Back Against the Wall

In January of 2002, Ms. The Critic and I bought a house.

Not just any house, the biggest, craziest most-in-need-of-repair Craftsman style bungalow in the whole state, nay, possibly the whole time zone.

Since then, our lives have been a constant flux between living peaceably and keeping it clean, and in an all out state of war, gutting the entire bathroom down to the studs and starting afresh; stripping, sanding, staining, and refinishing the floors of the downstairs; putting up a privacy fence; switching from a fusebox system to circuit breaker; reshingling all the nutso angles endemic to houses built in the Arts & Crafts style; and repainting every surface in the house.

To add to our troubles, the previous owners were possessed not only of abominable taste, but someone erroneously fancied himself a handyman and started (and never finished) several crack pot projects. For example, a hole was cut in our living room ceiling with the idea of running a vent from it to a corresponding hole in one of the second floor bedrooms, only the vent was never run and the holes were simply left as is.

All of which added up to a house that not only needed the love of people with stunning good taste, but also the skills to redo every little thing. In all this time, one room was left virtually untouched, that being Ms. The Critic's (once named) office, now redubbed "The Guest Room." As our upstairs bedroom has no closets and our house has four bedrooms, the Ms. and I have our own little downstairs rooms where our clothes are kept in dressers and closets. My room was easy enough to redo, just a lick of paint and the time and patience necessary to scrape off an enormous cork board the previous owners had glued to the wall.

Ms. The Critic's room, however, has languished.

Now, this week, the week of our anniversary, our house's exterior is being painted. Professionally. With all the scraping and sanding necessary to get our house to a good clean slate upon which to apply said paint, I thought it best to send the Ms. and The Littlest Critic out of town for the week. I stayed to supervise the painting (though I'm driving down to the undisclosed location wherein the family is ensconced for the anniversary celebration). While I'm here, I'm redoing Ms. The Critic's front room, which entails pulling off the trim and the badly applied wood paneling, and slapping up 3/8th inch drywall. The ceiling will also be drywalled.

Ms. The Critic doesn't think I can finish in four days. I think I can.

But, Dear Readers, that will entail the general shoddy scheduling that Summertime brings us, meaning no reviews this week, though I do intend to pop in and post little snippets of news, songs, and progress reports as everything moves along.

Nevertheless, I repeat. Ms. The Critic doesn't think I can finish in four days. I think I can. I managed one whole wall in just a smidge over three hours. What do you think?