Painting Over Knotty Pine

My husband once said it's a sin to paint over knotty pine.

This was his response when, one Sunday afternoon, brush and bucket in hand, I told him I was going to paint. Every last square inch of our dirty, knotty-pine, 1940's sun porch.

Three and a half years ago when we moved to Joplin, we bought a house. I loved its original hard wood floors, crystal door knobs, and authentic honeycomb tile in the bathroom. But it was a tired, old house. And it was dirty and drafty and in desperate need of a family who would put some life back into its sturdy, yet creaky old bones.

The problem was that when we moved in, I didn't have the heart and we didn't have the money to give it the attention that it deserved. I was 6 months pregnant with our third child. Dave was starting a new, more demanding job. We were yoked with the burden of a house that would not sell in our previous town. And truth be told, I was miserable. I missed the friends and church and house I had left behind. I didn't want to be in Joplin; I wanted to be anywhere but Joplin. And, for a while, even though I knew I shouldn't, I hated the house. I hated the cracks in the plaster and the crooked floor in the hallway and the uninsulated upstairs bedroom that we slept in with a newborn and a space heater through an extraordinarily long Missouri winter.

But then, that long Missouri winter gave way to a violent Missouri spring.

 And a mile wide tornado.

That devoured a third of the town.

And there is a pregnant pause in this story.

Because that day life changed. For me. For lots of people. For everyone in Joplin.

 I could not hate what many no longer had. This creaky, drafty, outdated house had four walls and a roof and a basement that had been our refuge.

This house was a blessing.

One Sunday afternoon, not too long after, I told my husband I was going to paint our knotty pine sun porch. And, sinful or not, that's just what I did. I stayed up all night long. I painted the walls. I painted the ceiling. I painted the window casings and doors. I even painted the old plywood floor. It took four coats. It was an exhausting and cathartic and even a bit of a meditative process for me.

I needed to paint over the knotty pine. Coat after painstaking coat. I needed the restorative process of making something beautiful again.

We continue to embrace this little house. We replaced the roof and finished the basement and added a bathroom and a great, big walk-in closet. It isn't fancy or beautiful or special. But we adore it, probably more than any other we have owned.

It has always had character, but now it has soul, a soul born of deep gratitude and a night painting over knotty pine.