oh, how I loathe thee, DYI

I am actually happy to be back at work after four days of it. And guess what! I’m NOT DONE!!! Everything took about ten gazillion years longer than expected. And I didn’t manage to be ready to just get up and start painting Thursday, since we had to be out of town on Wednesday for Kim’s dad’s funeral. I got a whole lot done beforehand, but I didn’t get it all done. The spare room had evolved over the years into Junk Room From Hell, so before I could do anything at all I had to carry load after load after load after load of assorted junk down to the basement. Then move the furniture into the middle of the room, away from the walls. THEN go around taping up all the window and door sills and the ceiling and the baseboards. Which I hate doing. And clean the nasty trim and baseboards. AND go buy the paint, which I also didn’t get done prior to Thursday. So it ended up being Friday before the real fun started. 

OH! And the wallpaper which I was going to paint over because it was glued on there WAY too tightly to take off? My main initial reason for not painting when we moved in 13 years ago (13 years ago this week, actually)?? Ummmmmm….. came right off. Baker B was helping me measure the walls, and he takes hold of a teeny peeling bit (there were a few peeling bits that I was going to just razor off and spackle over, as instructed by Paint Expert At Lowes), and he starts to pull on it. 

As I say, "NO!! NO!!! Don’t do that, it’s glued down WAY too tight!!! You’ll rip up the drywall!!!!!"

Yeah. It just came right off. Easy as pie. I’ve never been so surprised in my life. It certainly seemed tightly glued. But that was very good, since it meant not having to paint over it (and probably having it fall off immediately). I could also get by without using a primer— I got some Olympic paint that was one-coat, primer included. At the advice of a Not The Paint Expert guy at Lowes who looked about 12, and who was in grave danger Friday night of being murdered in cold blood by me when it looked like it was TOTALLY going to need two coats. As in, it looked terrible, uneven and splotchy. To my shock, the next morning it looked perfectly fine. Other than the 26,978 spots that I’d missed. Which I had to go back and touch up. And I still keep seeing little teeny missed places. The walls are in bad condition, the lighting is awful in there (even with the overhead light, the closet light on and two additional lamps drug in), the paint was a very light color going on so it was easy to miss spots on the dingy white walls, and I can see why people hire, oh, PROFESSIONALS. And it was REALLY hard trying to get to the lower parts of the walls with all that furniture I had to squeeze past. It required massive contortions in several places. But it’s a huge improvement over the dancing alphabet bears and the primary color stripes. I still have to do the baseboards- I ran out of paint and had to go buy another quart, and the Added DYI Day with Daddy on Saturday was an exhausting 10 AM – 6 PM affair, so no painting got done that day. 

So at this point, I think the walls are done and I’m reasonably happy with them. I don’t think it will take more than a few hours for the trim. (Hahahahaha!!! Yeah, I know. In reality it will take three days). Then I can clean the nasty furniture, move it back, and carry up the stuff that’s going back in. AND find a home for the stuff that’s staying in the basement. We’ve got a good-sized room down that we’ve never really used (it’s very dark, used to be very damp before the French Drain experience and the ripping-up of the nasty carpet, and it is way too cold unless it’s 90 degrees outside). Well, "never used" in that we use it to throw MORE junk into, so my auxiliary project is to organize the basement. And leave a lot of the stuff that I don’t actually NEED in my study down there. In an organized fashion. When we moved into this house, the basement was too damp to store anything that damp would ruin, but it’s okay now. So why are we not taking advantage of it??? We’re laaaaazy!!!!!!!!! Actually Baker B straightened it up a lot recently, and I hauled a bunch of stuff to the Salvation Army, and it’s already not nearly as bad as it used to be. It doesn’t look quite so much like we are heading straight for an episode of Hoarders.   AND –  the big BIG "and" –  Saturday’s DYI with Daddy involved him fixing a light switch down there and replacing the overhead light that has not worked in, oh, YEARS. So the oppressive darkness is alleviated!!!

(We are terrible idiots — we stopped using that switch years ago and even taped it up because the light kept flickering out and it smelled weird and electric-y and we were afraid it was a short and would burn the house down. So we did what we always do when faced with things that don’t work — we ignored it for years and years. Instead of instigating what turned out to be a pretty easy fix. I hadn’t even mentioned it to Daddy until a few months ago, at which point he was ALL about coming up and taking a look at it, and fixing it for us.) (Daddy also oversaw the ripping out of our garbage disposal that has not worked in, oh, TWELVE YEARS, and went to Lowes with us to instruct us in the pipes and stuff to buy in order to have a completely functional kitchen sink again. We aren’t putting in another disposal – but the broken one kept us from being able to use the left-hand sink basin. All this will wait till the next Fix It Day-  we ran out of time.) 

SO. I’m not done, but this is obviously a long-term project. I was so sick of painting by Friday night that I was ready to leave home and move into a tent. But I’m ready to face the baseboards tonight. I really do need to get the room put back together because that’s where my clothes are and where I get ready for work so it’s starting to be a real pain not being able to get to anything. 

And here’s the pictorial evidence:

Before. Complete with children’s wallpaper:

And cats! Who are unhappy because they’ve been banned since the actual painting started.  And nasty icky beat-up metal blinds. The blinds are gone. I will buy new not-beat-up ones.  

That floor lamp was my grandmother’s – I’ve just ordered a new shade for it. Obviously the one on it does not fit at all, and is not even meant for a floor lamp. I’ve broken two of them now. It’s really easy to knock over, as you might imagine. 

Oh, by a happy coincidence, I think the wall colors will actually go well with my, ummmm….. little girl furniture. Which didn’t go at all with the children’s stripey primary color and alphabet bears wallpaper. The bed and three other pieces are the furniture I grew up with. Which I can’t just get RID of. I actually like them — they’re kind of unusual. I don’t like the flower pattern and have considered trying to paint them, but it’s enamel stuff and I don’t know if that’s even possible. But, as you can see by the headboard Eddie is sneaking past, the flowers will actually kind of work with the lilac walls. Well, you probably can’t see that at all here, but when it’s all done and moved back I’ll take more pictures and everyone can vote on it. 

See those lovely yellow folding closet doors? They’re gone!!!! I JUST read something suggesting you ditch the folding closet doors and put up a curtain rod and a fabric shower curtain instead. I’ll actually be able to get to ALL my clothes! The folding doors are very inconvenient and take up a ton of space. 

Goodbye, little bears!!!!

And…. the paint! That’s actually a pretty good representation of the actual color. I wanted something light and soothing. 

I will have to take more pictures in better light, because these do not reflect the actual color (this one reflects a blue alien, I think), but it gives you an idea of the massive improvement. It’s not pink at all, as it appears in several of these photos. Well, ALL of them, really. 

Goodbye, ugly awkward space-sucking closet doors!! (Yes, I do realize that I REALLY need to clean the ceiling). 

I almost want to get back to it now. Almost. It is fun to see what a big difference there already is.