Love Language: Acts of Service

What is your love language? Mine is not Acts of Service as stated above. That is my hubby's. Mine would be Words of Affirmation and Gifts...of course Quality time is a great one too. Hmmm...is it possible to have all the love languages? Just kidding...sort of. Honestly sometimes it all depends on who it is coming from and what season of life I'm in, or what mood I'm in for that matter. If I'm sick, Acts of Service is wonderful.

But this post is about my hubby's  love language, not mine. My hubby wears a lot of hats and spins a lot of plates. ALL the time, at the same time and he can do it well. For him, acts of service mean a lot because it means one more thing he doesn't have to do and it frees up his plate a bit.

Recently he asked if I'd be willing to paint his new office at the church. Now, I like to paint, I'm fairly good at it albeit a bit messy and I do get very nervous before I actually commence painting, but once I'm doing it, I enjoy it. I'd be doing it with a friend, which makes it more fun, so I said yes.

Hubby picked out paint and told us what he had in mind...a leather looking finish on the bottom portion of the wall. See the above picture? It did not seem like it was going to be as easy as it would be if there had been no trim on the wall. But it was what it was and we would make it work. 

We were to start on Monday, and Sunday night I didn't sleep well. I think I dreamt about painting. Monday was spent painting all the trim work. Tuesday we met and taped off all the trim and put on the first two coats of the upper and lower colors. We let them dry a few days before coming back and doing the faux finish. During those two days I poured over Youtube videos trying to decide which technique would work best to achieve the look we were going for. 

Thursday we met and tried a few samples (I slept terrible Wednesday night)...we had painted a large piece of paper and then tried using a rag, plastic, newspaper and plastic grocery sacks. We ultimately decided on the grocery sacks. I recommend when trying a new technique to get an old piece of sheet rock or something similar to your wall to practice on. In our old house I actually used our garage wall to practice techniques on.

 We mixed 1c. paint with one qt. of glaze. We then rolled it on and after crinkling up the plastic bag we spread it on a portion at a time applying a VERY gentle pressure (we didn't want to remove too much of the dark color), peeled it off and moved it over. I frequently crinkled my bag and even balling it up a bit and dabbing smaller sections. I wish I would have thought to have Kat come in and take pictures of that step. The more pressure you apply, the more paint you will take off, revealing more of your bottom coat. If the colors are similar, the effect will be more subtle. If they are further apart, a very light with a very dark for example, the result will be dramatic. Check some of these posts out for examples in our house. In our house I used large pieces of painters plastic to obtain an effect that I love. In three different areas I did this, and obtained 3 different looks because of the paint color I used. Maybe I'll do a post on that another time.


The outcome? Perfect. We loved it, he loved it, everyone loved it. Now I can sleep peacefully. 

NOTE: all pics were taken on my iphone, so not the best but okay.

In the next few days I'll be posting a recipe for an amazing cake that Kat and her friend made last night.  So stay tuned, you won't want to miss it.
 
With Joy UNquenchable,