No Words
There are no words to describe what it felt like to paint "summer moon" over top of Big I’s princess room and Lil C’s ocean room this past weekend. We made sure to get a photo shoot before we started painting so the girls would always remember their rooms. O.k., it was probably more for me than for them. . .
When the shoot was finished, Big I seemed at ease with the transition. Me on the other hand. . .
Then it was time for Lil C’s shoot.
Well, maybe there are a few words to describe it. . .
Can’t read it? "This Sucks" and "Buyers who don’t like kids rooms can KISS MY. . ."
All you really need to know is this. Big I now loves her room. Lil C has told me to "take that paint off acause I miss my blue room." You should also know that I sobbed as we painted Lil C’s room; but Mr. BBM helped to make it all better with Nachos Belle Grande and some Miller Light.
("After" pictures to follow later this week after new carpet is installed and my emotions aren’t so raw.)
Psycho Detection Skills Required
As I was taking a box out to the garage today, a man pulled up in front of our house, got out of his car and took a flier from our "for sale" sign. As I walked back from the garage, the man stood in front of my house reading the flier. When I got closer, he asked me if I was the owner of the home. I said that I was. He asked me a couple questions about our garage and parking spaces. He asked me if he was parked in one of our spaces and I told him that he was in our neighbor’s spot.
He then said, "So I should probably move my car up to the visitor parking area before you show me your house." He stared at me waiting for a response.
After painting for 12 hours this weekend (more to come on this tomorrow), I was completely exhausted and probably lacking any form of poker face. All I could think of as I stood there looking at this middle-aged single man who was by himself was, "It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again."
I quickly told him he should call his realtor or call the number on our sign and speak with our realtor so that he can make an appointment.
"Oh," he said, "well, then I’ll just take this" he said as he gestured at his flier. He seemed a bit put-off by my very polite response. I went inside, locked both the locks on my door and considered turning my security system on. My realtor warned me about people like that, but I didn’t ever really think I’d encounter one.
As I sit here many hours later, I find it interesting that we didn’t later get a call from the showing center. If he was in such a hurry to see our property today, then why didn’t he make an appointment to come back? Something tells me that my psycho killer detection skills were spot-on.
Before and After
I have no skin left on my knuckles. I’m completely exhausted. All I do is think about how I can restage, rework and get an offer by Monday when our contingency is up on our new house contract. So, do the changes that we’ve made make a difference?
Kitchen floor before. We had a 16 year old floor that had faded and was stained in some areas:
Kitchen floor after. We put in a new tile floor (peel and stick) in about five hours:
Living room before, which was completely set up to watch the TV on the opposite wall:
Living room after, which is now staged to focus attention on the marble gas fireplace.
Big I’s room before, where a big full size loft bed blocked the window and made the room appear small:
Big I’s room after replacing her loft bed with a twin sized day bed:
So, think I can have my own show now or what?
If you can’t bring the heel to the butt. . .
I am just one finger away from having my heel touch my butt. One finger. That is it; and it seems like it’s going to be impossible to get it to go just that teeny tiny little bit further.
Today I told my PT I have a plan. Instead of continuing to torture myself with painful flexion, I’m just going to start eating lots and lots of ice cream and potato chips. If I can’t get my heel to my skinny butt, then I’ll bulk up the butt and bring it to my heel.
My PT and another ACL recoveree thought it was pretty funny. Personally, I think it’s pretty smart. Bigger buns are in these days anyway right? The problem is that with all the biking, treadmilling, and leg pressing I’m doing, I’m tightening up and making getting that heel to touch that much harder.
Bring on the mint chocolate chip and salt & vinegar potato chips. I’ve got a plan and I’m prepared to use it.
Designed to Hurt
Last night Mr. BBM and I were up until after 2 a.m. putting in a new kitchen floor. We started around 9 p.m., once the girls were fast asleep, and we’re still not finished. I ordered two books last week: "The Idiot’s Guide to Staging a Home for a Quick Sale" and "Designed to Sell." Five of our rooms got completely reworked in the form of new bedding, different curtain scenarios and rearrangement of furniture this weekend. Then we got cocky and decided we could bang out a new floor in just a couple of hours.
Can I tell you how much I hate the person who built my current house? I seriously think he must have failed geometry class and has no business being a builder. Either that or he came to work seriously lit. There is not a wall in my house that is square. We found out the hard way last night.
Since I couldn’t be on my hands and knees to painstakingly place each tile, I spent the night scooting around on my butt which has brought a whole host of aches and pains today. I’m fairly certain I’ve pulled my butt muscle. My back hurts every time I blink and the back of my thighs feel like they’re under attack. I also seriously broke a nail. It’s the kind of break that takes some of the skin along with it and looks like total crap for a good week or two.
Mr. BBM isn’t in much better shape. His knees are swollen. His back is aching from lifting up the refrigerator while I tried to quickly and carefully wiggle tiles into place (Note: quickly and carefully have no business being used in the same sentence). Also note that I strongly suggested cutting the tiles since who looks under the fridge anyway, but Mr. BBM was in much too much of a determined and exhausted mood to be told he didn’t have to act like the Incredible Hulk by lifting a refrigerator he had no business lifting all by himself. He eventually saw the error of his ways and believe it or not, my idea to cut the tiles worked just fine and nobody had to break their back. I did it while Mr. BBM sprawled out on the floor proclaiming he might be dying.
At 9:40 p.m. last night Mr. BBM said that we were going to have a ton of tiles leftover. It was going that well. Today, we have six tiles, and I am betting that we’ll need about 20 just to get the stupid angle right where the kitchen floor meets the hardwood floors of the entranceway. We’ll have also created about 60 new ways to swear during that process. Mr. BBM and I wrecked about six tiles last night trying to fit one into a single spot; and I have never heard Mr. BBM swear so much. His swearing and the fact that he was wandering aimlessly around the kitchen with cut up tiles stuck to his pants made me so silly I could hardly breathe from laughing so hard.
We’re also getting a quote this week on new neutral carpeting to replace all of the pink carpet in each of the three bedrooms, hallway and stairs. We figure that if it doesn’t sell, we’ll at least have new flooring. New flooring we can live with; painting the girls’ rooms when we might have to end up staying here anyway? Not gonna happen. We’re standing firm on that. Yes, that’s my final answer Regis, Meredith and Mr. Realtor.
We did however, remove Big I’s full sized loft bed from her room this weekend and replaced it with a twin day bed on loan from my sister. It’s opened up the room so much and despite her original protests, I think Big I is fairly happy with her new digs.
I read in one of my books that you should invest 1-3% of the asking price of your house in improvements and then you can plan to get it all back and then some. By removing the objectionable pink carpet and old kitchen floor, we’re hoping to do just that. Of course, we should probably figure some chiropractor bills into that equation, and possibly a massage therapist. . .
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