Hear ye, hear ye.
I am through with home improvement.
I know, it’s hard to believe. If you’re a frequent reader of my
columns, you know that I love to tinker around the house
– painting and recovering everything in my path.
Hear ye, hear ye.
I am through with home improvement.
I know, it’s hard to believe. If you’re a frequent reader of my columns, you know that I love to tinker around the house – painting and recovering everything in my path.
I have decorating idea files teeming with magazine clippings and watch more decorating shows than I care to admit.
But I think the time has come for me to throw in the towel.
I will even go so far as to officially withdrawal my application from “Trading Spaces.”
For those of you have been living under a rock, that’s the show where neighbors trade homes for two days and redecorate a room in each other’s house.
But ever since my husband, Chris, and I moved a month ago, I can’t bear the thought of redoing another room, let alone our neighbor’s.
Without the bright lights and cameras, stripping wallpaper and recovering furniture is so darn unglamorous.
At least on TV you get your own cute carpenter, innovative interior designer, seamstress and a purse full of $1,000 that belongs to someone else. Heck, you probably even get your makeup touched up between takes and on-site catering, not to mention those cool “Trading Spaces” smocks.
But faraway from Hollywood, I settle for Krispy Kremes, paint-splattered clothes and a handyman who answers to “Dad.”
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining. Exactly.
I’m not afraid of a little hard work. And I have as much elbow grease as the next gal.
In our first home, Chris and I flexed our creativity and started a number of home improvement projects. French doors. Track lighting. Outdoor lighting. Heck, some of those projects we even finished, including new baseboards and fresh paint.
While we learned a thing or two about redoing a space, i.e. make all your mistakes on your first house, nothing has prepared us for the work that awaited us in our new home.
While it’s a perfectly lovely house, it’s been lived in for the past 18 years and needs a bit freshening up. Our personal decorating stamp if you will.
A couple weekends ago, inspired by a “Trading Spaces” mini marathon, I got to work giving our family room a new look.
We just had to strip the wallpaper, redo the floors, paint the walls and install new lighting.
How hard could that be?
I called in my own troops – Mom, Dad and hubby to be exact. Everything was going fine until we started peeling away the wallpaper.
After stripping the first layer, the wall looked suspiciously smooth.
“Um, come here a minute, will you, hon?” my husband asked me.
I checked out the patch Chris had just peeled away.
“That’s not wall, that’s wallpaper,” I wailed.
Eek. This would be harder than I thought. But I wasn’t about to give up.
Twenty-four hours later, the walls were bare, waiting for a fresh coat of paint. Armed with rollers and brushes, my mom and I painted. And painted.
The walls soaked up two coats of primer and two coats of paint. The sun was setting as we finished up our last layer.
“Not bad, not bad at all,” I said, standing back to inspect our handiwork.
And it will be even better once the floors are finished, curtains hung, lights installed and our furniture rolled back in.
One room down, eleven more to go (including bathrooms).
Wait, not yet. I need to get off this paint-smudged ride and rest a bit before I can muster up the strength to conquer more wallpapered walls.
It’s just as well. While I’m waiting for inspiration to come, I can sit back and “listen” to our house and wait for its personality to be revealed.
What will it want to be? Perhaps sophisticated French country? Traditional? Mediterranean?
Oops, I better hold that thought for now. I think “Trading Spaces” is about to begin.
Kelly Barbazette lives in Gilroy with her husband, Chris, daughter, Emma, and miniature dachshund. She is the owner of Write Now, a copywriting and public relations company in Gilroy. She can be reached at kb*********@***oo.com.
