all of that really helped reduce the amount of oil we used to heat the house.

So now its spring, and in addition to the requisite spring cleaning, I got bit by the paint bug. We wanted to start with Jacob's room, so I started researching the best options. The issue of course with paint is VOCs - Volatile Organic Compounds - which can off-gas toxins into your home polluting the indoor air. Luckily nowadays there are many choices - just Google no VOC paint and you'll get lots of info from naturally pigmented clay to low VOC commercially recognizable paints. In the end, I choose Freshaire Choice which is only sold at Home Depot. It touts itself as the only paint that has no VOC in the base paint AND in the chemicals used to tint the paint. It was not cheap - about $37/gallon. But it went on very nicely, had very little odor while wet and no odor after it dried (only about 1 hour to dry with all windows open). I also liked it because the whole product line concept is eco-friendly - all the materials in the display at the store are made of recycled and sustainable materials, the label on the paint cans are made of recycled paper, etc. While this product does not (yet?) have the range of color options as some of the conventional brands, there were plenty to choose from and the benefits overall made it worth it.

So while I wouldn't recommend trying to paint a room by yourself with a 6 1/2 month old - thank God he stuck to his nap schedule those two days - it is doable. Now I want to do every room in the house!