Painting,Painting,Painting

I feel like Martin Sheen's character at the beginning of Apocalypse Now. "Saigon, I can't believe I'm still in fucking Saigon." Or maybe it's more like being Sisyphus from Greek mythology. He pissed off the Gods & wasn't sentenced to push a rock up a hill in Hades for all Eternity. Everytime he got the rock close to the top it would roll to the bottom & he'd have to start all over again. That's what painting your own house is like.

My home has approximately 2700+ square feet of living space. It's a two story colonial with a two car garage, master suite above the garage, & some dormers. It's pretty big. It's pretty high up too. Higher up than I've ever gone up on a ladder personally. I bought a 28' ladder to do the job & may need a taller ladder to reach to the top of the house before the job is done.

We're scraping & power washing the whole damn thing. We're priming the whole thing. We're painting the whole thing. We're doing it all ourselves. Ourselves means me, DD, & DW. The ladies are 4'6" & 4'8" respectively. DW doesn't do ladders. DD doesn't do tall ladders (okay by me). They have helped a great deal but, the lion's share of the work has been done by yours truly. They have painted down below & have helped with the doors. I get the dormers & everything higher up than 8': most of the house. It's a big project.

At my paying job I work 45-50 hours a week. Every other week I get two days off, othewise one full day off per week. On my days off, when the sun is shining, I'll easily put in a 10-12 hour day painting. Weekends, even if I'm working I'll put in 3-4 hours of painting when I get home. It's slow work. It feels like we've been doing it forever already but, we really only started it on Memorial Day.

The back of the house is done. Except for a little work around the back door. The front is almost done; front porch completed, garage & garage dormers are done. Yet to be completed: the dormers over the front porch, the tricky side of the mainhouse near the garage (steep roof,don't yet know how to get up there safely), & the tall,tall sides of the house. The left side of the house is where the electricity comes in & I don't yet know what I'm going to do there. Every piece of climbing apparatus I own is labelled with "Warning:This will conduct electricity & fry your ass!" Maybe I'll have the electric company kill the power for a day.

The leftover parts of the house are going to be the toughest. A lot of it I'm going to do have to do all on my own. Oh boy. I don't mind. Really. But, I really look forward to the day I can take a DAY OFF. It seems since my In-laws went to India in January I have had my days off swallowed up by one construction project after another. This boy needs some rest. Some day.

DD & DW have been very helpful. DW however, several times has really pushed the envelope. She's a hard working person. She's pushes herself hard (and me harder). When she gets tired she gets cranky. It has taken large reserves of patience to walk away from a potential donnybrook because she's starting to lose it from fatigue. If I didn't know her better I might try to reason with her but, I have learned to say nothing, grit my teeth, go workout, & she's usually better in the morning.

My one complaint. DW will never understand after I have worked a twelve hour day on the house I do not want to hear her say "That's all you've done?" This work is slow. It's tedious. Progress is made at a snail's pace. I'm not a professional. This is my home & I don't want to screw it up so, maybe I don't move as fast as a pro. I'd like an occasional Attaboy. Even a "Why don't you take today off?" Neither are going to happen. It's not in her makeup. She has many fine features but, a cheerleader she's not.

Painting the house has become a major focus of my life. It will lead to several very nice things: a new Big-Ass TV, a Bose sound system, new Ipod for DD (old one to me for running,Thank You very much), clothes for the lady of the house. It will be satisfying to have done it ourselves. Bob Vila, kiss my ass. Those are good things.

The bad things: it puts a strain on all of us at the house, we're all working very hard. I'm working the hardest & still trying to maintain a weight loss program & an exercise program. I still workout religiously. I've gotten a little rundown though. I know the recent flu bug kicked my ass so badly because I've been so fatigued.

It's a DIY project that seems more & more like a prison sentence. I don't remember what I used to do with my downtime before painting. I must've had downtime before. Didn't I?