I have finally begun the much-talked-about downstairs painting job.

It’s going to be a major 2025 project, so I think I’m going to have to keep you updated.

Tomorrow I’ll show you some of the progress I’ve made this week. (Listen, when you're trying to fill 365 days, sometimes you have to drag out certain pieces of content.)

But first I guess I had better give you an overview.

Last month I told you how Kathy and I just passed 20 years living in this house.

The convenient thing about that is I can confidently tell you that these walls were last painted twenty years ago.

And, to be honest, I have no desire to paint them again.

I don’t pay much attention to aesthetics. I probably should, but it’s not something I spend a lot of time thinking about.

These walls are green. That’s it. (They used to be peach. We painted them green.)

The problem is, our stairway is in desperate need of painting. (I don’t know how long ago those walls were painted, but it was 100% more than twenty years ago.) Kathy had a good color idea picked out for them, but they kind of blend into the downstairs area and it would probably look weird if we painted the stairway and not downstairs…so here we are.

The stairway won’t be so bad - it is an off-white color and it will need just one coat of primer, probably, before the gray paint. There are just some tall spots that I’ll need to figure out how to paint…but I think I have a strategy. That’s all down the road.

The problem with downstairs - other than needing two coats of white to cover up the green before the gray goes down - is that there is so much stuff down here.

I already spent a while cleaning down here over the winter, so there’s a little less stuff, but there’s still a lot of stuff, including book shelves and exercise equipment. So there’s a lot of moving things around in addition to the painting.

So my plan was to approach it like I’m drawing an elephant. Or eating an elephant. However that saying goes. Start small.

I started with one wall - you’ll see those pictures tomorrow - because I had to take down a bulletin board that I had put up for all my race bibs. I figured I’ll paint that wall, get the bulletin board back up, and then move around the room bit by bit.

So leading up to this week I’ve been moving furniture, wiping down the walls to make sure they aren’t dusty (because they’re pretty dusty), all while trying not to blow up the space because Kathy and I use the exercise stuff every day.

(This is another part of this project, and partly why I’m starting in the exercise area - I was going to move the treadmill and bike around and I figured it would be most efficient if I painted while I was moving them rather than move them to their new spots, then move them again while I painted, then returning them to their new spots.)

I also put down some tape so I didn’t get paint all over the floor. (Although, this is a saving grace - the paint does come off this floor rather easily if I spill.)

On Sunday I finally started with two coats of white on the wall, and one of the posts.

On Monday, after I did the school pickups, I started with the first coat of gray, and then I did the second coat after dinner, while I was watching the Mets.

And then on Tuesday, in the light of day, I did some quick touch-ups on spots I missed a little bit. Hopefully later today I’ll get the bulletin board back on the wall and that part of the room will be done.

I don’t know how you approach big jobs like this, but I spend a good amount of time dreading it before I realize it’s not as bad as it seems.

With painting, part of my problem is figuring out how to manage all of the materials - which brushes to use, how many drop cloths to put out, where to keep the paint can lid after I open it so I don’t step on it….that kind of thing.

For this project I bought some new brushes that I want to take better care of (our previous brushes - you guessed it - are twenty years old and the bristles are all hard and inflexible).

So far I’ve been doing pretty well with that.

And each round of painting has only taken about an hour, all told.

I don’t think that time frame will apply to every section of wall and bookshelf, but it’s not bad for starters. (And, I should say, it is not like I have to do this all on my own. Kathy will certainly be joining me on certain parts of this project, whether it’s the stairwell, the hallway leading to the front door, or the rest of this downstairs room. Three of us painted this room the first time around. It’s not a one-person job.)

I’ll certainly have the update on all of that as we work our way around the room.