The Absolute Horror of Paint Stripping

I watch those HGTV, DIY and Discovery Home programs all the time while I'm working. I watch as some elegant lady describes how they restored their home and I watch the hosts of the show shower them with praise and admiration. My, what work it was for them to be inconvenienced by the workers they contracted out to do the work. Give me a break. I don't' want to hear the lady talk about how "inconvenient" it was to have to put up with all the dust. Really? Try doing the work, lady.

They didn't restore their home, someone did it for them. They didn't paint or shampoo the rugs, they didn't strip the woodwork, they didn't even draw up the plans for the addition. Yes, oh my, they had the absolute awful, stressful job of picking out the fixtures. Hmm.

I had an in-law relative once claim to have built a house. It was a few years before I found out he never lifted a hammer. He "oversaw" what the workers were doing, meaning he sat sipping a cold drink and watched some contractor he hired and the contractor's crew work. He helped make some decisions on the fixtures and how many rooms and the size of the rooms . I was so impressed that he was able to build a house until I found out the truth. Anyone can pick out the fixtures and watch the other people work.

Once in a while they will have on those shows, someone that actually took a toothbrush and stripped all the crevices on the stair spindles and stripped all the layers of old wallpaper, that saved the old windows and restored them one by one until they were as good as new, that made the custom gate for the yard, that made the stained-glass windows, that tore out the toilet and fixed the leaks, that repaired parts of the foundation, that made screen doors and windows, that repaired, plastered, and painted the ceilings and walls and even painted the artwork on canvases in the frames hung on the walls, that tore out the old carpets and stripped and sanded the hardwood floors.....and then to have someone ask that person, oh, you don't work? you don't have a job? must be nice! Oh, wait, that person that doesn't work is not on the show, it's me.

Now, why now after all these projects am I complaining? It's not that I still have dozens of major projects hanging over my head and it's not that there is no satisfaction in completing these projects and when I'm done we'll have a real nice house. It's that paint stripping is the worst, the worst! of all possible jobs that I have done. And when the paint goes back up on the wood, no one but us will even notice the difference.

The real reason why I'm writing this is because I don't want to go back in just yet and finish that paint stripping. I'm enjoying sitting here in front of my computer sipping on an ice cold coke. Oh, you work at a computer desk all day? Must be nice!