I DON’T LIKE CHANGE.
I dislike chaos and disorder.
I delay making decisions when I’m not confident about the topic that needs deciding.
So you might rightfully guess that a home improvement project would throw me for a loop. It has. It is.
For some time now, we’ve been dealing with a project that put five new windows and a new door into our aging home. Of course, in an old house like ours, issues arise. New windows didn’t fit quite like the old ones, necessitating lumber and sheetrock patching. That means I’ll need to repaint. More decisions. More work.
There are issues with the new door, which are in the process of being resolved.
I am stressed and I really shouldn’t be. I mean, it’s not like we’re building a house.
But all of the decisions, the upheaval, the time away from writing, are wearing on me.
Every day for nearly two weeks I’ve pulled on my old faded blue jeans, one of my husband’s discarded t-shirts and headed upstairs to a spare bedroom to stain and varnish wood trim. Foot upon foot upon foot of wood. Sand and stain and varnish. Sand between coats and varnish each piece of wood three times.
Here's just a sampling of the wood trim I've stained and varnished during the past two weeks.
After about the third day of breathing stain and varnish fumes, and, honestly, “tasting” the toxins, I began wearing a dusk mask. I also left an upstairs window open. Yes, even on 20-degree days.
Yesterday I finished varnishing the last eight pieces of wood, until the carpenter brings me more wood for the door threshold. Oh, joy, more trim to prepare for installation.
I'm into my second quart of varnish. Every piece of wood gets three coats of polyurethane varnish.
But I keep telling myself I am saving us hundreds of dollars by staining the 75 pieces of wood and varnishing each three times. Hundreds. Of dollars.
That’s good because the money goes fast when you’re house-improving. For a frugal person like me, such spending doesn’t come easily.
I’m struggling, too, with choosing a color for the living room walls, which need to be painted before the carpenters nail the window and door trim in place. This is causing me great angst as evidenced in the endless paint swatches I’ve plucked from displays in three stores. I think now that I’ve narrowed the color down to two choices. I need to decide because once the sheetrock mudding is done, we’re ready to paint.
I've picked up way too many paint cards, further confusing me. I'm leaning toward "Whole Wheat," a warm color from Sherwin Williams with a golden tint. Anybody have that color on their walls?
My living room is a mess with wood piled in front of the TV, our bed headboard in the corner next to a bucket of sheetrock mud. A canvas covers the carpet in front of the new picture window and cardboard leans against the wall. Two white showers curtains serve as temporary window drapes…
I don’t even bother to put away the vacuum cleaners any more.
A corner of my living room. I'm not showing you any other rooms, some of which are also in disarray due to this "project."
P.S. To those of you who drive by our house daily, yes, we are getting new siding on the front. It’s tough living on a fish bowl busy street where “everyone” sees what you’re doing.
© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Minnesota Prairie Roots 
Been there. Done that! After almost 50 years of togetherness we have done our share of remodeling. Two years ago we added a new bedroom onto the house and didn’t get divorced. Then a year ago we gutted our bathroom, extended a wall out into our old bedroom to make the bathroom larger (it was a very tiny bathroom), put in a new enclosed tub/shower and a new high rise toilet (love it!) and some new flooring. But all the seemingly constant dust and dirt was just about overwhelming!! Hang in there. Like all good things it is worth the trip. Joe and I started talking to each other finally last week!! (just joking).
Harriet
I definitely need to remain focused on the end, that’s for certain. Just had the lumberyard guy out here to address all of the issues that have cropped up. He’s addressing them and said every once in awhile he’ll get a project where, if one thing, goes wrong, many things to do. That would be this project. Lucky us.
Randy and I have survived many projects, including gutting our entire upstairs and installing new windows there, gutting our one small bathroom (the worst) and replacing the paneling in our dining room, living room and bedroom with sheetrock. All of this was done when we were younger and I was perhaps more tolerant of upheaval.
Now we’re ready to start over. After this current project is done, we need to fill in the holes in the floors and walls where we tore out our brick chimney 18 months ago.
Ah, the joys of home ownership…, but at least we have a house and it’s paid for.
WHAT!! NEW siding??? I am not going to know which house to come visit now, since I am nearly certain it is/was the ONLY house with green siding on that stretch of road! You may need to put signs up directing me where to go when the time comes! 🙂
Not to worry. We are residing only the front of our house, which has always had different siding than the rest of the house. Why? I don’t know. We’re trying to determine what type and color of siding will work with the existing siding. Not easy…
Do what I did, have Katie pick the colors. She did a good job picking for our living room. Even the contractor was skeptical at first when the green went over the white mudding, but really liked the finished color. We did a sage type green in the living room, tan in the hallway and a brick color in the dining room.
It’s tied together with green and tan in the valances in the dining room and tan and brick in the valances in the living room.
Now, to just get the “bright” blue out of the basement family room. That will be a summer or next winter project. We have enough going on right now!
Well, then, send Katie my way.
I love sage green. Your brother, not so much. My office is sage green, but he won’t go for that in the living room. I’m still leaning toward the warm golden tan, unless someone can convince me to choose another color.
Like that idea, then you can do so much to splash it up with curtains, pillows etc…. Also, the formerly popular burnt orange shag carpet would go great with it! You may be able to find a deal on that somewhere!
Exactly. I can use splashes of color in pillows and curtains. I saw some fun fabrics recently and Randy thought they were a flashback to the 1960s and 1970s. Perhaps that’s why I liked them so much.
As for that orange shag carpet, no thank you. I’ll keep my neutral carpet for now.
Hi Audrey,
Just yesterday I looked at a post that had a linky for people to share their favourite paint colours with lots of pictures of their rooms. The blog is called the nester and here is the link: http://www.thenester.com/2011/01/nesting-place-paint-colors-a-linky-for-your-paint-colors.html
Good luck with your decision.
It will look so good when you are all done.
Dana
Thanks for the encouragement and the link, Dana. I found the color, Sherwin Williams Whole Wheat, that I’m leaning very strongly toward for my living room on one of the linkys.
Could you fly down here from Canada and help me? You have an eye for color and probably great painting skills too. We’re painting this weekend.
Hi Audrey,
Just a thought, but on Sherwin Williams’ site you can upload your own room image and try different paint colors. Here’s the link if you want to give it a shot! http://bit.ly/grcW2Q
Good Luck!
Thanks for the tip. I thought of trying something like this, but the not-so-tech savvy part of me won. I also realize that colors on the computer screen may not be accurate to the real color. But, readers, go ahead and try this method if you wish.
I’ve finally decided on a color and I’ll publish a post about my choice soon.