Day Three: The Brutal Truth About Remodeling.

Remodeling Journal, Day Three.
Spent first night in the house last night. I slept six minutes because I forgot my pajamas and had to sleep in clothes, ugh, and I am OCD about my sleeping attire and canNOT sleep in clothes, and then this house has some noises! I kept hearing clicking sounds and bolting upright in bed expecting to see our weird neighbor hovering over the foot of our bed with his hand in his pants.

We changed our locks.

I remembered to bring the Keurig, and then it wouldn’t work this morning so I’m raging like an angry bear and hubby has the audacity to have an attitude when I reminded him we need to make a trip to the dump because there’s carpet in the front yard. Yeah, I’m aware there’s carpet in the front yard, he says, and I’m aware there’s carpet on the ROOF, while he looks at me all bug-eyed as if somehow its MY fault there’s carpet on the roof.

Carpet in the yard.

Carpet on the roof. How it got there isn’t important.

Side note: once, when we were in Walmart grocery shopping we overhear a three-toothed redneck man ask his hillbilly gal (who was plum PUT OUT with Walmart, you could tell) in a deep-woods east Texas accent, “Why YOU gettin’ all bug-eyed?” Its been one of our favorite sayings ever since. But I digress.

Look, I cant confirm or deny WHO threw the carpet on the roof, and that’s not important now, but alls I know is I was trying to take the initiative to get it off the roof and take it to the dump and HE got an attitude. Oh no. I decide first on my to do list is a trip to Starbucks because its only gonna take one off-handed sarcastic remark this morning and his life is hanging in the balance, and being a widow would be a bad way to start out in our new home, and it has occurred to me that this is yet another sign that I’m OLD: I. Must. Have. Coffee. That’s all. I just MUST, or I’m a raging bug-eyed hillbilly.

Luckily this move has put us closer to a Starbucks for if/when my Keurig decides to act a fool. Thank God for being close to Starbucks. Though we are FARTHER from the hospitals, which is handy information to remember if you want to get an attitude with me before I’ve had my coffee.

Another sign I’m old? My body aches all over. ALL. OVER. From my aching back — shoulders — legs to the splinter in my big toe. No, I have no idea. Remodeling is hard.

Made a trip to old house because hubby forgot to bring a shirt and Susie needs something to chew on and I need my Stevia in case my dumb Keurig decides its gonna work today. It will be a multi-cup of coffee day today.

Today’s to do list:

Tear out girls bathroom toilet, vanity, and floor. Shop for new one.

Bring fridge plus full trailer load from old house
Paint closets and ceilings
Mud walls of Susie’s room
Carpet installers coming today to measure.

Just arrived back at new house and realize I forgot my Stevia. I have also sent a text to someone containing the symbols #?!*, which is about as close as I get to profanity most days {but not all}, and those two facts may be related. Coffee must have Stevia; Melissa must have coffee.

Working in Susie’s room today. Her room comes first because she sleeps so dang much, I’m not trying to rub it in but twelve or thirteen hours at night PLUS a couple of naps here and there. She needs a cozy, clean, quiet place to sleep all those hours so WE can work. Susie sleeps = we’re productive.

The problem is there’s the wall of cork in her room because some jackwagon thought it would be a good idea to have a whole wall of bulletin board.

I’m sorry I called you a jackwagon, Mrs. B, but it’s like you didn’t even have the foresight to consider whether 40 years later I’d even want that when you glued it up there, and that was a tad bit inconsiderate of you, I must say.

My mom was nice enough to pull the cork down, but 40-year-old glue remains, along with remnants of cork and gouges in the Sheetrock where it didn’t come down so easily. We debated how best to address this wall: rent a hopper and re-texture the whole room? Buy textured wallpaper for this wall only? Re-Sheetrock? Or plan C, whatever that might show itself to be?

We decided the best, most cost effective way to address this problem wall would be to do a stucco texture with Sheetrock mud in the whole room. Have we ever done this before? No, we have not. So now I’m globbing mud on the wall and sort of hacking and carving at it with a putty knife while hubby paints inside her closet, in between, of course, offering super-helpful suggestions on my stucco technique. I’m beyond excited about how this is gonna turn out and I’m pretty sure it’s gonna go viral on Pinterest! And then, of course, HGTV.

We agree that this house stinks; it’s old and been vacant for a few years. I gathered up half a dozen jars of carcinogenic toxic chemical air freshener left here by the previous owners and tossed them in the trash WHERE THEY BELONG, and hubby was sorely disappointed and I had to explain to him again about the cancer. He LOVES toxic carcinogenic air fresheners with overpowering fake perfumey smells so much that I suppose he wants the whole family having cancer someday because of it. He told me we have to do SOMETHING about the “old” smell, “something besides boiling rosemary on the stove,” He said sarcastically with a hint of a bug-eye but good grief, I saw it on Pinterest and its good enough for Williams-Sonoma. This is not the first time we have disagreed on how best to freshen the air of our home, BTW, but I let him win the couch thing so this ones mine, and I’m going with the LESS CANCER option. Just sayin’.

Stucco project, minute one: this is FUN and it looks GOOD! *snaps a few pictures for the how-to tutorial for the blog, the tutorial that is SURE to go viral on Pinterest

My stucco technique. Pin it, you know you want to.

Stucco project, minute nine: this project has lost it’s power to enthrall me. How bout if we stucco ONE wall because I’m OVER this…

I stuccoed one wall. It looks, um… well, we can put a dresser on this wall and it will hardly show at all.

Life principle: sometimes you have to go with Plan C and hope nobody notices. And if you needed those words of wisdom in a handy Pinnable image…

On my way to the WM for the 172nd time since we began this undertaking. Bought five gallons of ceiling paint. Just FYI five gallon buckets of paint are dang heavy and I should be fit and fly by the end of the day from toting all these bad boys around.

Carpet guy came by, and he reminded me of someone, someone — someone straight out of Dazed and Confused — and he was very nice and friendly and I have this really strong suspicion that the cops have been called to regulate his middle-of-the-night bongo-playing sessions at least once. Just keep livin’, man. L-I-V-I-N.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you you got some paint under your nose and you look like Hitler,” the hubs informs me, AFTER I return from Walmart. Somehow in the course of spray painting Susie’s brass chandelier black, I smudged some black paint under my nose and had no idea! In case you see me on People of Walmart…

Susie’s chandelier, formerly shiny brass. I even had enough paint left over for a Hitler stache.

That COULD be why the cashier asked me, “Been paintin’?” And I answered, “No, why?” Because good Lawd, I was COVERED in paint from my knuckles to my eyebrows to my kneecaps and I’ve lived with sarcastic people too long to not respond to that question with sarcasm even though it was lost on the Cashier who says, “I just thought you might have been painting because you had some paint on you.” They hire them for their mental sharpness down at the WM, I thought snootily and haughtily to myself.

All snooty and haughty and sarcastic and thinking I was cooler and smarter than the girl working at Walmart, until I got home and realized the ‘paint’ she had been referring to was my Hitler mustache.

Life principle: Sometimes remodeling isn’t as glamorous as they make it look on HGTV.And because I know you want to Pin those words of wisdom too…