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Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Let Your Walls Come Down

Hey y'all, long time, no see!

I decided to take a break from my  newest little DIY endeavor.  Well, when I say "take a break," I sorta mean, "for the love of all that is holy, put down the painter's tape, the screwdriver, and the sandpaper, and get the hell out of this room before you knock out a wall!"   So during my break time, I had the choice of either A.) Unpausing Friday Night Lights, or B.) Go post on my very overly-neglected blog and see if I actually still have any readers left lingering.   If I had gone with option A., I knew that I would be, once again, hypnotized by the hotness of Tim Riggins, and the adorableness of Coach and Tami, and I would get ZERO things accomplished the rest of the day.  So here I am...back again.

I feel like I must preface this by explaining how much of a disaster this was bound to be from the very beginning.  My Dad was the ultimate "DIY Guy".  That man rocked his toolbelt (with his name engraved in the back....yes, he did engrave it himself with his little machine) and walked around our house fixing any and everything he could get his hands on, whether it needed to be fixed or not.  Whether it be installing fixtures, changing lighting, building a garage, changing out toilets, phone lines, you name it, he could do it.  He had every tool that Sears ever sold, and knew how to use each one efficiently.  Well, apparently, this little talent skips a generation, because my brother and I both have issues just changing out a lightbulb!   I'm sure he's just shaking his head at us, saying "You know, I TRIED to teach y'all this stuff, and you weren't even remotely interested!"   So now, cut to me.  I spend waaaaaayyyy too much time on Pinterest.  It's an evil, EVIL place.  That little website has convinced me that just because I hit the "repin" button, that it somehow shoots a magical ray of talent into my body, so that I will actually be able to CREATE these little projects.  I sit for hours when I have insomnia, just thumbing through hundreds and hundreds of blogs, videos, tutorials, etc. and I have convinced myself, "Hey, I can do that!"     There is a huge possibility that this could end badly.

When we moved into this house 9 years ago, we were still sort've all in a bit of a post-traumatic haze, following my dad's accident.  And I was in a 20 years old and 8-month pregnant post-traumatic haze.  So needless to say, I was not in any position (physically, emotionally, mentally) to really think about overall decorating.   We pretty much unloaded a giant truck of stuff, and moved it to places where it looked right, and called it a day.  So fast-forward to now, and I am constantly driven emotionally MAD by the "builder's neutral beige" color on the walls of all 3,000 square feet of this house.  Sure, we've added pictures, fixtures, and whatever to it, but it's just so....beige!  Add to it, the 2 mentally-handicapped boxers that also inhabit our home have taken it upon themselves to leave their nasty jowl-slime on every wall and baseboard they can come in contact with.  And to top it all off....kids.  Do I really need to elaborate??  Handprints, crayons, Sharpies, and some other "stuff" that I don't even think I want to identify.   It's just nasty.  For someone like me who loves to take pictures around the house, it's a wannabe-amateur-pseudo-photographer's worst nightmare.

Bring on Pinterest!!  After finally reaching my breaking point and reading every tutorial I could find, I finally decided, YES, I'm going to repaint this house and re-do these rooms....every room.....room by room by room.  By myself.  Me.  The girl who lit her finger on fire the other night trying to light a sparkler.  The girl who attempted to make a concert-t-shirt-quilt and sewed her finger to the machine. (I AM gonna finish that thing, though...it's next on the list)  The girl who attempts to paint her own fingernails, and the final result looks like someone with epilepsy painted them during a full-on Grand Mal seizure.  I'm gonna paint.  And I'm gonna start with Shelby's room.  Poor thing is still having to look at half-ripped pastel frog borders around her walls.  She wants a pre-teen turquoise and zebra room, so that's what we're gonna do.  

So here we go, I've got ideas in my head and websites pinned. Off to Lowe's I go.  Ummmm, wow, there is a LOT of home improvement crap in there!!!  I almost had a panic attack just trying to pick out a paint shade!   But after giving the sales rep a giggle by explaining my room size by making a giant box with my arms to symbolize how big I thought it was,  I finally got all my stuff and I went home.  I thought that was the hard part.  I'd get home, get the border off, fill in some holes, and I'll have it painted before we leave for Boston Sunday  (this was Saturday morning).   Ummm, yeah, not so much.    First off, we put that border up when Shelby was 3.  It did NOT want to come off.  I did the scorer thing, then climbed on every stable piece of furniture I could find (that right there was mistake #1) trying to scrub off this hideous border with some glue-remover crap.  Not working.  If not for the lulling sounds of Friday Night Lights in the background, I probably would've quit right then and there.  I actually had visions of just setting the room on fire, getting the insurance money and rebuilding the room from scratch.   But the soothing southern drawl of Tami Taylor (seriously, one of the best characters on television EVER, hands down.  Plus, her voice, mannerisms, accent, everything about her reminds me so much of my most favorite teacher ever, which makes me love her even more, and she's a gorgeous freckly redhead, and...wait, what the crap was I talking about?  Oh yeah, painting.  Sorry, blogger's A.D.D.  *SQUIRREL!*) told me that it would not be wise to do that, so I listened to Tami and pushed forward.  After 3 hours, some advice from Facebook friends, (yes, fabric softener in a spray bottle DOES work to remove wallpaper) some minor wall punching, 2 beers, and 4 FNL episodes, I finally got all that crap off the wall.   I was also left with this:


I know it's hard, but please attempt to tear your eyes away from the sexy beast on the left, so you can see the mess on the floor.    At what point did I think this was gonna be a fun little project??   Jeff walked in at one point to find me precariously balancing myself on a bedside table, scraping frogs off of a wall, and all I heard was "Wow, HOW much fun are you having right this very second?"  (ahhh, the support of a sibling)  But then I put him to work at moving furniture, so he was forgiven.   After getting distracted once again by the Dillon Panthers, I went to work at scooping it all up, and getting the other remnants with my good ol' faithful Dyson....which then decided that the hose attachment was gonna quit working.  Of course!  (My mom later kicked the Dyson, and broke her toe.  Sorry Mom!)

So I was like "Yay, almost time to paint, right?"  Wrong.  Then I had to spackle and fill all the millions of little holes in the walls.  Geeeez.  I have a very scientific way of hanging things.  I nail it, hang it, it's crooked, I move it, nail again, crooked again, repeat process until finally straight.  (Seriously, why haven't I been hired on HGTV yet??) so there were 14 billion holes to fill.  But my dad would be so proud---I picked up my putty, smeared it on, and filled every hole all by myself!!  Then I sanded it all down like the directions said.  Then stood back to admire my handy work.....only to now see 10 inches of sanded putty dust all over EVERYTHING.  Uggggghhhhh!!  So that's why I was sneezing so much!  And once again, Dyson attachment not working, so here I go, hauling R2 up the stairs!  (R2 is our shop-vac)  In the process of dragging him down the hallway, I clipped a part of the drywall off the corner of the wall.   (Looks like I know my NEXT project)  I forgot to mention that Shelby's furniture is what we inherited from Patrick's dad when he passed away.  It's pure oak and it's gorgeous....and weighs about 50 tons!  So I'm pretty much giving myself a hernia trying to move the furniture around to vacuum.   But finally knocked that out, and realized I now have to scrub the said baseboards.  Of course.  Out comes my giant bucket and toothbrush---which, incidentally, I found in Gibson's mouth an hour later.  Gonna pretend I didn't see that!---and scrub all the funk-nastiness off the baseboards.

Then the most fun of all.  I got to whip out the infamous blue painter's tape.  Have you ever seen the ads for this stuff?  Some impeccably-dressed woman effortlessly lining her window's with tape, and it's in the most perfectly straight line.  Then there's me:


I don't remember the last time I cussed an inanimate object as much as I did that stupid painter's tape!  Actually, I don't remember the last time I talked to myself and random objects as much as I have over the past few days.  I talk to the furniture, I start maniacally laughing for no reason, I kick things over, I ask myself hypothetical questions, then sarcastically answer them as if I'm talking to someone else.  Completely losing it over here!  Needless to say, I do NOT have perfectly straight lines anywhere on these baseboards, but you know what, the tape is on, the baseboards have been cleaned, the furniture has been moved, holes filled, doors ripped off the hinges, Cinderella is blasting at a deafening level, and now.....

I'm ready to freakin' PAINT!!   Stay tuned to watch the next chapter of this debacle unfold.

And I'll leave you with a sappy little tribute video to my favorite TV couple, and these parting words:

Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, CAN'T LOSE!!


Now....where's my tool belt? 















**oh, and the title comes from some of my Memphis boys, Every Mother's Nightmare.***




1 comment:

  1. OMFG! This is hilarious! I wonder what it turned out like?

    By now you shoul've probably finished every single room in any house in your whole family , right? I'm def late to the party, but I did want to stress that this blog is being read (by me).

    :)

    ReplyDelete