What you do in your house is worth as much as if you did it up in heaven for our Lord God. We should accustom ourselves to think of our position and work as sacred and well-pleasing to God, not on account of the position and work, but on account of the word and faith from which the obedience and the work flow. ~ Martin Luther

Thursday, September 04, 2008

I hate painting



Is this something you know about me? It is something I am learning about myself...

This is week number one of having the house all to ourselves. The Amish workers stop by occasionally to do 'fix it' work that we discover was not done, but not regularly. I moved all their tools to the front porch and there they sit, awaiting being picked up.

It is a wonderful WONDERFUL thing, not to have to be crammed in one room while strange men work all around the house. Toward the end, it bothered me more and more. With their absence, comes responsibility though. I don't really have the excuse that I can't work because they are in the way-because they are not. Thanks to my tool hauling, neither are their tools.

The real work has begun.

One seemingly never-ending job is this: painting.

The kitchen had FOUR different shades of wood, entirely too much for my tastes. Not only that, but the cupboards were in R.O.U.G.H shape.



Despite my obvious distaste for the activity, I chose to paint the nasty cupboards- and that is what I have been doing. Every. Single. Day. Sheesh!!! Doors. Drawers. An Island. Wall cupboards. Sink cupboards. Elbows and clothes. The painting just keeps going on.

Truth is- eventually you just have to say 'when'. Several doors desperately need new paint. Closets would do well with a new coat too. As lovely as it would be to have EVERYTHING done now, it just ain't happening. I gotta just move in SOMETIME, right? Save some projects for later?! Yep.

I am really good at convincing myself of things. Like just now when I convinced myself it would be better to wait to paint the rest of the nasties until another time.

And like the day I thought it would be best to paint the cupboards in the first place.

And then, when I decided that the backs of the cabinets would look lovely with coordinated papers instead of just plain jane white paint.



Which I did because I was convinced I couldn't bear to paint the backs. It's scrapbook paper-so there are seams that can be seen. But I have convinced myself that it doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful.

Now- I just haven't decided if I ought to convince myself to keep some of the cupboards open and exposed. My dishes aren't luxury and they don't match. The whole concept looks GREAT in magazines, when they have coordinated sets and all that jazz. Would it look nice with my ecclectic groupings of modest, utilitarian dishes?

To be determined...

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6 comments:

Andie said...

I would have LOVED to paint my cabinets. When we moved in, they were a VERY DARK wood, with a grid pattern. I ended up sanding each and every last door, drawer, end, ETC...I left the carved out grid dark, but the "upper" portion is now a beautiful natural wood. I did put some polyurithane (sp??) on it to protect them. I love how it turned out, but boy did my asthma NOT like the sanding. I was lucky that my dad loaned us a hand sander, so it wasn't ALL just elbow grease, but it did take a long time and was very dirty yucky stuff. Yours will look lovely when they are complete!
Have fun making the house your HOME!
Blessings-Andie

Full of Grace said...

It looks Great Rebecca! I cannot wait to see it in person, and in my humble opinion, you should leave a few open and visible. Great Job :)

Abigail said...

I spent this past Saturday and Labor Day painting, too! Excepting the bathroom and kitchen, the landlords only paint with flat paint (why, oh, WHY?), which isn't washable, so I painted over some really awful grime in the hall and redid the girls' room. The sad thing is that you probably won't be able to tell in a month or so because grime accumulates and there's no way to wash it. (Why, oh, WHY?!??!!!) I also repainted a bookshelf, but since we own it, I painted it with semi-gloss, which, as you know, is WASHABLE! YEAH!

I think it looks awesome, and I'm with Elizabeth. Leave one or two of the cupboards open for display. I love the cupboards here for many reasons, and the open shelves are one of them.

If you haven't fainted dead away from the fumes, let me know when I can come down to help. The girls can ram around nearby while Piper sleeps in her bouncer, and we can paint, paint, paint, until we both swoon from fumes!

Rebecca said...

Uh-yeah. I know the whole flat paint saga. And guess what?

EVERY SINGLE ROOM is painted with it.

Before we even moved in, the walls were marred from the workers. And it has only gotten worse...

Abigail said...

Well, then, I double my offer! I actually like to paint (as long as it's not my own many rooms that I'm overwhelmed with), and I'd love to help slap WASHABLE paint on those walls when you want. :)

Dana said...

I feel your pain....

I HATE to paint also. When our daughters' room was built on a friend offered to come and paint the room. You wouldn't believe how fast I accepted! I did do the priming, though. Anyway, I grilled some steaks and had his entire family here for the day. It was so nice to have it done well by someone who enjoys doing it.

Should you be breathing those paint fumes with your little bunkin inside? Please be careful!

Also, when our kitchen cabinets needed some help, I bought a roll of clearance wallpaper at Lowe's for next-to-nothing and slapped it on the cabinet facings. Easy peasy. It's strippable to, so it would be easy to change out. Just a thought.

Blessings--
Dana