There’s nothing quite like the feeling of fixing things up, whether they need to be fixed up or not, that gives you that sense of exhilaration, frustration, anticipation, elation!
Painter Dave is here painting...yes...painting, only two rooms, but the whole house is a disaster! And I’ve wondered more than once why are we doing this again?
It’s like a series of dominos. Our youngest two kids who share a room are growing up. They look gigantic in their little twin beds. My husband’s daughter has two small kids who need beds. So maybe this is a good time to pass those beds along and get new queen size beds for the kids. Beds that are theirs for life, that they can take with them or leave, when the time comes (hopefully it’s a very long time from now!). “But can we get our room painted too?” they ask. A boy & a girl, their room was painted half blue & half pink. Now they want half yellow & half green. “Oh sure,” we say to ease the transition.
“I want my room painted too!” another daughter pipes up. “Ewww and paint that awful pink bathroom,” my husband adds. (He forgets he picked out the color himself!) Not to mention the kitchen that we hope to remodel soon, if we paint that, one step will be done and paid for. Well I guess the new appliances was the first step. Anyway...step two!
Oh and the living room walls are too blue for me after about five years or so. How about painting one of those walls a lighter color. (I like light, cause I always like to be doing something, but everybody else likes the dark, cavelike feeling).
So you can see how this has escalated. Painter Dave comes to tell us if we can afford it or not. Ok, I think we can. Now the furniture has been moved to its new home. The kids room is bone empty awaiting the new furniture we picked out. The furniture is adorable, all in black, which must be the new thing...is it? Each bed is different, but they look perfect together in the room. My son’s bed has drawers underneath to keep all his clothes in and shelves in the headboard for books and trophies and things. My daughter’s bed by contrast looks lighter and more feminine. And she proudly owns the new dresser with mirror. It all goes together perfectly with their ages and personalities.
But back to the painting. We’re waiting with an empty room for furniture to be delivered. Please painter Dave, it’s totally empty, please come and paint it one of these three empty days! “Too busy now,” he says, “but I don’t mind taking down all the furniture and wrapping it up, I do that all the time.” Something inside of me screams this is a bad idea, but I can’t argue, after all the guy is trying to make a living, who am I to push, push, push!?
Once the furniture arrives, it looks great to me. I’m not so interested anymore in painting and even the kids don’t seem to remember! Days go by, weeks go by, months? Well one or two. Finally painter Dave calls, I’m next up. But we have a nephew in town for spring break week, not a good time for disruption! Next week we say. Next week Painter Dave is sick, busy, bothered. No problem for me, I’m not really ready for the mess anyway...put it off another week!
That weekend we take a quick trip to Vegas. Spend way too much money. By Sunday night when Painter Dave calls, I’d rather not paint at all, but okay I’ll be ready.
Now what are the colors again? Oh you kids like that pink bathroom, no changes, okay that’s perfect.
Oh other daughter, you cleaned up your room once for the painting, but you’ll be gone in a year anyway so why paint it now? Why clean up again?!!
And can’t any of you see why painting one wall of the blue living room a lighter color will brighten the room, huh, you like it the way it is?!!
Well now the only rooms left are the bedroom with the new furniture and the kitchen. The kitchen could wait, cause the remodel is a ways off and I was just throwing that in anyway cause Painter Dave would be here. And oh how I hate thinking about moving all that bedroom furniture. So I worked myself into a totally reluctant attitude to this painting. But what the what, it’s only two rooms, at least this way it won’t be so bad.
Painter Dave arrives Monday morning. Looks at the colors I’ve chosen. Likes the yellow & green. Gives me some advice on the light kitchen color. Gets me all excited about new colors in my house and heads out to get the paint. “I’ll be back early tomorrow,” he announces. “Take everything down that you can reach, I’ll get the high things.”
Next day. Where’s Painter Dave? Two hours later he’s telling me the paint got mixed up wrong about 100 times. The wait was excruciating! I could say the same.
But now it’s down to work for Painter Dave. Move the bedroom furniture & pile it up in the middle of the room. Wrap it up. Tape, cover, wrap. The hallway is stuffed with stuff, oops forgot about that discomfort, which we wouldn’t have had when the room was already empty. Now I can hardly get into my own bedroom cause there’s a mattress in the way!
Move on to the kitchen...move more stuff around...tape, cover, wrap. In comes the sprayer. Oh I can’t wait to see these colors! He paints the baseboards. “Ok now I gotta let that dry so I’ll be back in the morning.”
That’s how painting goes. It would be so much slower if we did it ourselves. Ok it would not happen if we did it ourselves. We can’t even bring ourselves to do the touch-ups!
It takes forever for Painter Dave to arrive on Wednesday morning! I just can’t wait to see how those colors look on the walls! Oh and I need him out of the upstairs by noon the next day for the carpet cleaners who are scheduled. But then it’s more taping and wrapping and covering in both rooms. By 4:00, still no paint colors! In comes the hose and up goes the paint...minutes later there are colors. Whew the smell, I can’t even go in and see them. Well how do you even walk in, the doors are wrapped? But Painter Dave has a door built into the wrapping. That’s cool. I take a quick look and duck out before I pass out...it’s dinner all the way out tonight!
Day 4, Painter Dave promises the upstairs will be done by noon when the carpet cleaners are due. I sure hope so cause mattresses cover the upstairs carpet. Wall hangings lie still for the tripping. Books, accessories, clothes, baskets, etc are all over the place including my bedroom. My husband says the kids room (yellow & green) looks like an Easter egg! Well at least we’re in season. “It’ll look good with the furniture,” I am positive!
My peach kitchen is gone. That is bad & good. Bad because nobody in this house embraces change, good because I’m not sure I ever liked the color. I wanted peach, but you know how it goes with the different light during the day, sometimes it looks pink and sometimes it looks orange. All I know is it would have been a disaster next to the new stain we want on the cupboards. But I’m looking at the new color and loving it. Everyone else just shrugs.
It’s ten to noon and Painter Dave is off to get some brackets and more paint. There is very little carpet upstairs to clean right about now. I hope they’re running behind. I have laundry going and need to get that to a point where I don’t have to run it up & down the stairs.
Friends are coming over Saturday. I can’t wait to cook. But the kitchen’s out of commission (we can’t even let the dogs out the back door) and that’s Painter Dave’s next mission. Kitchen stuff is all over my living room and dining room and on the center counter all wrapped up. I have major clean up to do. The clock ticks. Why do we always make things more stressful? I think I have some answers.
Earlier in the week when Painter Dave took my fake flowers and lovely decorations off the tops of the kitchen cupboards he very diplomatically mentioned that I might want to update those. I took a second look at my dusty fake flowers, even though I just cleaned them a month ago and popped them back up there and realized...yes, some things must be updated and definitely that must be.
So now added to this scenerio are new decorations. I’m finding some fun things. Excited about purchasing, but not crazy about spending the money. After all this is just to look at...not to use. And as I just discovered, this stuff ages. Yuck!
I’m stuck at home hurrying the laundry when I should be out shopping! I’m waiting for carpet cleaners who are thankfully late! I’m wondering if I’ll be gone before the kids come home from school or if I’ll (heaven forbid) have to take them with me. No one’s here and I’m stressing! I picture everyone else in this picture totally relaxed, hey why not, life is good. It’s all good as my kitchen wall hanging states! I meant the food. HA!
We all think back to five or so years ago when Painter Dave last painted. He painted every stitch of the inside of this house, closets, pantry, ceilings, whatever could be painted was painted. At the same time, we had tile put in downstairs. What an adventure! We didn’t call it that then as the painter & tiler had to work around each other and most of the house we were still living in was unusable. Everything was emptied out. Even the toilets were off. We’d huddle together in whichever bedroom was half together, eat our dinner and hang out or hang on! Every day was painfully more painful until at last, like 2-3 weeks later, they were all gone. The house looked fresh, smelled fresh and we could stretch out again. All that pain is back with just two rooms in transition. The forgotten memories are back like a slap.
When it’s over, we’ll forget again. And eventually we’ll be ready to repaint, refix, redo. And at the end, bask in all that newness & freshness. It won’t make our house any more valuable in the housing market, but it will add some life and some fun to the house. I like that!
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