This was the day I’d been waiting for, the day I got to see the new wall color for real.  First I had to put a coat of paint on the ceiling, finish painting the wood trim, wash the ceiling texture off the walls, then patch, sand and prime them. No problem, right?  

Also, I had to find a solution for the floor problem since whatever we went with had to be finished by the next night.

I got up early and painted the ceiling with a gusto.  I kept telling myself that the streaks would disappear when the paint dried.  They didn’t.  Heidi tried to help me roll, but it proved to be even more awkward for her than it was for me.  So she washed dishes and did other chores around the house to let me keep working.  Mom showed up again and took the boys back home with her.  She has an acre backyard, a wii, and cookies—what more could boys want?

As soon as the ceiling paint was up, I painted the baseboards their final coats of paint. Then Heidi brought in a bucket of water and wiped down the walls, while I mudded behind her.  The goal was to finish by lunch.  Then go shopping for flooring options come back and sand and paint.  We made it!  it felt so awesome to finally be on track.

On our way to the car, I noticed a curtain rod, finials and brackets from my old dining room window sitting in a corner of construction stuff.  They were almost identical to the $50 set I just bought, except that the rod was too short.  I grabbed the new finials and brackets to take back to the store….the price of them would more than cover new hardware for Heather’s desk.

We shopped at 3 different hardware stores for flooring and at the last one, found a special price set of hand scraped dark hickory laminate boards for $.99 a square foot. They were by far prettier than anything else we’d seen, so I used my blogging money plus the return money to buy the floor, underlayment, new desk nobs, and a huge sheet of plywood for Heather’s headboard.

Finally it was time to paint.  I cut in while Heidi rolled behind me.  She’s a good wall roller!  We were halfway around the room when I realized one gallon wasn’t going to cut it.  My sister, Elizabeth had just called and offered to come over at seven to help paint.  If I left right then,  I could buy a gallon of paint and be back before Elizabeth got there.  It felt like my wallet was bleeding money.  How much was this room redo costing in total?  I made plans to figure that out soon.

When I pulled in with the paint there were several cars in front of my house.  Elizabeth was walking up to the door and Mom was bringing back the boys.  But who’s was the third car?  I stepped inside and met 2 priesthood men from church in their best suits and scriptures under their arms.  That’s right! We had a family visit set up for tonight.  I knew it two days ago, but in the bustle of the day, I totally forgot.

Elizabeth is such a great sport.  She went with Heidi up to the room and took over my job of cutting in.  They 2nd coated the room while I visited with the priesthood about our family struggles, our concerns for the church and ways they could help us be a stronger more faithful family.

When our visit was over, I peeled off the asbestos floor tiles out of the closets (leaving behind still sticky black tar) while Elizabeth pulled out the closet trim and pounded the nails.  Darren gave the ceiling a final coat of paint–which made it look amazing!

Then I started to sneeze, and sneeze and sneeze.  My throat hurt, my head pounded…..I was sick.  It came on all of a sudden.  Not. Good. Timing.