THIS 'N THAT

WARNING: If you do not have a fondness for Pinterest, HGTV and dirty talk about underwear...you may not appreciate the spine-tingling, gut-gripping drama behind this story.

 

<<<<<<<<<< >>>>>>>>>>

There are two ways to look at this past week. I am either a Whiz-Bang Whirling Dervish of a  home decorator or I am an idiot. Okay, make that three ways, cause it could be a tie. 

Just about the time the crazies on Facebook were making me nostalgic for the Good Old Days - when nobody really cared how you voted or what you ate for supper – one of my girlies sent me an invite to Pinterest. 

Let me say, in my favor, I did not become a Pinterest Ho overnight. I played a short game of  hard-to-get, for no other reason than it took me a while to understand the magical genius of hoarding, er...pinning cyber pictures onto personalized boards to be shared between virtual strangers.

But then, I found THIS:

And before you could say “DIY”, there I was...tumbling down the rabbit hole.

 

Overnight I became a Pinterest crackhead, pinning pictures like a maniac with increasing delusions of grandeur in my ability to recreate each and every project I pinned.

We were a match made in heaven – me and Pinterest. I love working with power tools, I can caulk a blue streak, and have a minuscule attention span. 

 

 

The biggest problem was, I spent so much time pinning home decorating projects that nothing actually got done.  Well, that's not entirely true.  My Pinterest boards became very organized.  I was even clever enough to name my boards with corresponding songs from the oldies:  "colour my world" for painting projects, "if I had a hammer"  for crafting projects...etc.  I know...brilliant!

 

In truth, decorating has always been a stress-reliever for me. The size of the project increases in direct correlation to the size of my perceived stress. Some people eat or drink their feelings.  I hot glue sparkly trim to stuff...while eating and drinking. 

I count on stress for my motivation.  And life never disappoints. 

Shortly after I found my inspirational photo, along came the Stress Train and BOOM!  Just like that I began pulling pins off my Pinterest boards and converting them into reality.  The inspiration of that beautiful black & white harlequin tile in the above photo became THIS:

 

Thankfully, along with dilating eyes and delivering his own babies...my very own Dr. Luke also happens to be a primo tile layer.  And, he works really cheap. 

 

While it took him about four hours to tile the room, it took me another six weeks to get around to grouting.  (Oddly, I hit a dry run of stress.)  When I finally got around to the grouting process, it was not pretty.  I mean, the tile was pretty, but all the other places the grout landed?  Not pretty.  Somehow the BLACK grout found it's way onto my beige carpet and other places...like random body parts that should never ever be grouted. 

 

Suffice it to say that after my grouting fiasco, I needed new carpet.  Then, since I was getting new carpet anyway...it was the perfect time to take out those worthless french doors and replace them with a custom bookcase. 

 

That is how THIS hole ended up in my wall:

 

 

 And let me tell you folks, once you have a hole in your living room wall, there IS no turning back.  The Dickman and I shifted into High Renovational Gear. 

 

[Yes, I dragged the Dickman right on into my decorating frenzy.  I needed him for the heavy lifting.  AND, he has his own toolbelt.  Just like Tim The Toolman Taylor.  Exactly like Tim the Toolman.  Although he works even cheaper than Dr. Luke, I had to make him all sorts of promises (which I have no intention of keeping) to get him to help me out.]

 

There are no words to express what a disaster the hole-in-the-wall bookcase turned out to be.  Nothing about the hole we created was square.  Which means, nothing about the bookcase we created is square. 

 

However, if there is one thing I have learned in life it's this:  you CAN put lipstick on a pig and make it purty. 

 

THAT hole in the wall turned into THIS:

 

I won't even tell you how many curse words were spewed in my attempts at cutting crown molding to look like my inspiration.  I wanted it to look just like THAT:

Aaaaaand...after a little luck and a LOT of spackling, my trim turned out just like THIS:

  

 

So, there we were:  tile grouted, new carpet installed, bookcase completed...a good time to sit back, take a break and enjoy the fruits of our hard labor, right? 

Wrong.  I was one short week away from hosting a bridal shower, which - as hostesses everywhere know - anytime you plan a party, it's time to redecorate EVERYTHING!

I bought a couple gallons of paint and a gadzillion yards of burlap, more glue sticks, feathers and crystals, two old lampshades, enough foam board to fake an 11-foot cornice and back to Pinterest I went. 

The only thing I forgot to remember was that I am 55 years old.  My back and shoulders are 55 years old.

Still, I started off strong.  By Wednesday, my newly tiled room had been transformed into THIS:

 

 (Look fast – this room will mysteriously morph into a mess. Soon.)

Somewhere along the reno way, I had stopped cleaning, cooking and/or eating anything of nutritional value.  By Wednesday, laundry was stacked to the ceiling, my hair was speckled with paint and I had multiple hot glue gun burns on my hands.  (Seriously, who has time to stop for the mundane parts of life when there is HGTV'ing to be done?!)

 

The Dickman, the poor, poor Dickman, began frantically searching for his invisibility cape.

Not only had his Happy Home been taken over by a maniacal power tool wielding woman with paint drying between her toes and a crazed look in her eyes; even worse, his side of the garage had been taken over with...stuff. 

THAT stuff.

I did feel a bit guilty for making the Dickman park out in the cold, but I justified it by the fact that I HAD to park in the garage because I did not have time to put on a bra or shoes when I made my frequent Sonic runs for a Large Diet DP With Vanilla/Easy Ice.  (Only girls will appreciate THAT logic.)

 

On Thursday - two days before The Bridal Shower - I gutted the room on the other side of the bookcase and started painting.  When Dickie came dragging in from work that evening, I greeted him at the door with an armful of electrical fixtures and said, "Hi, Honey!  I'm gonna light up your life!".  He tried to fake a seizure, but it didn't work. Resigned to the task at hand, he asked if he could eat first.  

I looked in the fridge and found three old meatballs and some corn tortillas to which I added some moldy cheese (it was perfectly fine after I cut off the mold),  nuked it and gave him ten minutes to eat.

 

I could hardly wait for the Project of the Night, inspired by THIS Pinterest pic...

And THIS photo of a $200 petticoat swag light that I covertly snapped while browsing through a little store in Fredericksburg:

When it comes to decor, I.Am.Cheap.  And obviously not above stealing ideas.  I found a vintage petticoat on Etsy for $15.00 and two old lampshades for $3.00 at the salvage store.  I bought the shades for their pretty curvy shape, even though one of them was stained with something that looked suspiciously like dried blood spatters, or diarrhea.  I preferred to think the stains were caused by blood, because...well, you know.  Besides,  who would set a lamp so close to the potty?  Does anyone really want that area illuminated? Either way, I donned protective gear before removing the fabric and doing away with all traces of bodily fluid, DNA, etc.

And the lil ol' petticoat and those two gnarly shades turned into THAT:

ME:  Look, Dickie!  With the picnic table moved indoors, I now have a Great Place to do my crafting!

DICKIE:  Oh yay.  Another flat surface.

Somewhere around 2:00 a.m. Saturday morning, it dawned on me that bunches of lovely ladies would be knocking on my door in not-enough-time-to-pull-my-sh*t-together hours.  I quickly guzzled down a 5-Hour Energy drink, pulled up my raggedy big girl panties (the only clean ones left), and shifted into Turbo 'Company's Coming!' Gear.

With one big swoop, I cleared all the cluttered flat surfaces into boxes and tossed them randomly into closets, like THIS...

 

 

I took the clean load of laundry that had been sitting on the bed for a week and stuffed it back into the dryer.  I threw the piano bench that had been stained with a “2-hour drying stain” - yet was still tacky 10 hours later - into Dickie's side of the garage in order to avoid a frivolous lawsuit from miffed shower attendees sporting walnut stain on their buttocks.

Two short hours before the shower I had morphed into every single one of the Seven Dwarfs:  Loopy, Sleepy, Achy, Hungry, Sweaty, Bitchy and Gross.  I was exhausted and starving...mere seconds away from eating a Cheeseburger off my bathroom floor, ala the Hoff.

Instead, I soaked the pain and paint streaks away in a 45-minute bubble bath and picked out an outfit I could wear with leggings.  Commando.  (Don't judge me...my only other clean undergarment was my bathing suit bottoms.  Not a choice at all.) 

 

I don't wanna brag, but except for the bulging lumbar disk, multiple bruises and circles under my eyes...I think I pulled it off. 

Now where is that doggone DID THIS button??

 

 

(P.S.  If you have not yet fallen down the Pinterest rabbit hole and would like an invite, leave me a message below.)