Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Did you ever get the feeling that you bit off more than you could chew?

Wow...Super long post title!

I'm starting to feel a teensy bit overwhelmed.  I have been wanting to paint our living room ever since we moved into this place.  I mean at first, I didn't think it was worth the effort.  I mean, yeah the walls were a boring white (with a half decent looking border and an accented wall of wallpaper (two story entryway - split level house).  And then, I didn't even want to think about how I was going to strip the wallpaper off the accent wall....you know being afraid of heights and all that.  So I just let it go and tried to not let it bother me. 

Then I got pregnant with Nathan and ended up on modified bedrest.  After that I was busy caring for a newborn.  Later, the twins and Nicholas decided it would be fun to hang on the curtains and ripped the brackets, curtains and all off the wall.  Rich had to patch the wall and remount the brackets.  So then we lived with the border that had huge dry wall patches on either side of the curtains.  And I didn't really care, because I was going through a slumpy, dumpy period. 

Now, I'm at the point where I am tired of living like the Clampett's of Beverly Hills.  We live in a pretty nice neighborhood.  People take pride in the way their houses look here.  And I can't stand the way our's looks anymore.  It's been driving me nuts....So I went to Lowe's and Home Depot and picked up a bunch of paint samples and brought them home.  I hung them all over the living room, trying to decide on a color.  At one point I got tired of trying to decide myself, so I asked Amanda what she thought and she picked this yellow color.  Which looked pretty on the sample, but not on the wall so much.  So, guess who now has a yellow bedroom (since I didn't want to waste a whole can of paint)?

I went out and got more samples and hung them on the wall.   Where they stayed for another whole year....yeah, I'm a really good decision maker.  Rich finally grabbed some off the wall and went to Lowe's today.  He called me and asked me what color I wanted, for sure.  I told him any of the ones that he picked off the wall were fine as long as they matched the furniture that we are planning on putting in there when it's all done.  So he came home with a "coffee" color and told me I better like it, because he didn't want to have to go through that whole ordeal again. 

I was super excited at the prospect of finally painting the living room.  I was even going to leave the border up for now (even with the drywall patches in plain view - yeah, I'm a real classy girl...Ms Clampett indeed!).  Then I got to thinking it would look horrible.  And what was the sense in painting the walls when eventually I would have to take the border down anyway, right? Plus, Amanda volunteered her boyfriend to help me with the two story entry way wallpaper/accented thing....the boy is just crazy enough about her that I know he would come over and help me too. 

So, this afternoon I climbed up on a chair in the living room and started ripping down that border.  And scrubbing and scraping off the glue....That was over two hours ago and I'm not even half way around the huge stinkin' room.  Who's idea was it to strip that border in the first damn place? Oh yeah, that was all me, baby! I want to quit so bad and just say to hell with it, because it's is such a pain in the ass to do.  I'm thinking I bit off way more than I can chew on this one.  Even though I did just strip a whole bedroom with two layers of wallpaper this past winter (of course I made the girls help me, since it was their room).  I can do this.....I know I can....I think I can......Help!

3 comments:

Kristy K said...

Don't give up Char! You'll love it in the end. Every single time I paint a room, I get that feeling of "WHAT AM I DOING" about half way through, but when I finish it, I'm in love.

I had to chuckle. I thought the title of your post was pertaining to having six children ;).

Emmy said...

You can do it!! Make sure you take pictures to glory in all of the great work you are doing.

CATE said...

Hilarious! I can procrastinate with the best of them but you win by a mile.
When I start renovating I want it done YESTERDAY, I even start ordering new furniture long before it's finished, which results in us having to move very delicately around new sofas and the like.
Keep taking pics, it may inspire you to keep it moving along, good luck :)