Susan took this one on the phone. Nicest lady up in Fountain Hills, hosting her grandkids for a two-week stay starting the following weekend. She had a small window — three days between when her last houseguest left and when the family flew in — and she wanted the hallways and stairwell freshened up before everyone showed up. Also, she asked us very sweetly if we could try not to move the pictures on the wall too much.
I laughed a little because that’s usually the first thing that comes off. But I understood what she meant. The pictures were exactly where she wanted them, and she didn’t want to spend her evening trying to remember which nail went with which frame. So we photographed the walls before we started, numbered the frames on the back with little painter’s tape tabs, and put them right back where they’d been.
The old color was a very builder-basic beige that had picked up a lot of little scuffs over the years from the two labradors that lived there. Kids’ hands, dog shoulders, backpacks. We’re not miracle workers, but we’re pretty good at making twelve-year-old walls look one-year-old. Filled the dings, sanded the touchy spots, primed anything that had a stain we couldn’t quite get out.
She picked a very soft warm white — a color that would let all her framed art be the loud thing in the hallway. Two coats, low sheen. The stairwell was the biggest deal because we had to work around the banister and it’s one of those tall spaces where the ladder work slows you down. My crew is good with heights. I’m okay with heights, but I’m better with the roller down at ground level.
Wrapped it Friday afternoon. Grandkids came Saturday. Susan got a text a couple days later with a photo of one of the little ones drawing right up against a freshly painted wall, and she said “not even one crayon mark yet.” I told her she should have set expectations lower than that, because we can only do so much.
