A whole new definition of Labor Day

No, I wasn’t giving birth. I was working! Aren’t long weekends supposed to be all about family togetherness and grilling with friends? Not at our house.

Instead, each morning started with “Mama, are you going to work on the house today?” which is code for “I want to watch hours and hours of TV.” He even admits it when asked directly. He’s still watching lots of Caillou and has new favorite, the “Backyardagains.” This show is amusing – the characters have adventures in their own backyards. Where else will you find a song with the line “I am a samurai that makes pie”?

I hear him repeating parts of the songs and dialogue. Yesterday he told me “Your wish is my command.”* Alas when I wished that there would be no more whining he ignored me completely. He was an insincere genie. Drat.

When I get right down to it, I really don’t mind painting; it’s just a whole lot easier to do when not catering to the needs of a small child. The relatively depressing thing about my most recent spurt of painting is that I ended up painting with the existing color so the ultimate result is status quo. It took two coats of paint to do the ceiling (hint: do not buy Behr ceiling paint as I’m sure if I used the better stuff it would have taken only one) and one to do the walls. It looks fine, much better than it did with the holes in the walls and ceiling and stains all over the walls, particularly at the height of a two and three year old’s hands. But there is no real sense of transformation and change.

I could have painted everything a different color but my barrier became the huge old-fashioned hot water radiators throughout the house. Every single one of them (ten I think) is painted some version of off white and they’re chipped and generally unattractive but at least blend in somewhat with the current boring wall colors. I don’t want to have to prime them and paint them with oil paint since it appears that latex is totally unacceptable for the job. Ben thinks we (I think it’s really the royal “we” here) should sandblast them and seal them. I’m not opposed to this except that I want no part in the process at any point but if they’re all, say, metallic silver, I’d leave them alone never to touch a paintbrush to them ever again. My lazier, but longterm, solution is to build covers for them. Nice wood and metal mesh covers that match our woodwork although I do worry about their impact on the efficiency of heat transfer. I’ve read about some sort of fins you put behind the radiator to improve heat distribution so maybe that would negate some of it. Either option sounds like a significant investment of time and money but at least the covers would decrease the need for cleaning the radiators.

Now, my initial plan for the bathroom radiator was to do a cover and Ben intially agreed but after he installed the vanity Ben vetoed it because he thinks we won’t be able to open the vanity door far enough. My attitude on that? There is another door. I told him I didn’t want to paint it and he said he’d deal with it. I think what that means is that when it gets cold enough that we want the heat on in the house he’ll reinstall the radiator in it’s chipped off white-form and it’ll stay that way until I figure out how to make a cover for it and then he’ll bitch about the door not opening.

I need to learn to build radiator covers.

The thing about this whole project that has been most difficult is having the whole house in disarray. The “bathroom” project has required work in four rooms and the stairwell. After painting, I was able to move the dining room table back where it belonged and move a bunch of the tools and supplies down to the basement so I wouldn’t trip over them any longer. There are still lots of tools around since the project is still not complete. The whole house needs a top to bottom cleaning that may or may not occur in the near future because there is drywall mud dust in every crack and crevice in the house.

I came down with a cold in the midst of the weekend work marathon. It’s best to be upright during the really runny nose first day of the cold anyway, right? That way when my nose dripped when my hands were full the snot just hit the floor….

I didn’t limit my productivity to painting though. I also installed the towel bars and mirror in the bathroom, put a line of silicone caulk along the bottom of the tub and behind the toilet, replaced the shower curtain rod and sealed the grout (three coats) in the bathroom in the addition.

I felt so much better after getting the house into some rough approximation of order that I ignored the rest of my weekend to do list (pay bills, mow lawn, cleaning) yesterday afternoon and just escaped the house for a bit. Alone. Without the sound of small fry or small fry TV in the background. Ahhhh, bliss.


*Backyardagains – Movers of Arabia