When weekends escape

What happened? Just a short time ago there was a whole weekend stretching ahead of me and now it's disappeared into a flurry of work and lazing.

The good news on the work front: Ben moved the electrical stuff for the bathroom renovation so I can begin the wall repair work.

The bad news on the work front: There is a BUTTLOAD of wall repair to be done. These are old plaster walls so there are cracks and places where it's started to pull away. I started today and it's kind of challenging because the holes Ben made to move the electrical are all weird shapes and there aren't studs behind them to attach drywall for patching so I'm patching with found objects. Don't ask, okay? If it fit, I used it. My plaster skills are limited so I'm sure it'll take me forever to make the walls look halfway decent and they'll probably never get better than that. I remember the hell that was doing all the wall and ceiling repair when we bought this house. Don't look closely and it looks much better.

As I was pondering the work it occurred to me that ten years ago this summer we were renovating nearly the entire house after we bought it. Ten years! We've never finished the work completely, lots of little stuff we need to finish up, all sorts of big plans that just haven't come into being. One of these days maybe I'll scan some before and after pictures though because it was an impressive transformation.

After pouring so much sweat equity into the house I can understand why people are so hesitant to move. We could have purchased a new house and enjoyed the generic ease of it all but we bought a house with good bones from owners with really bad taste. They're the ones that installed this:I'm sure there are plenty of people who think my taste is horrible but of course I know otherwise!

I mentioned to my Mom that we were doing this project and she asked if I remember the horrors and inconveniences of when they redid the bathroom at our house when I was a kid and I'm amused that I have no recollection of the event. I remember the bathroom before -- flocked blue paisley wallpaper, blue carpeting and now that I think of it, the vanity from our bathroom would have fit right in. It had the added charm of having no windows or ventilation and having the only shower in the house.

And I have no recollection of the transformation process, just the results.

Maybe I'll be able to forget this project as well and move on to finish stripping paint from the upstairs doors. And building out the mudroom to be functional. And replacing some of the boards on the front porch where they're rotting out. And putting gutters on the addition (how could we have forgotten that? How?). Cabinets in the laundry room. Paint just about everywhere. Etc. etc. etc. Houses are work! Why exactly did we buy a house anyway?

We also managed to go the Echo Center, see friends and have a bonfire, go to the library, clean the house (nothing like finishing just as Ben begins taking out parts of the wall), work out, visit the frog pond, etc. etc. etc.

I need to go to work so I can rest.