Monday, October 18, 2010

It should have been so simple

My husband decided to repair the popcorn ceiling in our house (which got damaged four years ago when the new roof we'd had put on the house LEAKED). The new popcorn didn't match up in texture OR color, so then he decided we should paint the ceiling. And then since we were painting the ceiling, he figured we may as well texture the messed up wall in that same room. And since it was being textured, it would need to be painted. And since we were painting it, we might as well paint it an accent color (but we have mismatched garage sale and/or hand-me-down furniture, so I'm not sure what we're accenting...). I was told something along these lines, "I'll get all the tape and plastic up in like an hour Saturday morning, and we'll paint some primer and be doing final coats before we go to bed Saturday night. Just leave it to me, this'll be no problem."

We didn't end up doing any taping or putting up plastic until closer to 1:30pm Saturday (due to the boys' soccer games and some bloodwork Dan had to get done as part of his physical). Wall texture and ceiling popcorn didn't happen until closer to 3pm. Then we spent about four hours celebrating my BIL's birthday. By the time we got home and put kids in bed, it was 9pm and we were still dealing with primer. The lights in the room kept flickering out, and then we discovered a MESSED UP wire in one of the light fixtures hanging from the ceiling (complete with SPARKS when the light fixture was moved even the tiniest bit...makes me feel super safe!!), so that took some time to deal with. And then the paint sprayer we borrowed was full of WATER, so we had to drain all that out before we could start spraying paint, and THEN it over-heated and stopped working before we were finished with what we wanted to do. We called it quits around 10:30pm and headed to bed.

Sunday morning, we realized that with the kitchen and familyroom all taped off and plastic covering everything, we'd need to eat breakfast OUT somewhere. Once we got home and Dan started painting again, we realized that 4 gallons of paint was not enough to paint a popcorn ceiling (that stuff SLURPS UP PAINT!), so then we had to drive out and get more paint. And by this time, the high-quality plastic we'd used was getting too heavy for the tape, and started pulling loose in some areas, which led to a staple gun being used along the ceiling/wall line to hold it up instead. One thing after another seemed to go wrong (including Connor somehow managing to get paint on his new jeans AND MY COUCH, despite being banned from being anywhere near the work!!!!!!!!!), and we didn't end up with enough time to paint the newly textured wall. My livingroom and diningroom and both currently storing furniture from the familyroom, and my kitchen looks like a war zone.

All to fix the popcorn ceiling that got damaged when the roof leaked four years ago. LOL

Yes, I'm happy the ceiling is decently fixed, and the messed up wall has been on the "to do" list for the entire ten years we've been living in this house, so I'm thrilled that's being taken care of as well. It's just that something seemingly simple always turns out to be such a PRODUCTION for us!! (the roof that caused that problem in the first place was supposed to be a two-weekend job, which really took 4.5 months when all was said and done, but that's a story I won't get into right now!)

I will share a few before/after pics once we have the wall dealt with and all the light fixtures screwed back into place, which should be by Tuesday (but in the meantime, the toilet will probably over-flow, the car will break down, and the ceiling will cave in from the weight of 4+ gallons of paint). HAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Special shout-out to my FIL, who spent part of both days this weekend helping texture and paint so that I didn't have to!! We appreciate all your hard work. What a relief it will be to cross a few things off the ever-growing "to do" list!!!

4 comments:

Betsy Hart said...

Well I hope the rest goes smoothly and what you think is gonna happen doesn't! =) Can't wait to see pictures.

Sara @ Domestically Challenged said...

Hey! Were you at our house? Sounds like our remodel project last year! everything we touched turned into a WHOLE new set of things...ah the fun! And? Having kids in the house at the same time? Awesome. One time Asher took a hammer and hit a wall that was ONE of only 4 walls we weren't going to replace. It got replaced after that!

Kaci said...

Yikes! XOXO

Cattigan said...

This was a much funnier story in person!