… because I can no longer lift my arms.
Maybe next week.
So. Um. We bought this house, and then we pretty much went over there and painted for the next forty eight hours straight. Otto managed to lure various friends of his over to assist, which was nice, but it was still a whoooooole lotta painting. AND we’re not done yet! Because the copper wall takes TWO coats of base color and TWO coats of metallic overlay, which means we have one more metallic layer to go tomorrow, after which I suspect the living room will be six inches narrower than it was before we started, because HOLY HELL four coats of paint seems like a lot. Also, cathedral ceilings are highly overrated.
Anyway! Here’s a pop quiz for you:
You are a contractor, hired to work on someone’s house. You happen to know that these people haven’t even moved in yet, so it will be necessary to coordinate carefully so as to have access to the property. You make arrangements to arrive at 8:30 in the morning to check out the job and arrive promptly. After five minutes of poking around and verifying what needs to be done, what do you do next?
A) Go out to your truck to get everything you need.
B) Leave and go to Home Depot or Lowe’s to buy the stuff you need.
C) Start working because you already have everything you need.
D) Head to the nearest bathroom and take an enormous dump.
I ask you now: If you said D, and upon making your fateful decision discovered that OH YEAH, these people don’t really live here yet, and so THERE IS NO TOILET PAPER OR SOAP, what would you do then?
I like the contractor very much. He was a good choice, which is nice, because I’m giving him my kids’ college money. Let’s just say that the guy he brought with him to assist is someone I no longer feel comfortable looking in the eye. Because there are things I don’t want to think about but I cannot help wondering WHAT DID HE DO? I don’t want to know. I really, really don’t.
In other news, the Crazy Neighbor Lady whose house may or may not be for sale is frequently seen coming and going but hasn’t said a word to us, yet. I don’t know if she knows we’re the people who tried to buy her house or not. All I know for sure is that she often leaves the house for hours at a time and leaves her garage open.
In other other news, I discovered upon going to the bank to change my name and address that my business account is completely hosed because in fact the whole DBA thing is screwed up and it can ONLY be fixed by the bank in my home state, because here in Georgia all they can do is cancel my account and start over. Also they are confused as to why I might not want them to do that. (I have direct deposit going to that account from about four different places. “Oh but we can set that up for you again, hon.” Yes, because switching it over when I changed accounts the last time was SO MUCH FUN.) So I had to call my account rep up north and ask her to fix it and she swore she would but then she never called me back. SO.
Thank goodness it’s not like I’m going to have any bills to pay and therefore will want to be cashing any of these paychecks made out to someone who—according to my bank—doesn’t exist. Oh, wait a minute….
Anyway. Back to the painting! (This will make me feel productive.) We went into Chickadee’s room and painted one wall a deep pink, per her request. (Well, actually her request was for a totally pink room and I offered a single wall and she started whining and pouting and I said fine, we won’t do anything, and then suddenly one wall sounded awesome to her, so that’s what she got.) We went into Monkey’s room, which was painted blue but was in terrible shape, and painted it… blue. A slightly different blue!
We bought four cans of Vanilla Hotel Somethingorother after careful consideration at the wall of neutral paint chips, and came home to discover that it was EXACTLY the same color as was already there. Aren’t we smart? That was an accident, truly, but at least it made painting a lot more annoying because it was so hard to see where we’d painted. But the previous paint was in terrible shape, so with this we painted the living room, downstairs hallway, staircase, and upstairs hall.
And then of course we have the Copper Wall of Despair. Erm, I mean, the Copper Wall of Will Probably Be Awesome If We Ever Finish It.
That’s pretty much what I’ve been doing for the last two days. Except that yesterday evening we took a break to go to Target so that I could buy a shower curtain for the kids’ bathroom. It has monkeys. So I had to get the matching monkey hooks to hang it with, of course. Otto wants to bet on how long it will take for Chickadee to get pissed off that I didn’t buy anything with chickadees on it, but I am not betting, I am just practicing saying “OH BOY IT LOOKS LIKE A JUNGLE IN HERE” and “OH LOOK, SOMETHING SHINY” instead.
Tomorrow we do the U-Haul thing with Otto’s belongings, and then Monday the big truck comes with my stuff and the kids arrive after a week of vacation with their dad.
I’m planning on putting everything out on the deck because I don’t want to risk anyone or anything scuffing my walls. What? The kids can go in the pool and sleep in the gazebo.
Stop looking at me like that.
The guy who refinished my hardwood floors had some kind of issue in the intestinal area because he spent more time in the bathroom taking dumps than he did sanding my floors. I am not kidding when I say our toilet paper consumption doubled in that 3 weeks even though my husband and children had moved out for the duration. Once I walked in on him sitting on my toilet and I screamed and had to leave the house for the rest of the day because I was so embarrassed.
I’m sorry, did you say something? I was too busy laughing over D. =P
You hired my husband? He has shit to do here!
Yes. Pun totally intended.
Now that was a good laugh!
You know I’ve seen lots of those dateline type shows about kids sleeping in casinos… :)
Thank goodness there are no pictures! Yikes! D is horrible! Well, hilarious (from a distance, of course), but horrible.
UGH D is a horrific choice! YUCK! What did he do? What DID he do? WHAT did he DO? ROFLMAO I have to say, yet again, I LOVE YOU! That is all.
Sounds like Otto’s got a pretty good handle on this whole parenting thing already.
BWA! Well, um…at least you know he is…resourceful?
We painted about 3/5 of our Den a couple years ago. I vowed! And also SWORE! I was never painting ANYTHING ever again as long as I live. Ever. Amen, and pass the wine!
Which explains why I now have paint chips scattered all over my desk and diagrams of where each thing ought to go, yes?
Ma’am, you make me laugh mightily. Thanks. :)
You know, you are a much stronger person than I am. I don’t even want to know that people I LOVE poop, much less someone I sort of barely know who can’t possibly have brought his own toilet paper with him. I know you’re thinking, “Some kind of mother YOU are,” but seriously. I mean, when my kids were tiny, I could change a poopy diaper and eat a peanut butter sandwich at the same time. But once they started actually going on the potty, some switch flipped and I just didn’t want to know about it. My older daughter had exactly ONE poop accident and as I was helping her get cleaned up, I gagged so hard that she didn’t poop voluntarily for six months. It got to where we were promising her Thomas the Tank Engine trains if she would just go SOMEWHERE–ANYWHERE! “Look! Here’s the freshly cleaned carpet!” We now have $40,000 worth of Thomas trains and every time I look at them, I get a little queasy. When you post the pictures of your house, I’m going to need a sedative.
Mir,
Do not hang up that shower curtain in the bathroom until you have some TP in there. That contractor assistant might get some ideas. Ewww and more ewww!
Ok, I was already sniggering until I read Anna’s comment and now I am hyperventilating with laughter!
You may find out just what he did if you ever need to pump out your septic tank. The septic service discovered a diaper and a towel in ours. How would you even flush a WHOLE TOWEL????
:::Still giggling::::
You’re scaring me on the copper paint. I want to do our bedroom in gold (I *heart* the Ralph Lauren samples I brought home). Our bedroom is small enough, I don’t know if I can spare 6 inches (FOUR coats??? Holy cat.)
LOL!! I just knew it was D! Remember, I just had a whole addition built… Fortunately we had a porta potty in the yard. I’m not sure there was tp or a sink, but what I don’t know won’t hurt me – right?
Enjoy the rest of your painting. I still have 3 rooms to paint here. But, that would mean that I have to steam the hideously ugly 80’s wall paper off the walls…
I thought all contractors used their empty “Joint Compound” buckets (don’t ask how I know).
When we were just dating, we saw some newlywed friends painting their new house together, and how their new marriage almost ended right there. We immediately vowed to NEVER EVER EVER do our own painting!
Oh D… that’s too funny!
I hate to think what he did… And ditto Anna’s comments… ROTFLMAO!
I just painted my bedroom, Mir, and it was so easy! I left town for two days, came back, and it was done! No paint in my hair, no aching arms, just some brushes to clean and half-empty cans to put away.
Anything worth doing is worth paying someone else to do. I consider it my moral duty to provide employment for the underemployed.
And the Dumper? He probably has a pocketful of those diaper wipes…yes, I’m sure that’s it…go with that.
In the house I lived in in college, the contractor who was redoing the basement used a bucket in the garage… and was walked in on more than one occasion since one doesn’t expect that to be happening in a garage… This despite the fact that there were two fully functional bathrooms.
Anyway! Good luck with the moving! There’s nothing better for a new marriage than moving a long distance and home decoration, if you can make it through that, you’re golden :)
I think I need therapy now. I hope you survive, I’m going to have nightmares. Oh shudder.
After reading all these comments about the people using buckets and things, I am no longer upset that the guy who finished our basement spent hours in our bathroom stinking up our house. We had toilet paper, towels AND soap in the bathroom and considering the alternatives suggested in the comments above and your story, I suppose I was lucky!
If I ever had any doubt that women are superior to men, they’ve been erased by your contractor story. It wouldn’t have been a problem for me, as I am always prepared with my Purse of Power. A packet of tissues and a little bottle of hand santizer (from the dollar store, smells overpoweringly of raspberry yogurt, but what do you want for 2/$1?) would have overcome the issue of the unstocked bathroom.
I’d also like to tell Angel not to fear the Ralph Lauren metallic paint. When I did the green in my dining room, it only took two coats, and that was going over both dark red and a patch that was only primer, where I’d had to fix the plaster. You do have to be very careful with your roller strokes, though, especially on the final coat, but the final effect is quite worth the extra effort.
Mir, perhaps you could appease Chickadee with some sort of birdy accoutrement for her casino?
D! Oh no…
*running away from post*…screaming.
Well, at least your arms and chest will look toned if you keep the painting up… Hey, I’m trying to find a bright side here because painting ranks up there with dewallpapering… Ugh.
OH. MY. GOD… wow… another reason not to buy a house! Well, I guess it doesn’t really matter. I had the pleasure of walking in on my maintenance man using my bathroom (he left the door wide open!). Now I’m friends with his wife! Um, yeah… I saw her husband’s p***s, that’s not akward!
The copper-wall-to-be sounds fantastic. Maybe you should go for a mural in the kids room – that will keep you arms aching for weeks, just what you need!
Good luck with the bank adventures with the bank.
I just cannot figure out where you find the time to be all prolific and gramatically correct and stuff when you’re going through all this. It just isn’t fair.