The Smell of Fresh Paint

I love the smell of fresh paint.   I don't know that I always have, but as an adult, the smell of fresh paint is like new plus clean plus uncluttered all combined into one.   It's like walking into an apartment you've just signed a lease on with your first box in your hand.   It smells like it's ready to be your home.  It smells like it's new and it's all yours and you can do anything with the space around you.

Admittedly, the smell of paint isn't that delightful.   But associations can be powerful things.   Today, our house smells like fresh paint.   I called the painter that did the drywall, interior and exterior paint for our house.   I liked him very much and four years ago I had told him I was pleased with the work his crews had been doing.   He said thank you and mentioned that one day, should I ever have a need for anything to be painted, he hoped I would remember his company and call them.   And so I did.

He came to look at what we needed done, which was mostly toddler-height down painting repairs (imagine that.)  We looked at the paint supplies we had remaining and he said he would send over two of his painters the next day.  When I asked who, I was happy to hear that Robert would be coming.   I remembered Robert and had enjoyed talking with him during the build phase of our house.

Today Robert and Samuel worked for half the day repainting things the children and adults had damaged or marked up since we moved in four years ago.   We were fortunate in that the paint we had stored in the attic was still in good shape.  But, would it color match?   We have a well-lit house that faces east to west and there was a chance the colors on the walls today had changed subtly since the paint was originally done.  So they did some test coats.   After they dried, we couldn't tell where the new paint ended and the old paint began, which means the whole wall didn't have to be painted just to fix marks lower down.

Robert and Samuel got a lot done before they left.   I still have blue tape on a third of the house though, so they'll be back on Monday or Tuesday to finish the remainder of the work.    But for now, I am so loving the fresh paint smell.  That, and the un-dinged, un-marred, un-smeared walls.

Things that are no longer noticeable include:
- The high chair marks in the breakfast nook;
- The toddler table corner that was more food-colored than wall colored;
- The dent in the wall where the toy truck hit when it fell down the stairs;
- The changing table area that would  show up bright blue with one of those biological lights;
- The crib bed back lines from when they learned to shake the bed and then climb out;
- And of course, the shoe marks from when I fell down the basement stairs head over feet.

But...we kept the little pencil marks measuring how tall my children are each year on their birthday in their bedroom closet.

The Big Boy Update:  My husband said to my son, "you can have dessert if you eat your mushroom."  My son said, "yeah, but it has a terrible smell."   My husband and I literally burst out laughing at him because he was so sincere in his dislike for the sautéed flavor.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:   She peed in her pants.   More than once.  More than twice.   Hell, thrice.   I lost my temper.   She cried.   I felt terrible.   She is going to get this some day, right parents out there?