Pickin' out paint

Oooh, boy, while the cat's away, the mice will play! Or, in this particular case, the mice will ... remodel the house.

Around the homestead, home improvements have always been lighter on the priority scales than farm maintenance/improvements/other farm stuff. But in the last couple of days, my dad has been gone on a business trip, and mom's been using that time to shift priorities slightly in favor of her house. There are some things she's wanted to do for a while, like paint the kitchen/dining room, and put new flooring down in the kitchen. And while these kinds of decisions are big for everyone, there are a couple of 'items of special consideration' when purchasing them for a farm house. They're interesting, so I thought I'd share. First, when picking out paint colors for high-traffic areas like the kitchen and dining room, one must consider that shotguns and the like are probably going to be leaning here and there, so scuff marks should be fixable, or at least tolerable with your paint color.

Next, considering flooring. Farm houses are not the place for white carpeting. Or semi-white. or even khaki. Our kitchen floor has served as a surgery for dogs and cats; a nursery for piglets, goats, calves, lambs, and puppies; and as a cafeteria for hungry, muddy-boot-wearing work crews. I don't think Pine Sol makes enough ... Sol ... to get all that out of a light colored floor. I remember actually telling the flooring person all that happens in our kitchen the last time we picked out linoleum. At first she thought we were joking, then she told us to just put concrete down. We went somewhere else to get our flooring.

So, we've been going like gangbusters on the house for the past week and a half, and boy is the 'cat' gonna be surprised when he gets back! That'll teach him to leave me and mom home alone with the checkbook. heh.