Home Improvement Project

Jeremy and I officially started our first home improvement project. Can you guess what we are doing? We are removing the wood paneling!!! Neither of us is experienced in this so we are testing out the process in the hallway first. So far we have the wood paneling off, the gashes in the sheet rock filled and part of the wall textured.

We just started texturing the walls to cover up the unevenness caused by the stubborn glue bubbles that I could not scrape off with my trusty trowel (as an archaeologist I love the varying uses of the trowel - what an amazing tool). So far we have only had one potential mishap. I don't think we were using the texture brush correctly. I know, it sounds like something that is so common sense you'd have to be really dense to not catch on. We even called Javers' sister twice for directions. Oh well. We can sand off the part we already did if it looks too bad.

Probably the best part of the whole process is this video download Javers bought that instructs on how to paint over wood paneling (an option we might use in the living room). It just so happens the video was made in Aberdeen, SD so the guy's accent iss marvelous. The way he talks about what he is doing is extremely entertaining. I wish I could just link to it, but you would have to pay to watch it. The best part is when he is talking about filling in the wood paneling cracks with spackle he gets really excited and lets us know this is where we are really going to get 20 times our money's worth because he is going to impart this marvelous secret. It's a good secret, I won't spoil it for you.

We did just start this weekend, but all is well so far. Javers and I are working together really well on this project. Stuff like this does have the potential to drive a wedge between couples. I think one thing we really have going for us is that we are both a little clueless. Instead of fighting over what each other is doing wrong, we are both desparately hoping the other person has some insight on how to proceed.