This mess is so big, and so deep, and so tall...

I won't have anything to say about the weekend's projects until I've dumped the photos out of the camera to give you the "before" and the "intermediate after."  So in the meantime, I bring you someone else's projects!  I've been ranting on and on to my friends about a house blog that I am completely addicted to - the House in Progress.  I found it by Googling "strip wallpaper" when we were dealing with the horrible stuff in the hallway/stairwell and I was convinced that there had to be a better way (there wasn't.)  But as a consolation prize I found the house in progress.  These folks are amazing, and I'm always a sucker for a talented writer.

www.houseinprogress.net

Personally, I suggest that you start with How We Got Here, which while it isn't the first entry will get you started.  I check in at least once a week.  I'm an addict.

I want to be Jeannie when I grow up.  I've got a rather bad case of hero-worship.
 

As planned, Thursday I pulled most of the random stuff out of the bathroom and stashed it in the spare bedroom, and did most of the patching.  As expected, the patch over the bathtub wanted to have a second coat on Friday.  Disappointing, but not surprising.  I left the medicine cabinet up because it was a) too much hassle to deal with at that point and b) necessary for Bob to be able to shave Friday morning.

Here are the “before” pictures.  As usual, they were taken when work had already begun – hence the stepstool in the bathtub and the swathes of joint compound on the wall.

This weekend was a huge improvement for me, getting-things-done-wise.  I’ve been really sluggish with fatigue lately, and while this was nowhere near my usual level of productivity, it felt good to act more like myself and actually drive a project through to completion (or at least really close.)  People at work keep saying how impressed they are at how much we’ve done.  News flash people – this isn’t rocket science.  It’s almost two years of almost unremitting labor.  It’s every holiday and long weekend being given over to some sort of organization or renovation project, along with a lot of evenings and weekends.  It’s a lot of deferral of fun stuff, and a lot of days where you come home from working an eight hour day and then work a five hour day at home.  It’s not complicated; it’s just a lot of No Fun.  But there’s a prize at the end.  That’s what keeps me going.

Have I mentioned that I am sick of painting?  Sick, sick, sick to death of painting.  I need to win Lotto so that I can just pay someone else to do it.  But until that happens, I guess it’s time to go look at paint chips for the downstairs bathroom.