Starting at the top

We have finally started painting. And when I say "we", I mean "I" since Mister C does not generally paint. He's too ADD to do the cutting in because it requires patience. And he's too ADD to do the rolling because he rushes and annoys me. So there you go. Five previous houses and a current one and all have been or will have been almost exclusively painted by me. Also by Ninny who contributed greatly to our home in Chandler and taught me how to do some fancy painting. But I digress.

As I mentioned yesterday, we've now been in this home for twenty one months and it looks like we're going to be here for the long haul. Up until now, I really wasn't too keen on starting any projects.

Our usual m.o. is to move in to a house and start painting on day one. First, everything gets painted. Then, we add or replace ceiling fans throughout, sometimes other lighting as well. We almost always have to replace the microwave and dishwasher. One or the other of them usually dies within the first month. If the rest of the appliances are in good shape and white, we just replace the broken item. If everything else is a mish mosh of different colors, styles or makers, we replace everything. Sometimes we replace the counter tops, especially when they are pink. We've bought homes with pink laminate counters twice. Seriously.

While all this is going on inside, we are almost always also fixing the exterior as well. We pull out dead plants and weed out neglected gardens (and one exceedingly stubborn vine from hell). Our last garden in Nebraska was so bad that after I spent an entire day weeding it, it still looked so bad that we actually hired guys. It took three guys two full days to get the job done. I would normally say that they were stretching the job out, trying to earn more money, but they got paid by the job not the hour. It looked really great but even better was that the neighbors were so excited when it was done. After the clean out, we plant trees and new flowers. We get the grass looking good.

The very last thing we do is replace the flooring. And then...we sell the house. Because there's no way in hell it is ever going to look this good again. It's so predictable that when the carpet guys showed up at the last house we had, Master J looked at us and asked "Are we moving?" Yeah, that predictable.

So, here we are in this house and we haven't done hardly anything. We did replace the lighting in the kitchen and halls but really, that's it. Until now.

Three weeks ago we had a security system installed in the house. The kind where they put it in the walls. So now, my entire house has these spots on the walls and ceilings where the guys installed the wiring and then patched the walls. Add to this the previous patch jobs from the lighting project and Mister C's failed cable wiring project and it looks pretty tough in here.

On Wednesday, Mister C bought a five gallon bucket of ceiling paint. Yesterday, I started painting. I started in our bathroom since it's a fairly small room and I wanted a feeling of accomplishment to keep me motivated. I started assembling my tools and taping off the fixtures at 9:30 and figured I'd be done by 10:30 or so. Not so much. I finished the second coat at 1:55 in the afternoon. This does not bode well. Only 95% of the ceilings to go before I start on the walls. Sigh.