Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Remember When We Put Lipstick on a Pig?

That ugly, ugly wall was my line in the sand.  Phase one of the renovations was NOT going past that wall -- we had a new baby in the house, and we were just. done. with the disruptions of contractors everywhere. Usually they waited until at least eight o'clock to start working, but occasionally, we awakened to find the tile setter had let himself in at dawn. That's not creepy, right? Of course, he wasn't necessarily working. He was usually sitting on the edge of the tub texting... good times.


I needed to set some boundaries, and this crazy ugly wall was the first boundary.  The thing about an ugly wall is this -- it will still be there later, but tiny newborn grandbabies grow up. We threw some paint on that awful wall, and called it a day.



{Background: Our daughter had come to live with us while her husband was in Afghanistan, and shortly after she arrived, our granddaugter arrived. We knew we only had a few precious months of snuggling before our son-in-law returned for his wife and baby. We wanted some peace and some privacy, so we stopped the renovations for a while.}

Another thing about ugly walls? You get so used to them, you stop seeing them.  That's kind of what happened to us! I was unpacking pictures a few months ago, and hanging the Heritage Gallery Wall, when I realized I needed to expand the Heritage Gallery to the ugly wall -- and the ugly wall was still ugly! Because you can paint something ugly all you want, but ugly is still ugly. This wall was a pig, and the paint was just lipstick. Somehow I had just stopped seeing the wall (probably some kind of sub-conscious self-defense mechanism was at play, here). How else can you explain the we went AN ENTIRE YEAR after our grandbaby and daughter left without tearing it out?!!!!  I seriously just had a blind spot where that wall was..... This wall was fake brick veneer, that was crooked and crumbling and broken and just weird.


Well, when I regained my sight, I called my FAVORITE painter and drywall guy (and boxer) in the PNW, Josue, and he made pretty quick work of the demolition. This guy does the best work!  I've used him on several projects in Seattle, and he was more than happy to drive out to the beach house to work on that ugly wall.


All that fake brick made a big crumbly mess!  I snapped this shot, and then returned to the city.


The next weekend the wall looked like this.


A couple of weeks later, it looked like this!

Next, our carpenter will come out and install the baseboard.  I'm excited about that, because then I can unpack more of our family pictures, and do a second heritage wall!