Mildew, Paint and Doorbells

As I mentioned previously, Kevin had off on Wednesday and Thursday and we were able to get some work done on the house. This includes finally attacking the nasty mildew that seemed to be a permanent fixture of the siding next to our front door. (Not something that is really welcoming when you come up to the house.) Of course, the ladders, sub-flooring and lack of any furniture when you walk in aren't very welcoming either.

We bustled around the inside and actually painted the living room walls. A bigger task than anticipated, which required an entire gallon of paint for the first coat. It's looking swanky.

My parents are coming down tomorrow to rescue us from many, many calamities, which we don't know how to fix including: a leak in our new kitchen sink, caulking the guest bathroom, along with putting new trim in there, measuring for new blinds, replacing 3-way switches and this new problem (see photo) a giant, gaping hole behind our doorbell ringer in the entryway. Let's hear it for my parents...Hip, Hip Hooray!

Kevin Won

So yesterday we painted the ceiling in the Living Room and Entryway. I shouldn't really say we, as Kevin did all of the rolling and I just did the edging which takes less than half of the time.

This room's ceiling only took 2 coats of paint, which is a huge relief from the vaulted ceilings in the bedrooms which took between 3 and 4 coats. It's actually looking very good and there is a huge contrast between the ceiling and the walls. I can't wait to see the contrast with paint on the walls and a bright white semi-gloss on the crown molding. I'm getting happy just thinking about it.

At this rate, we'll be moving on to installing hardwood floors sooner than we thought. Now if we could just figure out what to do with the kitchen...

Kevin's First Comp Day

Today Kevin has a comp day to make up for all of those 14 hour days he's been working for the past month. This would be great if we could move past the arguments that the dining room chairs are not footstools (see photo) and what we should do today.

Kevin has his own agenda. He wants to paint the ceiling in the living room. This is an all day project as the Living Room is huge. I want to go look at mattresses as we have had a brand new bed frame sitting in our Master Bedroom for a week now with no mattress.

We'll see who wins. Off to get some bagels and make a list of things to do today. Now I just have to figure out how to add 'Get a Mattress' to the top of the list...

Men Are Obtuse

Contrary to popular belief I do not spend my days sitting around eating bonbons hoping that the spirits of the house will actually unpack, paint and repair this mess. I actually spend a lot of my day trying to find happy homes for all of our stuff and doing all of the little jobs that everyone thinks should require a day or so.

I've discovered that everything takes 10 times longer than I ever anticipated, which usually equates to about 20 times the amount of time general observers and my husband seem to think that they take. Case in point is our dining room.

Now Kevin has had a rough month at work with 14 hour work days including weekends and I've been as unshrewish as I can possibly be about it. I understand that he's tired, but I do want a little bit of a thank you for cleaning up the mess to end all messes in our home. For the above transformation I received a "Looks nice." Somehow I think I was expecting a fanfare with marching bands, champagne, flowers and exuberently being hugged by Kevin for making the house another step more livable.

I need a t-shirt that says, "I cleaned up our entire dump of a dining room and all I got was a lousy 'Looks nice'" And on the back it will say, "And in case you're wondering, I had to pay for this t-shirt myself!"

Some Assembly Required

Yesterday and this morning were spent assembling our Ikea buys. As is the case with anything we do together, Kevin and I competed to see who could finish assembling their piece of furniture first (Kevin worked on his desk and I worked on our kitchen trolley). I think Kevin won as I needed help from him and he still finished his piece first.

I did discover some new Ikea knowledge. First, the cheaper the item the more assembling required. Our kitchen trolley had some of the same pieces as my new table for my office. However, the office table came very close to assembled and ready to go. The kitchen trolley took twice as long and was made of unfinished wood.

Second, assembling furniture from Ikea is always an adventure. The diagrams are filled with little people blobs who demonstrate all of the things you shouldn't do with your furniture when putting it together. We find that doesn't keep us from finding ourselves in the blobs' situations.

Third, something about assembling your own furniture is always very satisfying. Once it's done and put together, you always feel a sense of accomplishment and maybe a little bit of pride. It's like you had a hand in the creation of your furniture. It makes the furniture more personal.