Trim and Theology

This past week, I decided to tackle a project that has been on my to-do list for a long time. I had even bought the materials about a month or two ago. It was also one in which I gravely underestimated the time it would take to complete. What was it? It was painting the trim. I wanted to focus on two areas to narrow my scope but really most of the trim in the house could be re-done. I first wanted to do that master bathroom. This area was in dire need of trim painting after the tile job had placed a trim "shoe" around the trim, but was left primed and not painted.

Yea, it wasn't looking too pretty. Unfortunately, in the small space of the master bath, there are three doors which all required painting. If you have painted trim in the past, you know that this is all pretty precise hand brush work. I actually had a small roller on hand though which could be used on the doors (but with extreme caution). Here is another "before" shot of the bathroom.

I really wanted to brighten up the trim, so I went with "Snowbound" from Sherwin Williams for the color. They have speciality trim paint, so that is what I used. Here is a good shot of the difference in the paint color from the existing (top) to the new (bottom). Big change.

After tackling the bathroom, I moved on to the guest bedroom. From the before shots below, it is pretty obvious why this was the correct choice to move on to. The clashing of the paint and trim is pretty horrendous.

Yea, I know, pretty bad. With those window seats, this was a very time consuming effort and it took me many afternoon/evenings to finish (hence why there has not been a post in a while). I kept everything nice and moist by wrapping my brushes and roller in wet paper towels and keeping them inside a plastic bag.

You can see the difference mid way through how awesome the new trim color is looking.

Painting the trim by our brand new carpet was made possible with this tool we had picked up at the paint store. It protected the carpet quite nicely and made it easy to get down to the bottom of the trim.

Painting can be tedious work, especially this type, so I spent the time listening to apologetics sermons/lectures so I could get a little self improvement going on while doing home improvement. :) The only slightly weird side effect is that every time I look at the window, I think about "Atheism in a Post Modern Society", the bathroom door makes me think of the flood, and the guest bedroom trim makes me think of C.S. Lewis (whom I adore). At one point, I had to pause from the lectures after Ravi Zacharias made a point about evil by quoting from the diary of a leader of the Nazi party and it literally made me sick to my stomach. Just to give you the scope of how long this project took me, I listened to 3 sermons (each probably around 30 minutes), 8 lectures from the C.S. Lewis institute (about 45 minutes each), watched all of Twilight (after the Ravi episode, I needed something that required absolutely no thinking whatsoever for a little and thought a mindless movie would do the trick), and about 3 Friends episodes. Oh yea, and 3 Colbert Reports. Whew. So what is the total time here? Around 12 hours or so? Time per sq foot of paint is pretty low.

Moving on.

I am really quite happy with the finished result. See the pictures below.

So much more refreshing!

I still need to paint the trim in the master bedroom, but I need to take a small break from trim painting at this point.

By the way, if you are interested in apologetics, the C.S. Lewis institute has a great series of lectures. Allistar McGrath is my favorite lecturer. He's an Oxford professor that goes head to head with Dawkins and has some very intelligent counter arguments. Hugh Ross is also excellent (physicist).
Check it out here.

"But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have." - 1 Peter 3:15