Pamela - my heart goes out to you! My younger brother was diagnosed with stage 4 bladder cancer this past July - two days after coming to visit me for the very first time in my still not completely finished new home that he had been hearing me go on-and-on about for over two years. He spent hours working with me in the central Texas summer heat helping me get a start on some landscaping! Needless to say, when he called two days after leaving my home with news of his cancer diagnosis, I felt totally silly, self-centered, and shallow to have been so concerned with my house issues! My brother is being treated at MD Anderson in Houston and is doing extremely well... to the point where we are all now EXTREMELY hopeful that he will actually beat this thing completely... and I've gone back to letting myself stress over my silly house issues. I only tell you this because you need to know that no matter how agressive your cancer is, there is still hope! But, with an agressive cancer diagnosis, you definitely DON'T need to be dealing with construction vultures right now! You need to be focusing all your energies on getting well. You should be enjoying the good days you have between treatments - not spending them on the phone having fights with contractors. I'm sure you must have loads of friends who are responding to news of your cancer with "Is there anything I can do to help?" While many of them are no doubt just be expressing their pity and would RUN if you actually asked them for help, others are true friends who really would like to be able to offer you REAL help - if only they knew of some way they could. Usually there is nothing the friends of a cancer patient CAN do. But in your case that isn't true. Isn't there one person among all the people who love you that is smart and capable enough that you can trust them to assist you with dealing with the house issues. If so, consider appointing that person as your "agent" to deal with the house and finish getting it built for you. Put it into their hands and let them run with the ball. They might not make EXACTLY the same decisions you would along the way - but if they truly love you, they WILL make decisions with your best interests at heart... and they are likely to be pitbulls when dealing with the vultures because, in my experience, most people will fight harder for someone they love than they will for themselves! My thoughts and prayers are with you. Keep posting as often as you feel up to it - so we know how you are doing. And if you should choose a friend to help you finish dealing with the build, be sure to introduce him/her to this forum and ask them to post progress notes.

I painted all my bedroom trim, baseboard, and crown before install. To me, since the ceilings were so high, it was MUCH easier. One thing to check. Does your wood have knot holes? Despite my urging, my GC brought pine that had knot holes, the best for the price I could afford, and I primed with ordinary primer then painted with an off white satin finish. Well, it didn't take long before those knot holes bled through. Make sure you use a primer especially made to cover knot holes (can't think of the name right now). I had to go back and touch up the trim and baseboard knot holes with the special primer and repaint with another finish coat. That was three years ago and yellow spots are still appearing. :(

Where were you this AM LOL? OK, I'll sand and *prime* again tomorrow, then use the exterior paint tinted with a little of the interior, unless you think it's best just to use interior paint. I was hoping exterior paint (same satin sheen) would allow me to skip a clear topcoat since I don't want to use Polycrylic outdoors and anything else (Cetol D&W was my 1st choice) would yellow. If I have to sand and repaint a tiny $5 Goodwill table again in a couple years it won't be the end of the world. Maybe I'll sell it - just bought it to experiment on. I've still got the legs of 2 other tables to do (thinking of just staining the tops darker and putting Cetol on them). Those were $15 about 3 years ago, I wasn't going to put a whole lot of $ into them. I will be sure to sand and *prime* them first. After what Faron said about exterior paint flexing more, I wouldn't want to paint interior paint over exterior for fear of crazing, so what's better, mix a little in for color or glaze/dry brush with the interior paint? I know best would be just to get exterior paint tinted the color I want, but I don't think the paint store will tint a $1 quart of oops (Lowes wouldn't retint the 50 cent sample can of oops interior, that's why I paid $3 for a can tinted a darker color and figured I'd mix them or dry-brush the lighter color over, until I found the Moorgard yesterday).

HulaGal - Ours was sprayed on by our cabinet guy, but I actually brushed/rolled on our pantry cabinet paint because we decided to do a pale blue-grey color after the cabinets were installed. The rolled on paint is nearly as flat and smooth as the sprayed paint. I also brushed on the trim paint around our marble countertop, and there is nary a brush mark to be seen. I don't have any pictures of the kitchen cabinets because they're not installed yet, but here are a couple of our pantry. I don't know if they'll be helpful or not, but can you seen the slight sheen in the first photo? That might give you a sense for how "shiny" the paint is. (And I don't think I said so before, but the paint says "interior smooth enamel.") From Last Import And in this one, you can see the primed trim piece at the back of the countertop, and the blue base cabinets. The trim isn't painted in the picture, but as I said, I have since brushed it on and it as as smooth as can be. Hope this helps some! From Last Import