Christmas Miracle

The house we're renting was built in 1928, impressively old by Miami standards.  Some months back, Becky and I decided we should remove the decades of accumulated paint before we chose our own pallet.

Okay, it was my brilliant idea.  Blame me 100%.  But the windowsills are flaking without our help, and previous peeling has obviously been painted over.  None of the doors close because of the accumulated layers.  The crown molding has no detail, and the corners sag with frozen drips.  Apart from the floors - oak in the front rooms, pine in the bedrooms - the house's wood energy is suffocating beneath years of latex and lead.

Little did I know how difficult it would be to remove.  

Five days of work spread over several months later...

Work is nothing without a deadline, so we invited Becky's family for Christmas brunch at our place.  Dylan stayed with his Abuelo and Abuela.  Becky and I could work all night if we wanted.

"So we'll be tired," I said, "so what?"

Well paint-scraping tired is not writing tired, or internet-surfing tired, or drinks-with-friends tired.  It is where-did-that-cut-come-from, aches-in-muscles-and-tendons-you-never-knew-you-had, making-a-fist-hurts-like-hell strung out exhausted, especially after a few hellish weeks of holiday retail.

This hurts.

We worked until three AM Thursday night then popped up at eight Friday morning.  We scraped until we physically and emotionally could scrape no more, until no amount of willpower would force our muscles to obey.  One cabinet is better than nothing.

We hit one cabinet with chalkboard in a can and painted the walls Chianti (Behr S-H-150).  The other cabinet, baseboards, and trim will wait for another day.

Through dividing and conquering, we managed to get the dining room not just presentable but lovely, while picking up paychecks, cleaning, and grocery shopping for the brunch.  We also learned that even exhausted at three am, we're a great team.

Yum.

Oddly enough, the red is so rich that it makes the last few layers of paint to be scraped look like a deliberate attempt to be distressed and antique-looking.  We were praised to heaven for the look.  It's a nice thought but I doubt we'll go with it, particularly when only one more day of work will give us a finished room.  Well, maybe two days.

Either way, we can't let the paint win.