Dirty Laundry Part Deux

Back to last Monday.

So, I get all the crap out of the laundry room.

And I discover, behind the washer and dryer, that the paint, the paint that is only a few years old, is chipping. Upon closer inspection of the room, I find that there are spots all over the place where the paint is chipping. Just little, tiny spots, that I never would have noticed if I wasn't going to paint in there. So I think, well, I guess I can just sand the walls down a little bit in those areas.

I locate some sanding paper and a piece of wood to wrap it around, and start sanding.

And the paint begins to peel right off the walls.

Hmmmm.

So I do what anyone in this situation would do. I call my daddy.

He tells me that what I need to actually do is scrap the paint off the walls. Not all of it, mind you, but wherever it is peeling, start scraping. He recommended going to Lowe's and buying a paint scraper. But, I didn't want to have to get dressed (not that I was naked, but I don't go out in shorts) so I called Mark and asked him to pick one up for me on his way home from work. In the meantime I started scrapping using a spackel putter-on-er. You know what I mean, those little knife things you use to, well, put spackel on a wall. A putty knife, that's it.

I am amazed at the amount of paint coming off these walls. Before long the floor is covered in paint chips. And I discover that when they painted this room, they just did two big coats covering the baseboards and the walls, together, so when I am scraping and get to the baseboards, the paint is peeling off there, too.

What's the most logical thing to do in that situation?

Pull off the baseboards.

I discover wet drywall behind two areas of the baseboards, which caused big dents/holes to form in the drywall when I pried the baseboards off. I dent the walls elsewhere with my handy day crowbar trying to pry off the brackety things for the shelf that was in there, because hey, if you're gonna make a mess, make a MESS.

I also discover that scraping the paint means I'm looking at bare drywall. That means that when I re-paint the walls, there will be spots with no texturing, which will look stupid.

So, I call my dad again. He tells me what to buy to re-texture the areas I am scraping clean. I call Mark and ask him to pick that up, too. He sighs heavily. His life with me is very hard.

Seriously. That's not a joke.

Anyway, I continue scraping the walls. Eventually I wear out and decide I want to go to Lowe's, too, so I call Mark and catch him on the way, and convince him to come home and take me with him to the store.

He arrives at home and sighs heavily, again, at the mess I have made. Then he examines the shelves I bought and tells me that if we're gonna do something, we might as well DO IT, so let's save these to put in the garage and buy a fancy cupboard for the laundry room.

We go to Lowe's, get the paint scraper, among other things I can't even remember now, I've been to Lowe's so much this week. And we picked out the obscenely expensive cabinet that we will purchase once the painting is done.

So, now, that was on Monday. On Tuesday, I scrap the walls, sand the walls, texture the walls, and seem to think I have got it all under control. I started painting, and about halfway through my first coat, the paint started chipping and peeling off right under my roller.

Now it is I that am sighing heavily.

Clearly I have to go back, scrap down the walls almost entirely, retexture AGAIN, and then paint. I decide to start over on Wednesday afternoon.

Wednesday morning I have to get up and take the puppy to get spayed, and then go to work. Except that Wednesday was the day from hell, the day I woke up with searing, mind-numbing, doubled-over-can't-walk PAIN in my stomach. I did manage to get the dog to the vet, and get to work, but shortly after arriving at work I couldn't take it anymore and broke down in tears like a little wussy girl. So, long story short on that one, I ended up spending the day in the hospital getting poked and jabbed and x-rayed and made to drink things that make me in loopy moods, and then the next three days laying around my house, waiting for the WONDERFUL drug to kick in. Which it finally has, god bless the one a day purple pill called Nexium.

Needless to say, the laundry room didn't get touched again until Sunday. Almost a week after the "one hour painting project" originally began. And, might I just casually mention, THE DIRTY LAUNDRY HAS TAKEN OVER THE HOUSE PLEASE COME SAVE ME IT IS COMING FOR MY SOUL.