Have Mercy

I'm still here, in body at least. I lost my mind somewhere along the line with this house renovation. I use the term "renovation" lightly as we're not actually removing or installing anything.... same floors, same walls, same cabinets. It's really more accurate to describe it as a facelift, buy boy oh boy, do I have new appreciation for people who actually renovate. This is A LOT of work!

When we purchased the house, we had very limited things we thought needed to be changed. Most notable were a bubble gum pink bathroom and a very violet spare bedroom. Other than that, we thought the house was pretty cute. The one major project that we knew right off the bat that we simply had to tackle was the popcorn ceiling. I abhor the stuff. Sam watched YouTube videos for days about removing the vile mess, and once he felt like he was a professional, we tackled it. It was 20 times worse than I imagined. It was disgusting, back-breaking, tedious work and I've literally been thinking evil thoughts towards whomever invented that mess. Ughhh. I could kill him.

We thought that the ceilings would be the worst project of all by far, and really the only "project" so to speak because painting two small rooms doesn't seem like much of a project. But projects seem to have a way of multiplying. When we arrived at the home after closing, we discovered that the previous home owner was very fond of hanging things via anchors. You don't really notice how many things people hang on the walls until there are GIANT holes all over the walls. And obviously, when you don't know the paint color, and you have FOURTEEN holes to patch in one corner of a bedroom, it becomes apparent that you will be repainting that room. Slowly but surely, we have come to one reason or another why Every. Single. Room. need to be repainted. I kid you not, we are done with seven of the eight rooms… soooo close, yet so, so far.

In addition, I didn't really like the cabinets… I decided to paint them, which led to buying new nobs, spray painting the hinges, and painting the countertops. Yep, you read that right. Yesterday I had big plans for relaxing by the pool for at least an hour, instead we spent multiple hours fixing a project that went disastrously wrong.

What the finished product should have looked like.

And what it actually looked like.

The first photo there is the finished product after painting and sealing. The second one, however, is the remnants of the paint, primer, and sealant when things go horribly, horribly wrong. We used this miracle product that was supposed to be the equivalent to 50 coats of polyurethane in one application. Apparently, it's a testy chemistry concoction, and I was never all that good at chemistry.  When the science experiment goes wrong, it goes very, very wrong. We woke up Monday morning to two sections of counter that were beautiful: nice and hard, but one section was a sticky, goopy mess. We immediately tuned to Google and discovered that if it's not dry is 6-8 hours, it never, ever, will be. We tried removing just the top layer of goop, but alas, no success. Eventually we scraped the whole thing down to the laminate so that I could start all over. Lucky for both my husband and mom (who graciously spent 5 days working with me), I handled it like a champ. I did not cry, which was really saying something as we've been working 14-16 hour days for weeks now. Sleep deprivation and catastrophic delays do not typically result in my best side.

Speaking of catastrophes: our AC unit died. Mmm, hm. Dead, like dead, dead. Two weeks after purchasing the house, the repair man pronounced it dead, may it rest in peace. Truthfully, we knew that the unit was old, as in, original to the house. We were warned that it didn't have much life left. We were hoping to get through Summer, inefficient or not, and maybe through Winter too. No such luck. Winter I could maybe handle, but not Summer, have mercy, but no. I was simply not made to sweat. You'll be impressed to know that I did not cry upon hearing this news either. It is what it is. The saddest part isn't the cost, but rather the delay to Project Bring Home Baby. But what can you do? My big girl panties are firmly in place... on we march.

We've got 74 hours until we have to be out of the rental. At this point, I'll be happy when we have a working bathroom with a light, toilet, and sink all in one place. Hopefully that will come sooner rather than later and I can post some photos of our work. In the mean time, think of me, and when you do, imagine me with unwashed hair (thank you, dry shampoo), paint in my hair, on my legs, under my nails, and a nice sweaty sheen as I scrub, sand, and paint in a house without air conditioning.