I have designated Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays as my regular clean-the-house or run-errands days. Tuesdays are now devoted to sewing and Thursday are devoted to home-improvement. I have a long home-improvement list, so hopefully I'll be able to keep up this routine for a long while.
On Thursdays, after I take the children to school, Eli and I come home and work on preparing to paint. First we clear everything away from the walls to be worked on (which results in sweeping or vacuuming as well) and then we wipe the walls, baseboard, window sills, molding, etc. We take a break to let everything dry thoroughly and have a small snack, drink some ice water, maybe change a diaper.
Then it's back to work: taping and caulking. I'm a little bit of a perfectionist when I paint, which is probably why it takes me so long! I put a very thin layer of clear, paintable caulk on the tape edge so that no paint seeps under the tape. I let Eli have a few pieces of tape to do whatever he wants with. He watches me caulk for a bit and enjoys sitting on the step stool. When I need it to stand on it, I let him stay on it and warn him that I'm stepping up. I think he likes to be close to me and not told to stay away. Sometimes he'll get bored and go play close by with a toy.
After all the taping and caulking is done, we take another break to let it dry. We drink more water, eat lunch if we're hungry, read books on a bed, and close our eyes to give them a "rest." When Eli is asleep, I quietly leave the room and change into my painting clothes. Then I book it to the garage to pull out the painting supplies and go at it as long as I can get away with.
We've done this for two Thursdays in a row and it has worked out marvelously! The first Thursday I had the paint put away before Eli woke up and Anders came home from school. The second Thursday, Eli woke up before I was done with the paint. He did a good job of staying off the plastic and not touching the walls and I was just putting the paint away when Anders came home from school.
Next week, I'd like to work on the back side of the kitchen cabinets that face the dining room. The back side of the cabinets have wood paneling that has already been painted over (cream color) and I have been stewing over the idea of painting it alternately light and dark sage green, which will match my kitchen cabinets.
1 comment:
you are extremely well organized, missy, and focused and dedicated. you are amazing.you, probably, are too modest to take it and will say, well if i don't do it, who will? but i smack that to the ground and tell you, you are an amazing lady!
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