I've had a couple of guys painting various areas of the interior of my house for nearly a week now. I had no idea this job would take 8 days. As usual, I underestimated what is required or, perhaps they really are moving slower than I think they should be. Everything we own that is in the way (which is everything) is in piles on furniture, stuffed into closets, put up into the attic temporarily, or as in one instance stacked the wrong way or upside down (a love seat in our bedroom, where it does not belong). We have a very small home, barely 1500 s.f. including the basement so finding places to store things as the work progresses room to room is extremely difficult if not, impossible.
In their defense, there's a large amount of trim work which is being done - mostly 23 interior window frames including a patio door. This house is filled to the brim with wood trim. Plus some minor carpentry (quarter round at the floors, ceiling molding; and some shelving that I think they all forgot I asked about *mental note: call Owner to discuss!*).
And of course, in the middle of all of this the house, as usual, pulls a sucker punch and we find out one of the windows (and when I say "window" I don't mean the glass, that's stable, I mean the entire casement, sill, the whole thing that sits in the wall to the exterior of the house) in the Master Bedroom is more or less ready to fall out of the opening. We had always noticed it sat like and inch or so from the wall but, like WTH? So, that had to be attended to. Thankfully, not a huge problem; the carpenter was able to fix it but the room had already been painted which meant more touch up work to come back to.
It's taking longer than we thought for the gel stain to completely dry on the stair railings. Do you know how hard it is to keep going up and down your stairs and not touch the railing? Crazy hard. I think it's because they applied too heavy a coat. I also keep noticing the applications are uneven in places but I also know pine doesn't take stain very well. But I have to point all of this out to the painters who already are on tenterhooks with me for leaving our front door unlocked the one day we couldn't be home. They swear they locked it ("I checked the knob 3 times! Yes, 3 times! Maybe something is wrong with your lock?"). Believe me, it was open and that lock set cost us a small fortune; there's nothing wrong with it. They forgot to lock it from the inside.
The poor cat has been totally uprooted; his litter box and food dishes scattered in other rooms as needed. Locked up for entire days so he wouldn't be underfoot or rub up against wet baseboards. He seems to be taking it rather well - he's a calm sort. But we feel bad about it nonetheless. Today, I've allowed him to roam free while they finish up the trim work and so far, all he's done is find a bed to sleep in and stay away from everyone. Maybe he won't have to be imprisoned today if we're lucky.
I believe they will start the kitchen tomorrow. I'm sure that's a two day job. If we're lucky they will be done Monday. But to me, at this moment, it's looking unlikely.
Overall, they have been doing a good job. It looks fan-freaking-tastic. I realize this house is rough to work with. Bad lighting, lots of flaws to deal with. Unforeseen problems crop up and they are dealing with old wood, with many layers of ancient paint. My agenda wasn't to make it look "new" again, it was to make it look better than it was. And, in that regard it's successful. I think if I didn't work in the design field, I wouldn't notice the sort of things I do. The pumpkin bedroom is now a muted blue. The office, a friendly green. The kitchen will be sort of a toned down rose color. Our small vestibule leading to the kitchen is an off-white. All the trim is now evenly matched in a dark almost black brown - all the dings, splotches and paint drippings from years gone by are history. The trim color works well with everything else, it's in character with the age of the house. Having the windows finally stained gives a cohesive feeling to the entire home. It all feels freshened up.
So, here I sit, a day off, stuck. Oh and I'm waiting for our heating and cooling guy to arrive too. We have one radiator that hasn't worked since day one of our arrival to this house. I figured it was about time to get that worked out before the winter sets in.
