Hate to Paint

I was home from New York last week. It was great being back. As you can expect, I had missed Daleen, Colin, and the rest of my family and friends. My time at home was busy as well (didn’t have time to write a single blog posting). While at home I was driving back and forth to Manassas, VA where I have been doing a lot of work. In addition to travelling locally, we spent a lot of time working on the house. This time I installed some new lighting, did some drywall repairs and getting ready to do some interior painting.
We have a lot of small drywall cracks, nail pops, etc. My friend Josh is a structural engineer so of course I showed them all to him, expecting him to tell me my foundation was starting to come apart and the house was going to fall over at any moment. (I always expect the worse when it comes to my house.) But alas, Josh said everything looked fine and there was nothing a little spackle and mud couldn’t fix.
Personally, I hate doing drywall work almost as much as I hate painting. I think my drywall repair work isn’t as easy because I lack the proper tools. I watched a guy at work do it the other day and he used a really big, very clean, metal drywall knife to get his mud smoothed just right. He also did very thin coats of mud and in the end, didn’t need to do any sanding. I need to get the right tools for the job. Mmmm… new tools….
Then there was the electrical work. This is the part I actually do enjoy. The hallway by our front door has always been very dimly lit by one light that is too far away. We remedied this by installing two new recessed lights just inside the front door and replaced the old hallway fixture with a larger and brighter one. Unlike my drywall work, this job went very quickly and turned out perfectly. Unlike working with sheetrock, I have all the right electrical tools and the experience to actually use them.
Now it’s time to do some painting. I’m back in NY working this week and Daleen is going to try and do some of the painting on her own. I secretly wish she could just do all of it before I get back. I rate painting my house right up there with waterboarding as things I would rather not be subjected to. If you ever want information from me, no real torture is required. You could just threaten to force me to paint my entire house and I’d tell you whatever you wanted to know (even if I didn't know anything.)
We have a lot of work to do on our place this year. We’re going to need to buy some more paint and tools. That’s the cheap part. Our ancient heat pump and air handler is also probably going to die this year and that’s going to be the expensive part. There’s a lot of stuff in between that also needs to be done. We’re in no hurry though. We’re going to get it all done eventually and we’re going to do it right. By then a whole new list of things to do will come up. I just wish we didn’t have so much painting to do…..