Colour Me Bad...

Well the day of painting came on Friday morning. Equal in excitement value to me as Christmas morning, hearing that early morning phone call from my painter letting me know that they were in the house and getting started on the living room, had me nearly bursting with excitement.


For weeks, almost months - Dr. Handsome, the Great Girlfriends and I agonized over hundreds of thousands of paint chips. This delightful agony was made even more agonizing when #2's father, a real estate developer, dropped off his contractor kit of paint samples. Virtually every colour that has ever been imagined lay in the 10x14" blue box.


As a child, I was that kid who would spend hours organizing and reorganizing my crayons, then markers, and then as an adult my dozens of MAC eye shadow pots, creating rows and rows of beautiful colour rainbows. All of the beautiful variations and combinations you could make - finding complimentary colours and contrasting colours, this heavy blue box of colour just about sent me over the edge.


We picked colour after colour, tone after tone trying to find the perfect ones.


We knew we wanted greys - with a vision of soft, pewter and dove greys blanketing our walls offering up the drama and depth we were looking for but also the neutrality of a grey to help bring out the beauty in our meager - but still beautiful - art collection. From large colourful graffiti pieces to small hand made crafts that #2 has made over the years as well as my photography - we wanted it all to stand out for what it was, rather than have the walls taking over. But we also didn't want to be stuck with what my girlfriend's ex husband would call "D*uchebag Beige".


So grey. Hello grey!
Did you know that for as many colours as there are in the world, there are as many greys? Brown greys, green greys, purple greys, pink greys, d*uchebag beige greys, blue greys... and the list goes on. In each triple deck of cards thick wad of greys I'd pick up, there'd be fifty to each colour tone, and then saturation and the level...


Finally on Thursday afternoon, Dr. Handsome and I sat down in the house with many many many colours laid out in front of us, and we walked from room, to room, to room looking at each one in different lights and breathed a sigh of relief when we were able to narrow our 90 picks down to a mere 10, and then 6. By midnight, we had sorted it all out and I dropped the chips off into the mailbox of our Dear Painterman, and off to home to sleep I went.


But I couldn't sleep.


Christmas Day feeling again. You know, when you're TRYING to fall asleep with every bone in your body but your mind is telling you "In just a few hours you're going to get a great surprise!!!!!!!" so you lay there awake and then when you do finally drift off, you DREAM of what you're so excited about? Yes! That was me!!!!


*insert clock ticking away*


Friday morning phone rings, painter is painting, and I am just about to burst until I hear it - a little tiny niggling of doubt in his voice when I ask him "Does it look great?!" and he says "Well...."
And that was enough.
I packed up the sick babies (yes! still sick!!!), covered them in towels and popped Iggle Piggle and the Pontypines into the truck's DVD player and drove over to the house.


Inside of me a conflict was brewing. I wanted so much for that proverbial Pony that i'd been waiting for my entire life to be standing there, painted on my walls but instead I was greeted with the ugliest, lavender slug. Ugly, ugly, ugly. Dear Painterman, ever the optimist said "Maybe you'll like it when the second coat dries", but in my heart, I felt sad and crushed. Walking through the house, I could see it - all of the colours were wrong. All of those hours and stupid little paint chips had culminated into one big whopper of an ugly lavender interior. My beautiful Craftsman house looked like it had the interior colour selection made by a colour blind monkey. *SOB*.


Dejected and feeling really bummed out, Dear Painterman said "Well, I've only bought four gallons, so we can start from scratch, think about it". They finished up the ceiling - White for Dummies and packed up for the weekend, leaving me with yet another mind numbing 48 hours ahead of picking (and hopefully not completely screwing up again) new colours of paint. New mother friggen grey.


Saturday, in a post-call haze, Dr. Handsome and I returned to the house, shaking our heavy heads, we left and I made a promise that I'd do better next time. The drive home was eerily quiet, aside from #3 who was on repeat asking for a bowl of cereal and a cup of coffee (he's yet 2).


So out came the colour charts, again. Laid out on the table, under our own pretty lighting, we looked over and over and over. Thankfully Benjamin Moore has created the Historical Collection, which is basically "Craftsman House Painting for Dummies" -  a fool-proof system using period accurate colours that work with the wood and architecture associated with these homes. Sigh. I had no idea that it was this bad. I feel fortunate that I can even pick out my own pants in the morning.


With that knowledge in hand, as well as an armful of "Okays" approved by Dr. Handsome, the Littles and I trudged off to Rona and met "Jen".  Hallelujah! Immediately she picked out two colours that I've absolutely loved for the past three years, one of which we have our existing den painted. I immediately took a liking to her and had her mix me up a sample batch of the paint that I was hoping would work.


And this is what we came up with:

hallway

living room

dining room

Now. Before you get all uppity and say "but those are all d*uchebag beige", I'll remind you that what you are seeing are brown based greys which are what we NEEDED in the room to work with the coolness of the light coming in and the warmth of the floor - so ON the walls, they look grey, which is what we wanted! YAY! YAY for Rona Jen! YAY! for D*uchebag Beige (that look grey, really)! and YAY for paint samples that I can slop on to the wall and burst out into tears for the price of 1L instead of for the price of 1 Gallon.

So tonight, tonight - I can head to bed, warmed with the thoughts that tomorrow morning, my Dear Painterman will call, get the new paint numbers and off we go, painting the pony back into the room.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a Good Night.

<3

Crack den Ceiling Repair. Day two.

Have you ever met one of those wonderful couples that are so incredibly in love that they do things like finish one another's sentences, and say things such as "We never fight".


Thankfully, Dr. Handsome and I are one of those couples who are not such as the above and are not so proud as to shy away from a good relationship building task. In fact, we are so incredible and wonderful that after our last "relationship builder" last year when we attempted to assemble a crib together, we've honed our bickering skill to the point that we know our limit - well before he screwdriver fly's across the room. Well before we take what is said personally, and so once a year, we put our love to the test to see if we've achieved perfect-dom, and attempt something absolutely stupid, such as... 


wallpapering.


So that was yesterday and yesterday is in the past and we're all smarter and happier and brighter and moving forward from yesterday, aren't we? Yes we are.


With babies still sick, still dosing the Gravol, armed with even more wipes and plastic bags and diapers and changes of clothes in tow, I headed over to the house, put Pukey and Poopy down for their respective naps and got to work.


This time, alone.


Now you might be saying to yourself "She's going to hang wallpaper on the ceiling, alone?"


And yes, you're absolutely correct. 


Now while I know you're shaking your head in disbelief, you must understand that things like barbecue and crib assembly, one might be better off doing the work, guided by flexible appendages as supports, rather than attempting team work with someone with whom you must sleep next to and parent with for many, many years ahead. Wallpaper, in my opinion, falls into that same category. As difficult - no - as impossible as it might sound - it is easier in fact, to wallpaper alone, than to wallpaper with your spouse, when you and your spouse are both two people who are always right, but share very different opinions on who in fact, is correct with their approach. (for what it's worth, I'll say right now - that it's my way that is the correct way.)


So to work I went.


What I should have done is set my camera on a tripod on a timer to take photo's of my work in 30 second intervals. There, would be a comedy of errors for us all to laugh at, one by one, each one become more and more ridiculous than the last, like Sunday night's on America's Funniest Home Videos, the dog with the sunglasses on his arse and then the dad getting whacked in the yarbles by the son and then the kid barrelling down a hill on his bike when the front wheel slips from it's quick release. 


If you can picture it, there I was. Standing on my scaffolding, wet roll of wallpaper in hand. In my mouth held an open Xacto knife, blade out about 4", tucked under my chin was a smoothing brush and between my knees a scraper. Across my shirt, held a half dozen or so pieces of 2" long strips of painters masking tape and deep down, beyond the recesses of my atria of my warm little heart was that little train, chugging away "I think I can... I think I can..."


Holding the wet paper to the ceiling with my head, I used my fingers to line up the pattern against the now dried paper from last night and slowly, slowly, knife in mouth, I backed up, unrolling as I went.
Down dropped the brush. Insert mumbled expletive.
Back up a few feet, unroll, unroll, carefully line up paper pattern... you're doing a good job, careful, careful.... you have a knife in your mouth... unroll, unroll - dammit, the pattern is off. Move forward. Drop scraper. Mumble expletive. Re roll paper, slowly, slowly... unroll, unroll, smooth with hand, smooth again PERFECTION! Tape section in place with masking tape. Repeat until you reach the end of scaffolding and then with all of your 118lbs, knife still in mouth, begin rocking your body back and forth until you gain enough momentum to get the scaffolding (which by the way has the worst casters on the face of the earth) rolling the remaining four feet across the room and continue what you were doing.


And repeat. And repeat again, when all of the paper (which was too wet, and I knew it) sags and sags and sags all of the way off of the span of ceiling on to your head.


And so it went, for three hours.


I have done some very exciting things in my lifetime, stories of which I will regale my children with when they have come of age, but this one, this one - is up there in my top ten of great things I've done. In fact, when I die, I want this included in my obituary "Hung wallpaper on the ceiling by herself".


So proud of myself I was and still am. In those three hours I laid a FULL TWO STRIPS OF WALLPAPER. If you break that down, it took me about 2 minutes per inch of paper that I rolled. By gosh darn it, I did it, all by myself and it didn't look to terrible in the end. By the time my fevered children woke from their naps, vomiting again, and soaked in their own excrement needing baths and Tylenol, I was beaming with pride for what I had accomplished. 


And while you may still be sitting there, shaking your head - all I can say is that by doing tasks like these alone, might be harder, but it brings Dr. Handsome and I closer to being one of those couples who are so contrite to say "We never fight"...


Photos soon to follow. <3

Crack den Ceiling Repair. Day one.

Channelling my inner Sarah Richardson*, I decided to hand scrape my crack-den Master Bedroom ceiling, and then hang some beautiful embossed wallpaper, to cover the ugliness from the previous 100 years of sins.

In bad situations, people will tell you things like "You look great!" "There are more fish in the sea!" and "Wallpaper is not that hard to do! You can do it!" Perhaps it's that air of vulnerability - that we all carry around at times - an air that you just need to be told that you.can.do.it. There is a reason I steer clear of things like organized religion and pyramid schemes, because I'm the first to admit  - that I'm very easily convinced. Add to that roster now, avoiding perky young women at the Home Improvement store who tell you that they just did it to their own ceiling and that it took no time at all.


When you're needing help with things like barbecue assembly, or in this case - wallpaper hanging - you should send out an invitation that says something like "Come over and see my new kittens" or "Lobster dinner tonight at the new place!" and rope them in that way, instead of heading off the title of your invite with "Who wants to help me hang wallpaper, on the ceiling!!!!!", because - I can assure you - no one will take the bait. Suddenly people are scared of heights or have a lot of catching up to do with their ex boyfriends or if they're really inventive, they'll say that they're "going to see my brother's new floats on his plane" (you know who you are ;) ). But if you're me, you have one or two fearless girlfriends who will work for wine, and are afraid of nothing. Not a thing. Not even Dr. Handsome and I, attempting to work together. That friend is Allie. Carol comes in a close second - she was willing - but wasn't able.


I began the day before. Scraping and scraping and scraping and scraping the horrible flaking, yellow, dessicated plaster paper that was crumbling before my fingers even reached the ceiling. 


Did I mention that during this time my two littlest ones decided to acquire a terrible gastro-intestinal virus? Yes, they did! However, I wasn't about to let two vomiting and poopy babies get in the way of valuable work time, so with two Pack-and-Play's in tow, I set them up and placed my feverish babies for a long, Gravol induced, double diapered nap in the room next door, and began my work. Hours and hours and hours later, the majority of the ceiling paper was down, the remainder was pasted and repaired enough to prime out with some Kilz, and then proceed with the re-papering the following day. Tuesday.

So there we were. Allie, Dr. Handsome and I, a length of scaffolding and a 12x15' room with 10 ft. ceilings, a large vat of wallpaper adhesive, 6 rolls of wallpaper and positive attitudes all around.

Allie and I smiled and got to work. 

The first thing we did, was throw the positive attitude out the window. Who the hell needs that? I believe it started with the first pffffft that came out of Dr. Handsome's mouth shortly after arriving in the room where Allie and I had begun cutting the first strip of wallpaper.


What a gong show.


Allie and I, up on the scaffolding, wet wallpaper in hand, an unfortunate attempt at making a plumb line across a very non-square room and ceiling, and a whole lot of cussing. With me unrolling and Allie holding it up and smoothing it and Dr. Handsome rolling us across the room on the scaffolding and all of us bickering, it was in our good fortune that the windows remained closed so as not to draw spectators to the sport of what-the-hell-are-they-doing that we were obviously doing so well. 


Mid-roll (about half an hour into the application) Allie reminded us that she was going to soon have to split, to get home to her own little vomiting lovelies, and relieve her husband of his duties. Under the time crunch, we busted our butts and in a total of two and a half hours were able to cover about 1/18th of the ceiling. 


Not too bad for a first time.


Allie was saved by a phone call urging her to come home from her Handsome one, my Dr. Handsome and I were saved by the fence builder arriving just in time to save our relationship from ending before the paste had even dried. 


We packed up our rolls of paper, smoothed a few bubbles, cut a few new lines and washed our hands and called it a day.

*Sarah Richardson is my hero. In no way do I intend to insult her. <3

Day two-ish.

Oh hello House. Hello Keys. 
Hello, hello.


The first phone call after receiving the keys and clicking open the lock, was my lovely girlfriend Carol and she said "Is it as beautiful as your remember it to be?" and yes, yes it is. In fact it's even more beautiful, because when Dr. Handsome and I first did the view, bid and win - we had only seen the house for a total of about fifteen minutes in person. 


Our city is probably one of the last mired in the up and up with respect to the hot housing market and bidding wars on weekends are still happening, fast and fierce. Between Dr. Handsome's work schedule, nap times, sitter availability and open house showings, we had only seen the house once, made a quick decision and with a nod of our collective heads, ended up a few days later, exhausted from a late night bidding war - as home owners.


That was months ago. When the city was buried under a blanket of snow. 


So as quickly as we bought it, so began the ping-pong game of our possession date. Early. Now later. Nope early again. No, later. Then finally the phone rang, it was the lawyers office and the keys(!!!) were ready for pick up. Slinging a baby over each hip, we piled into the truck and drove down and fifteen minutes later, I was headed to the back door of our glorious new (old) house.


And with the key in the lock, one turn and a click, we were in. 


And it was as I remembered it, and even better - because the previous home-owner was kind enough to have it thoroughly cleaned and sparkling (not something I can say about the last few home-owners of the last few houses we've been in. You know who you are. You know i'm looking at you). The wide open deck in the middle of a fairly beautiful yard. A patio. Grand oak trees sprouting brand new spring buds. A small perennial garden beginning to flower. 

We were fortunate enough that the previous home-owner had spent a small fortune of time and money on restoring the previously painted oak woodwork throughout the house, to it's original state.

However, with all upsides, there are downsides. One of them was the scary second floor bedroom that will eventually be transformed into #3's toddler room. 


I can't pin point what it was that made it scary - perhaps the bizarre former cut out in the ceiling or the oddly scented carpeting that ran from wall to wall that smelled something akin to the wet stuff you'd find in the bottom of a garbage can in the corner of a hoarder's garage. Or perhaps it is the slide lock on the bedroom door, perhaps from a previous inhabitant, to keep out people who might interrupt his late night gaming session or the cheap buzzing fluorescent fixture overhead that cast the room in tear inducing glow reminiscent of the lights in a high school gymnasium. 

Regardless, the room sucked. 

As does the Master. 

We knew it sucked when we saw the house, but the suck was amplified once we were in the house and the previous owners's furniture was out, only to reveal the giant crack in the wall behind where his bed had been and the bizarre light fixtures that work only by unscrewing the bulbs. And the ceiling. Oh the ceiling. The sagging, yellowed, plaster ceiling, complete with old cigarette and water stains. Oh ceiling. You're right out of a Baltimore crack den. I have you on my radar. You will be my first target.


The photos are doing none of it justice - from the good and the bad. Because the good is great, but the bad is terrrible. And i'm not even going to get to the floors.


But in between the good and the bad and the very very ugly are things like the wide spanning covered front porch and the gorgeous brand new energy efficient and cost-a-fortune leaded glass windows that we don't even have to bat an eyelash at. 


And so we go, with keys in one hand, a wall paper scraper in the other and a baby on each hip, begins my first attempt at making this house, our home.


<3 

Day one.

Some might say, that buying a 100 year that old home that needs a good dose of tender loving care when you're partner works over a hundred hours a week is something you might want to hold off on, until post-graduate graduation.

Some might even say that buying a 100 year old home that needs a good dose of tender loving care when you have four kids, three living at home and two of them under the age of two is something you might want to hold off on until the kids are at minimum out of diapers.

I say, a pox on those nay sayers! Dr.Handsome and I snapped up a beautiful house on a beautiful street in a beautiful neighbourhood and come residency or come potty training, we will prevail! We will work hard! We will take advantage of our babies nap times! We will hand sand those floors! We will get it done, one room at a time!!!!!

And this is our adventure!

Away we go...