This Old House

Husband came home the other day with plans. Big plans.  Plans so big they are actually 'Plans.'

"We are renovating!" he said in a deep voice with chest out-thrust and hands fisted on hips.

(Side note:  there are three things Husband and I do not do well together, three exceptions to the marital bliss we call life.  1. Move the sectional, 2. Deal with doggie-sick on the carpets and 3. Renovate. This can only end with bloodshed.)

Without hesitation, without a seconds' pause, without a drop cloth, Husband immediately began to coat the walls of every room in the house with Spackle.  The Polka-Dot Door could film a show in my living room.  And in the kitchen, stairwell, front entrance and upstairs hallway. 

And it didn't stop there.

With zest and vigor and still no drop cloths, Husband began prepping the guest room for paint.  Prepping, for the uninitiated, means shoving all the furniture into a pile in the middle of the room and slapping primer on the walls.  It was while in the middle of this Husband casually mentioned he was glad to be getting the room painted as his mother would be coming for the weekend.  In about three (3) days.

For those having trouble keeping up, let's take stock.  Walls: splattered with Spackle from kitchen to coat closet.  Furniture: in a heap.  ONLY guest room: in shambles.  Mother-in-law: arriving in t minus 3 days. Husband: endangered species.

It was while searching through the basement to find a good edging brush to correct the mess made by the bad edging brush that the drop cloths were found.  It was while laying the drop cloths in the guest room that the dessicated dog sick was discovered.  It was while hunting for spot remover under the kitchen sink that the good edging brush was found.  It was while disposing of the bad edging brush in the garage that the spider dropped into my hair.  It was while explaining to Husband how my hair, face, glasses and shirt got coated with paint that I decided he could handle this situation on his own.  It was after my second beer that I calmed down.

Husband can do amazing things.  He can fly a plane and sew a jacket together from scratch.  He can free-fall and fold laundry. He can paint a room all by himself when threatened with a cot in the 'spider cave' if he is not done before Mother-in-law arrives.  The room looks fantastic.  Mother-in-law made the appropriate sort of fuss over our efforts and Husband has promised that his very next task is to find the spider camping out in the garage and firmly usher it out the door.  I was hoping he would perhaps start on the house-wide game of connect the dots he has created with Poly-Filla but I've learned to pick my battles and will gladly accept having a scale diagram of the constellation Leo on my living room wall if it means spider-free access to my garage.

But only for so long.