Jim's Wife -
I bought Jim a Ring doorbell for Father’s Day, and now you can see when someone is at the door. Looking at the picture made me realize our front entry was a little scary and had that haunted house look. So I decided to paint my exterior entryway and back patio area.
I chose the weekend of July 4 as the perfect opportunity to just knock this job out. Jim was cheering me on with the “you can do it” chant, and off we went to the store to buy paint. The buckets were dang heavy when I loaded them, but, OK, I’m tough, I only had to load and unload four buckets, so no big deal. I’m still certain I can pull this off.
First , Jim says I need to wash the house. So he ordered something for me to spray it down with the water hose. Off I go to mark this part of the job off the list. I figure it should not take more than 30 minutes, right? Phft! I have a good plan. I am doing the ceiling first and then will work my way down the walls. I’m working away, and Jim is hollering at me through the door. It is noisy, and I don’t understand what he is saying so I have to turn off the water and yell, “WHAT!” when I realize he is saying, “Don’t do the ceiling first” as the water starts raining down upon me. Two hours later I’m in the house wet, hot and dirty. Jim and I have a screaming match on why he did not tell me to do ceiling first, and he was not polite in his response.
It’s OK, I’m still up for the task. The night before that Saturday I pulled all my equipment together because I know that the job will be easier if I have everything set up and ready. See, I have watched the home improvement channels. Saturday morning I am up at 6 a.m. and off I go. By 7 a.m. I am rethinking this whole job, but I’m in it now so I have to finish. The ceiling is very, very tall. My roller barely reaches it with the pole extender. I have to stand on the second step of the ladder. Have I mentioned I am afraid of heights? The second step of the ladder is as high as I want to get. Soon I realize I’m going to have to get higher than my ladder even goes in order to paint the trim at the top. I do all I can on the ceiling and figure I will do the trim last. Jim is still cheering me on and trying to talk me into getting up those steps of the ladder. Hmmm, no.
On to the walls. For your information, the siding to the house is not like painting an inside wall. Those slats are not a roller’s friend. You have to roll it and then go back with a brush to hit between the slats. It took me about five hours to do the front entry. which does not include the ceiling and trim work. I have not lost my “can do” attitude, but I have lost a lot of paint. I am wearing it in my hair, my face, my clothes and the floor. I covered the floor with a sheet. Paint went right through the sheet. I stepped in it, and, yes, I am going to paint the floor. Later.
I move everything to the back patio with the intentions of getting it finished real quick because it is smaller, the ceiling is not very high and I should be able to at least finish something. I am hot, tired and dirty as heck, but I really, really want to get a lot done so that Sunday I will just have a few finishing touches. I get about three hours into the back and not anywhere near done.
Jim talks me into stopping and finishing up what I can on Sunday. It takes a hour to get all the paint out of my hair. Sunday morning I wake up at 5 a.m., and I want to cry just thinking about having to get up when I hear thunder and rain. Hooray! Thank you, Lord!
Every night after work that week it was raining so I could not work on the house. After four days when the rain finally stopped and I could have worked on it, I pouted that I had planned to cook a really, really, good supper. Jim agreed.
I don’t have a date picked when I will ever finish painting. I figure I may end up having to hire someone, and just a heads up, the person who gets the job is the one who says, “Wow, you did such a great job.”
THIS ARTICLE WAS PUBLISHED IN THE July 16 ISSUE OF FOCUS SB - THE INQUISITOR