When we first moved into this house, it wasn’t what you’d call finished. Oh, it had all the necessary exterior walls, windows, and doors, and a roof on top, plus running water and electricity, but it didn’t have kitchen cabinets or central heat and air. It didn’t even have a full set of interior doors, much less baseboards or window trim, or interior paint. I primed the walls before we moved in, and that was it.
The idea was that I would do the painting myself over a period of time. I started with the main living area–living room, kitchen, dining room, and hallway. To tell the truth, I never did finish that hallway. But I did finish all the other rooms, one by one, and did a pretty good job of it, if I do say so myself.
By the time I got to that point, the main living area needed to be redone.
Frankly, I quailed at the prospect. Yes, I’d done it before, but I was a lot younger then. Painting our ten-foot ceilings was challenging enough in smaller rooms, much less an area as big as this one. Reluctant as I was to plunk down a wad of cash for something I could feasibly do myself, I said I thought we should hire it out this time.
Greg wasn’t any keener on plunking down cash than I was. He and I ended up making a deal: if I’d to all the prep and taping work, he’d do the actual painting.
As is so often the case with household projects, this one turned out to be a multi-step process. First, we had some necessary work done on our pier-and-beam foundation. This, of course, created cracks in the drywall, not just in the main living area but in other rooms whose paint jobs were otherwise still in pretty good shape. With help from YouTube, Greg fixed all the cracks and applied new texture himself. Finally, we were ready to paint.
I wish I could report that we got it all finished. I did get the taping done in some of the rooms with cracks, and Greg did a fine job of repainting in there. (Mostly these were individual walls that had to be repainted, not entire rooms.) Then I hurt my back and was out of commission for ten days. I’m better now, but still not a hundred percent. Baby Bird taped off a wall in the master bedroom for me, and Greg got it painted.
Baby Bird up on a ladder.
All that’s left now is the main living area. By next month, I hope I’ll be sharing photos of our beautifully painted walls, and maybe even some trim. I still have a book deadline to meet, but I think I can do the taping, if I don’t hurt my back again.
And how did I hurt my back? By wrangling livestock? Tilling a field? Single-handedly lifting large pieces of farm equipment? No, I’m afraid I did it by sleeping. I woke up one morning and it just hurt. I’ll try to be more careful in the future.
Reminds me of the meme with a picture a chipper coed all ready to tackle the day and the caption “here’s a picture of me at 20 the morning after partying all night with friend!” followed by another picture of the same individual (dressed/makeupped to be older” sprawled out on the floor with the caption “here’s a picture of me at 50 after opening a jar of pickles wrong!”
So true!