Old Rag with New Friends

A couple of weekends ago, we joined a few friends to hike one of my favorites, Old Rag Mountain. It's a great hike, about nine miles total with a 1-mile rock scramble at the peak. It's a challenging and fun hike that took us about 4 hours. 

And we had perfect weather. It was about 60 degrees and sunny. When we reached the top, we spread out in the sunshine and ate our lunches before taking the nice, more relaxing stroll down the other side of the mountain. 

Group selfie!

After the hike, all six of us went to Blue Mountain Brewery for some delicious beer and much needed food. In fact, during the hike, a couple of the guys were so spurred on by the thought of beer and Thai burgers that it became the basis of a hiking chant for a brief moment. 

Mark and Dan after conquering the top of the rock scramble.

Richard and the pack, hiking through and around some of the rock scramble. 

Can you just imagine the colors in fall? The views were breathtaking even without much foliage.

Kicking back and relaxing after lunch

Richard and I hiked Old Rag about three years ago, back when we were dating. We enjoyed the hike that time, too, but this time we were definitely more prepared for it. 

It's probably the most strenuous hike that I've done, but it's certainly one of my favorites and definitely worth visiting. 

The beautiful remnants of the sunset and gorgeous full moon on our way home

Finally Painting!

So, after putting the gallery wall up, I decided it was time to paint the walls. Ever since we've talked about painting, the den and kitchen have been the first priority. We talked about possibly doing two different colors even though there is a continuous wall (with one little ledge kind of thing) between the two rooms. 

On Saturday, we went to Home Depot armed with two lists of "good grays" and about ten other accumulated color swatches. We got five sample pots and learned how different grays can look even from the swatch to pot -- before even putting it on the wall. 

We had planned all along to paint squares of the choices on each wall of the rooms that we planned to paint. One of the grays that we picked was visibly way darker than we wanted, so we didn't even bother putting that one on the walls. 

Of the ones that we did paint sample spots, two of them were immediately ruled out -- one was way too blue and one was way too pale and purple-y. In fact, the blue was ruled out early enough in the process that it didn't even make it as a sample onto most of the walls. 

It wasn't much of a contest between the two remaining choices -- we chose Benjamin Moore's Stonington Gray unanimously (you know, two votes to zero). We really liked how it looked on all of the walls of the living room AND how it looked with the kitchen cabinets and countertops. So we decided on the spot to paint all the way through from the den to the edge of the kitchen. 

We went out to our local Benjamin Moore supplier -- Virginia Paint Company -- to pick up three gallons of the winning paint along with some other needed supplies. 

On Sunday, after we got home from church, we got to work! Richard rolled the paint, and I did most of the cutting in. We started by taping off the baseboards and around the built in shelves, but since they weren't done very well the first time (i.e. bad caulking), none of the lines were terribly clean to begin with. It ended up being easier to forgo the painter's tape and just pay extra close attention. 

We worked quickly, but (I'd like to think) cleanly, and got the first coat on in about an hour or so. Then Richard's friend Brandon came over to help with the second coat while I went for a run. :)