Despite the cold weather (to us in New Mexico, anything lower than 50 degrees is cold), we have tried to continue our work at wall repair. Unfortunately, the cold means the fresh adobe we’re using to repair the walls does not dry very quickly, not to mention the fact that mixing up the raw adobe outside in the wind and rain is challenging. Firing up the woodburning stoves help, but we needed something that is a little more consistent and less labor intensive. So, Jim went on-line to hunt for a propane heater that we could use.

We found one, but its going to require some work. Needless to say, Jim has a new project that he’s working on and it is taking priority over all else. He’s ordered some parts for it, and now we wait.

We’ve been firing up the wood-burning stoves as usual, continue to work on patching and repairing walls, and decided we needed a moral boost. So we started painting.

After several coats of white primer, we painted one wall in the kitchen. Mom had visited last month and this is the color she suggested for the kitchen. We taped paper on everything that was not to be painted and got to work. What do you think?

This is the window above the sink area — first taped up, then painted.

This is the area around the door. Again, first taped up, then painted.

What do you think?

We were “on a roll,” so we attacked the dungeon room (to one day be the dining room). The walls need repair and had been painted with a dark brown brick color and dark brown trim. The room has a tiny window that is obstructed by a swamp cooler making it oppressive.

This was the room we had most of the tools in with a work table. As you can see from the pictures, the walls will need a lot of work, but with the white primer, the room looks so different!

Yes, some of the original color is still bleeding through. Yes, the dull white is boring. However, now we can even see what we’re doing in there now!

This has us really fired up. Instead of just making adobe, dragging the buckets in, then patching and patching and patching, then waiting for the patches to dry (which takes forever in the cold). Now we are starting to really see some progress. Yes, there’s still a lot of work to do. But there’s hope!!