The holiday rush

The holidays are stressful enough so why do we purposely increase the stress and give ourselves MORE tasks and projects to get done? (obviously rhetorical) Just before Thanksgiving I decided to finally paint the upstairs guest bathroom. That led to a gradual project expansion that was ultimately of avalanche proportions when it was done. Gee, if the bathroom looks so nice, wouldn't it be great if the guest bedroom was finally done too? Heck, it's only four more walls and a ceiling. Much larger room. And a closet. So off to the paint store we went.

While the room was emptied, we started discussing how this smallish guest room had a king sized bed in it and way more furniture than it could accommodate. The furniture fit but the feng shui was nowhere to be felt. So we decided to swap two rooms around -- the smallish guest room and the larger bedroom once occupied by our daughter Erin that is now mostly used for naps and overnights for her daughter Emily. And the convenient flat surfaces catch a lot of junk that migrates there from time to time.

So now we had two rooms to paint and then exchange all the furniture. At the same time, since the birds are now gone, I decided to pull up the area rug in the dining room plus three others and take them to ServPro to get cleaned. And to arrange for carpet cleaners to come in and clean the wall-to-wall carpet in the house. All.at.the.same.time.

We began several years ago to switch the interior doors in the house from the standard luaun ones to six panel doors. The ones on the first level were done; none on the second floor had been done. Johnnie decided it was a good time to do the doors too, at least on the rooms we were repainting.

About this time, Johnnie started urging me to contact a wonderful painter we know and see if she had any available time. Of all miracles, she did. So Annie arrived in the nick of time to paint the larger bedroom. (I also have developed basal joint arthritis in both hands which makes it very painful to grasp the paint roller. More about this another time) Annie is calm and patient and paints without drop cloths or taping mouldings or anything. And she doesn't have gobs of paint on her clothing (a sure tip off -- I wear more paint on my clothes and hands than I ever get on the walls!).

So in a period of about two weeks we: switched two rooms, painted both of them (including trim and closets), got the carpets cleaned, got the rugs cleaned and returned, put the rooms together, put up six panel doors (and closet doors) and new hardware -- hinges and lever handles rather than knobs. Whew!

Our California daughter, Holly and her husband Mike arrived last night from San Francisco and all the projects were finished in just the nick of time. Johnnie hung the closet doors in the"new" guest room yesterday afternoon.

So that's why there have been no posts. Mea culpa. I'll work to do better once the holiday rush is over!