This weekend, we relaxed, spent some time for friends, and then got productive. Sunday was a project filled day around the Shipman household.

On Saturday, we visited some good friends. They’re in the middle of a trim painting project and seeing her freshly-painted white woodwork  reminded me of how dingy some of our own painted woodwork was looking.

When we moved into our house last year, we painted all the trim on the first floor. It was a MASSIVE job…and I hated how much time it took to give each piece of trim three or four coats by hand.

Still, I’m so super-duper glad we were able to power through that project because I so enjoy how the white woodwork looks now.

Unfortunately, life happens, and white doesn’t stay white forever.

Take, for example, this ding, which happened when our new bedroom dressers were delivered: (Yes, delivery boys aren’t always as cautious with the precious painted woodwork as we’d like them to be.)

However, if I’m honest, I’ll admit that I used to look at that scuff and say with certainly and a bit of nostalgic sentiment, “Aww, that was from the day we got our dressers…” instead of seeing it and immediately heading to grab my paintbrush. (Is it normal that I compared scuffs on the wall to some kind of sentimental memory? As if those scuffs were a visual timeline of life in the new house? But, I digress.)

Of course, sometimes it’s just normal wear and tear that causes the trim to lose its luster.

For example, these scratches in the entryway off our garage are probably from grocery bags or suitcases.

And these scuffs are just from shutting a door that rubs a little bit every now and then.

So, you see, I had a bit of touch-up to do.

And touching up painted woodwork is a fun job compared to painting it all the first go around. So, I grabbed my paintbrush and started touching up those little nicks and scratches.

I also worked on the top of the kitchen cabinet Hubs made. (We painted the top white as a temporary fix even though it gets scuffed easily with everyday wear and tear.)

 

P.S. Did you know it’s hard to take a good photo of a white surface with a not-so-great camera? Well, it is.

P.P.S. The scuff is in the middle of the photo below.

It only took me about 30 minutes to make my way around the entire house, dabbing on white paint in a few places as I moved from room to room.

And you know what, that 30 minutes made a big difference.

Alright, to be fair, it probably only made a big difference to me, but I no longer notice (and curse) those little imperfections every time I walk by. And I no longer take for granted how white and awesome our once-dingy, builder-basic trim is.

It’s amazing how fast we get used to seeing our home a certain way, and how fast we forget how it used to look.

For example, here’s the living room and bedroom with wooden trim:

 

And here is how they look with white trim, all “finished” and lovely:

(This is actually a different view than the bedroom’s current “finished” state, but I thought the curtains tended to hide some of the white woodwork. Spoiler alert…the living room also looks different now…can’t wait to spill the beans on that in a post later this week!)

Still, looking back of those memories of painting trim for hours every day are painful…especially when I consider how many hours of trim painting are still ahead of us when we start working on fixing up the basement!

Want a refresher on a funny trim-painting-related story I told last fall? Check out this post.

But in all honestly, I really feel like a quick fresh coat of white in a few key places gave our woodwork a shinier, brighter glow. And now I’m just as enamored with it as I was when we put down the brushes last fall. I want to walk into every room and shout “ta-da!” but that would be silly…so I’m refraining.

I know my mom’s been working on painting some wooden trim lately. And my friend was doing it on Saturday when we were visited their house. Maybe it’s something in the fall air? Tell me if you’re doing any trim painting…and what you’re appreciating with new gusto this afternoon (if it’s nothing, search deep into your soul to find something to smile about, okay?).

Fun Sidenote: We also FINALLY tried to start the scooters that came with our house were left in the shed by the previous owner.

Guess what? They don’t work. Wyatt’s thinking the batteries are dead because they light up while charging but then nothing when we unplug them. So, they went back into their spot in the shed until we decided to sell, scrap, or fix them.