AMBUSHED! It was a 'Paint and Run!'

It all started off innocently enough. My friend Susan who is a real estate agent asking for suggestions for painting rooms. This was the group text we received. Nothing suspicious at all.

 

Let me give you a tiny history of what this is about. We moved to our home in 2006. The house was built just a few years earlier and every wall was builders grade white. In the 10 years we've lived here, we've painted the girls' rooms,  our morning room and our master bath. I did our powder room on the first floor a few years ago but that's it. Every other room is white. And it's ugly. I've always hated the walls in my house but never took the time to do anything about it. A few months ago, a group of friends were at my house and we were discussing my disgust at my walls. My friend Susan joked that one day she would sneak into my house and paint the walls while I was out. 

I thought she was joking.

Clearly, she was not.

I received that group text this past Tuesday at 4:00 at night.  I gave her a general idea with tans, blues  and beiges. When she asked me to be more specific, I told her she was a pain in my balls. See?

Flash forward to Wednesday morning: 16 had asked me to wake her up before I left for work because she 'wanted to be productive'.  I woke her at 8:50 and then left for work. My neighbor, Running Nazi Crack Ho drove me to work. At 5:10 she picked me up from work and we had to go back to her office because I needed an insurance question answered. We were there an exceptionally long time. When we finally pulled into my driveway, she asked if she could borrow some half and half. We walked into my house and this was what happened next.

This was my thought process when I walked into my house. 

Why are there 7 people in my kitchen all yelling "SURPRISE!" It's not my birthday, I'm not pregnant so it's not a shower. That's weird. And what's that smell? Why does my house smell funny? When I looked to my right I noticed my dining room was no longer white. It was teal. That's when I said "Are you crazy??" And when I walked into my kitchen and looked at my family room, that's when the tears came. This is what I was crying about:

My plain white walls were replaced with cream colored walls and a chocolate brown accent wall. My house was cleaned and painted by some unbelievably amazing friends (and some fantastic teenagers that were brought along for the ride). Here's another look at the family room:

In my kitchen, we had one spot where we've been measuring my daughters' height since we moved in 2006, and Susan's daughter Bella saved that spot so we'll still have it to look back and enjoy.

Here is my morning room:

And lastly, my dining room. Those curtains were already hanging and they go perfectly with the color:

How unbelievably lucky am I to have such incredible friends? Friends who would take an entire day to sneak into someone's house and spend 8.5 hours painting every room downstairs while their friend is at work. It was like an episode of the old TLC show "While You Were Out" without the hay, sand and records on the wall.  I'm blessed beyond words, and "thank you" just seems to fall short.