We’ve needed a new floor for a long time now and the Monday
before Memorial Day the planets aligned and we found a floor we like for a
price we could afford.
Installation isn’t in our budget so we’re going to roll up
our sleeves and do it ourselves.
I also have orange walls.
Yes, I said orange.
I painted the living room, dining room and hallway quite a
few years ago and I wanted something bright and happy so I picked orange.
I’d like to say I was drunk at the time but unfortunately I
was completely sober when I made the “let’s paint our house orange” decision.
The orange I picked turned out to be dark and depressing and
when you look out the windows you feel like you’re inside of a pumpkin.
I HATE to paint so I could always find something better to
do and the walls stayed orange.
But now that I have a new floor, the orange walls have to go
and it makes sense to paint before we put the floor down.
These two tasks really wouldn’t be that complicated but I’m
married to a hoarder.
A hoarder who has tripped over his piles of crap one too
many times and wants to get rid of a LOT
before the floor goes in.
I have hoped for this moment for so long that everything
took a backseat and we started pulling out his stuff to get rid of.
I wasn’t too happy that I’d already dismantled the dining
room and started to paint when he decided to un-hoard but when a hoarder wants
to throw stuff away you don’t let a little thing like painting stop you.
In three days my house went from cluttered and messy to what
on earth happened here.
And everything landed in the living room, Florida room and my bedroom.
Piles and piles of stuff to be sorted, donated or thrown
away.
Did I mention that we piled the new floor in the living room
so it was already hard to get through there? Once the stuff from the dismantled
dining room and the piles of hoarding stuff landed in there, the room became
uninhabitable.
Wednesday morning the phone started ringing and I scheduled 6
photo shoots for the Island King, all of which had to be shot and processed
before 5 on Friday.
Something like work can really slow a
dehoarding/painting/flooring project down.
He agreed to work for his brother on the beach for Memorial
Day weekend so he left at 6 Friday morning and got home about 10 that night. He
did that again on Sat, Sun, Mon and Tuesday, meaning he came home, fell into
bed, got up, and left again.
He was kind enough to tell me that the resort he was
covering for his brother was hosting an amateur porn actor’s convention and driving
up and down the beach all day would be hard but he was sure he could muddle
through.
The kids were pretty adamant about not wanting to help me
and to be honest I thought having the house to myself all weekend would be
nice. I could knock this painting thing out in no time.
It was peaceful for the first hour and then I looked around
and realized painting the house all by myself was a mistake.
But my kids had disappeared into the witness relocation
program and my husband was at a porn convention.
That’s about the time I started flitting from project to
project, not really accomplishing anything but definitely making more of a
mess.
I really thought this whole project would take about a week.
We’re 3 weeks out now and still not finished but because
this turned into such a big project we’ve decided to fix any and everything
that needs fixing while we’re at it.
We do have all but the bathroom and laundry room floor
finished and everything but the backsplash area in the kitchen has been painted
so we’re making progress.
I’m putting the house back together now and have a to do
list for each room that’s still 3 pages long but the beach is calling my name
and I can’t spend the rest of the summer doing nothing but home repair
projects.
It looks like my one week project has turned into at least a month or two long.
Which isn't really that bad because who knew that putting in a floor would lead to painting,
which would lead to a hoarder throwing his crap away?
Turns out there is a silver lining under all of this mess
after all.
Labels: Done
