Hell Hath No Fury...

In the last post, Joe described our low morale and Max's meltdown last weekend. He was kind to me, but should probably be ashamed of himself for blaming the meltdown on the baby. I'm the one who had the meltdown.

For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of painting trim (and I was among you just a few short weeks ago), let me tell you--it sucks. It's the kind of thing you should leave to the experts and exactly the kind of thing that I would like to have hired done but with two mortgages, my accountant (Joe) tells me there's no budget for an professional trim-painter. So I've learned to do it myself, I guess. Last weekend was my third straight painting trim, and I'm going to whine about it a little bit. At the end of each trim-painting day, my wrist (and sometimes shoulder) hurts and my back is sore from practically laying on the floor to paint baseboards. The first room (the playroom f/k/a/ Jayhawk room) was a challenge because I was painting white over BRIGHT red. The second room (the guest bedroom) was a challenge because the walls are highly textured and it was impossible to get a good line. I'm happy to report to you that, save for the windows in the guest bedroom, I think we have painted all the trim we're going to for while. And God bless Sherwin Williams paint because I think I'd still be painting the playroom trim if that paint didn't cover so well.

So I'm in an okay place with it now. But I wasn't last Friday. I was tired of painting trim and tired of it looking like crap. In the morning, Joe's brother Chris showed up while Joe finished up cutting in the living room. They decided they were going to tackle two "quick" projects--fixing the ductwork in the basement and installing the ceiling fan--before resuming painting. Even though Joe has been to the hardware store THREE TIMES for this project, he still didn't have the right stuff. So he and Chris went to the hardware store. In the meantime, Max refused to nap and I managed to get a tiny bit of trim painting done. About two hours later, Joe and Chris show up empty-handed. So they decide to put up the ceiling fan. Two hours after that, it is starting to get dark and there is still no fan. And I've been painting trim all day while giving Max two bottles, two snacks, one lunch, and attempting to put him down for at least three naps.

How many Mizzou fans does it take to install a ceiling fan?

They finally get the fan installed, but there are no lightbulbs to make sure it actually works. Max is screaming. I've had enough. So I pick up my child and threaten my poor husband and brother-in-law with their lives--I am taking the baby for a ride to put him to sleep and the ceiling fan better be working and the living room better be painted when I return. After a 30-minute ride to Plattsburg and back, Max was finally asleep and I returned to the house. All I can say is Joe and Chris must have done some speed-painting (hell hath no fury...), because the living room was painted when I returned. It looked great and the baby was asleep. I felt a little stupid about the fit I threw, but no one said anything so I didn't either. Everything worked out and my blood pressure finally went down.

Living Room "Before"

Living Room "After"

I think you'll agree , the new lighter green (Sherwin Williams, Lemongrass) makes the space seem much more open and brings out the woodwork nicely. And the ceiling fan is actually from this decade, which is a nice touch.

As you know, we didn't do any work on Saturday (go Tigers!) and we only had a few hours on Sunday, so we made them count. My Mom and Dad had Max for the morning, so I finished up the trim work (hooray!) and Joe cut in and rolled the first coat of paint on the dining room.
We still haven't figured out how to get those mirrors down, so they're staying put for now.

So here are our ambitious plans for this weekend:

1. Put another coat of paint on the dining room
2. Finish painting the window trim in the guest bedroom
3. Touch up the playroom, guest bedroom, living room, dining room
4. Fix the ducts
5. Install a second ceiling fan
6. Begin pulling trim off the wall in the entry OR try to strip and sand with the trim still on the walls
7. Maybe--if we're lucky--begin painting the kitchen

It's a pretty big list, I know. Especially for two novice do-it-yourselfers like us. Are we setting ourselves up for another disappointing weekend? Or will we rally and come up with the most productive weekend ever? Tune in next week and find out.

Morale Bottoms Out, and a Weekend Pick-Me-Up

With the holiday weekend, we planned to spend two full days (Friday and Sunday) working on the house. With all that time, we figured to knock out most of the remaining painting, get a ceiling fan installed, and fix the broken duct in the basement.

Good plan, terrible execution. Painting has proved to be extremely tedious. On Friday, we managed to get the living room painted (pictures to come in a later post), and that was about it. Kendra also finished some touch-up trim painting. But we definitely hit a low point on Friday. I went with my brother to pick up the duct work to finish that job, and the local hardware store doesn't carry the pieces we needed. That burned a good 1 1/2 hours. On top of everything, Max decided that he didn't really care for the lack of attention he was receiving, and had a near-meltdown. By the end of the day on Friday, we were ready to burn the house down.

But then Saturday came, and we remembered that we had tickets to the Missouri football game of our lifetime.

Your 2007 Heisman Trophy Winner, Chase Daniel.

The game was a blast, with Mizzou winning 36-28 to grab the #1 ranking in the country.

Our spirits buoyed by the big win, we were able to bounce back a little bit on Sunday. We've knocked out a lot of painting, installed a ceiling fan, and have a good plan to devote some solid hours this Friday/Saturday. We'll post some pics later this week to show the before/after on the painting.