When we found out that I would be getting laid off from Centercode, Holly was actually somewhat excited because it meant that I would have time to get things done around the house. In addition to finishing organizing the garage and shed, Holly had plans for painting and organizing Alex’s bedroom and getting all of the baby stuff set up in there.
I decided to start with the garage since it had been on my list of stuff to do for the longest amount of time. I knew that it was in bad shape but I had no idea that it would take me a week to get looking how I envisioned. I started by moving everything in the garage that belonged in the shed out. This meant that in addition to organizing the garage, I had to also organize the mostly empty shed. This wasn’t too big of a deal but it did take some time.
Next came installing the cabinets that have been sitting in the garage for the past six months. I created a workbench area with them and hung my tools on a peg board. It’s really nice to be able to find my stuff again.
While I was installing the cabinets, Holly and Hannah went to work organizing our food storage on some shelves. They also went through a few loose items and decided what should stay and what should be disposed of.
Once the garage was mostly clean, with the exception of a few odd boxes, it was back to Home Depot where we got shelving material for the walls. I then spent the next day hanging brackets and boards on the walls and filling them with the stuff that was still on the floor. It took nearly a week but the garage looks nice now. I’m very proud of our hard work.
A few days later, it was time to work on Alex’s room. We chose a paint color called “English Meadow” because Holly heard from some paint commercial that green was a calming color. (We all know that he could use a bit of calming…) Surprisingly, the room was completely done in two days. It looks really nice although it feels a bit crowded to me with all of the baby furniture in the room too.
When we found out that I would be going back to work (more on that later), Holly had the idea that we should spend my last few days of unemployment working on our bedroom. Holly started by suggesting that we just rearrange the furniture but our whole layout is designed around the cable jack and we couldn’t move the TV so we couldn’t move anything else. Holly told me that if I would be willing to move things, she’d let me get a new TV that we could mount on the wall. Again, there’s the whole “the cable jack is on the other side of the room thing” but I looked at the situation and determined that it would be easy enough to run a cable through the attic and punch it out of the wall behind where the TV would be hung so I consented.
As Holly started getting things ready to be rearranged, she commented on how dusty everything was behind all of the furniture and decided that in addition to moving things around, we also needed to clean. It wasn’t long before this “cleaning” involved taking everything out of the room and painting. This all happened four days before I started my new job.
Holly and I have been married for nearly 12 years and we’ve never really painted our room any color other than white. We checked out paint samples and decided to go with “Desert Camel”, a nice color that resembles what a camel might look like after a nice bath. We also picked up everything that we would need to mount a TV on the wall, including a 26″ Vizio.
That afternoon, I spent three hours trying to pull cable through the attic so that we could have a signal going to the new TV. I ended up having to punch a big hole in the wall in order to get the cable into the attic which I was not happy about. This meant that I would have to patch drywall which would slow down painting the room. It was a much bigger job than either Holly or I had anticipated but we got it done. I hope that I never have to work up in the attic for that amount of time again.
The following day we were able to start painting. Holly had to work that night so I took it upon myself to complete our room faster than we had Alex’s. I was up until 4:00 AM painting but I succeeded. The next day was spent putting the furniture back into the bedroom. It was nice to only be displaced for a little more than a day.
One thing that I didn’t get painted is our bathroom. There is no door separating the bathroom from the bedroom so it really needed to be done too. Fortunately for me, Holly took this upon herself and started working on it this week.
Now that the bedrooms are all painted, and the downstairs is painted, we just have the rest of the house. That’s going to be a very big job that I’m not looking forward to doing anytime soon. We do want it done before the baby comes though so I’m sure I’ll be spending a good part of December painting since the school semester will be over.
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