The Money Pit

Man-cave dining room before. Can't tell where walls end and trim begins.

Yet another tedious, time-sucking, carpal-tunnel-inducing task marked off the list!! Tuesday night I finished ALL the sanding in the dining room. By the time I finished, I looked like Pig Pen, replete with my own dust cloud that followed me around from room to room, despite my best efforts to hermetically seal the project off with plastic and painter’s tape.

Last night Rush started the clean up, which is proving to be another epic project all of its own! Since I’ve been sanding for the past few weeks, we decided not to bother vacuuming or dusting the house. Thus, critter hair, my dining-room sanding dust, garden-variety household dust and a bit of drywall dust (Rush recently sanded a patch of drywall mud in the half bath where he’s been working.) have blanketed every surface in the house. Ick!! Remember the TV show Alf? Our house now resembles what I always imagined Melmac might look like—an odd landscape of fur and dust atop general disorder.

This begs the question: Is it better to live on or off site when you’re in the middle of a DIY project?

On the one hand, we have a sea of tools on our den floor; I have to re-hang the mirror and shove construction materials out of the way every morning to get ready for work; two-thirds of our belongings remain boxed up for their own protection; and the belongings we do have out braving the front lines are in complete disarray.

Callie "Pig Pen" Sprague--Don't hate me because I'm beautiful in all my stylish finery: respirator mask, earplugs, work gloves, and do-rag.

But on the other hand, the project is right at our fingertips for us to work on whenever we want. No commute. The other night we had dinner, Rush mowed the lawn, we ran some errands and I started sanding at around 8:00. I finished at 9:30, jumped in the shower and fell in bed. That would NEVER have happened if we lived off site.

I do sometimes miss the days, however, when we used to work hard on the house and then went home to a construction-free zone. Maybe when this dining room is cleaned up and put back together, the remaining projects will be a little less chaotic … oh, wait … we still have wall and ceiling damage in the kitchen to contend with. More dust. More chaos. Oh joy.

After sanding, blonde walls contrast with dark trim and crown. Love that beautiful wood!!

Well, maybe after THAT repair our house will be a bit more like home and a little less Melmacian.

Close up of worm wood and crown

Ah …  D.P. … so we meet again …

Once more you come storming into my life, monopolize my time, rob me of my senses, ravage my body and ruthlessly leave me weak, weepy and exhausted. Why do I let you do this to me, D.P.?

It’s always the same with you. I know you intimately, yet every time I hope for more. Each time I think, “I’ll do things differently this time. I’ll plan ahead. I’ll protect myself. I won’t let D.P. get the best of me. I won’t succumb.”

But you know I’ll give in, don’t you? You know I can’t help myself. You know it’s all or nothing with me. You know I’ll give you everything I have, holding nothing back, hoping against all reason that we’ll make it this time.

If only we could take things more slowly. If we could just hold back a little and not get so carried away. I lose myself with you and I forget who I am. When you finally leave me, I feel broken, disillusioned.

Project: Take dining room from man-cave to marvelous by sanding down to the beautiful, original worm-wood. The gorgeous crown and dark trim will stand out beautifully against the blonde wood.

Oh, DIY Project … are we destined for nothing but a life of anguish and tumult?

As I surveyed the dining room paneling on Friday afternoon, I was sure I could knock out what was left of the sanding in a weekend. I even thought I might manage it in a single day. Granted, several glasses of wine with friends topped off with a VERY late-night dip in the hot tub was NOT the best way to approach a weekend of work.

But my biggest problem is that I severely underestimate how much time a project will take, and then I kill myself trying to push through and get it done. Rather than sand for a couple hours, do something else and go back to it, I feel like I have to sand until my arms fall off and I can no longer see straight.

After too little sleep on Friday, followed by too much sanding on Saturday, I slept for 12 hours straight, missing church choir in the process. (Sorry, Rick!!) Did I learn my lesson? No! I crawled out of bed, gulped down a cup of coffee and a handful of Aleve, and went right back to sanding until I couldn’t move my arms. And I’m still not finished. And I’m crippled.

Thank goodness for my real job or I’d be back in that #$@% dining room, sander in hand, convinced that I can definitely get it done today, no problem.

I wonder if there is a 12-step program for DIY.

Poly is on the floors! Before I started, we planned to apply somewhere between six and 10 coats to ensure the high-traffic kitchen floor received uber protection. One second-degree burn and many aching muscles later, we decided the manufacturer-recommended four coats are more than sufficient for our floors!

Yes, I said second-degree burn. [Insert headshake of shame here.] This will go down as the strangest DIY injury in history, I’m sure. No one but I could possibly manage to hurt herself in this particular way.

I stood, leaning over, polying the floor with a paintbrush. Evidently I was unconsciously propping my arm, just below my elbow, on my leg to support my back. Unbeknownst to me, the repetitive motion of pushing my arm against the material of my shorts for over five hours was causing a rug-burn-like injury, but here’s the rub (sorry, pun intended) … I didn’t feel a thing, not a twinge … until the next day.

I’m surprised paramedics didn’t arrive, or cops assuming the worst in a domestic dispute, or possibly a priest prepared for an all-out exorcism. Because when I went to apply the third coat of poly and I unconsciously propped my arm one more time against my leg, I screamed an inhuman scream like I have never screamed before.

I had literally come out of my own skin.

I am now sporting a lovely, 2-inch-long, oval, second-degree burn on my arm where skin used to be. Nice. But the good news is that the kitchen and conservatory floors are done! And Rush has gotten some plumbing done and moved the majority of his belongings to the house. Right now it’s a stack of boxes in the living room, but it’s a start! If we’re not careful, we may one day live in this Money Pit! You know, if I can manage to not fatally injure myself first, that is.