Whatever it takes…

Mama lives in a very old country farmhouse, with wood walls and ceilings.  About 5 years ago Scott and I painted the outside of her house, and she mentioned that she hadn’t painted inside in over 20 years.  She kinda hinted that she wanted her bedroom painted.  Well, 5 years later, I finally got to it.  First we pulled all the furniture to the center of the room.  Then I washed down all the walls and ceilings.  I caulked the cracks between the wall and ceiling boards, trying to keep the heat from escaping.   I put a first coat of white on the ceiling (the ceiling was kinda brownish due to smoke from the heater and general dust).  It really brightened up the room.  I called her in to get approval and she said “It looks fine.”  So I put on a second coat.   After that I painted part of one wall, then called her in to check out the color.  She said “It looks fine.”  I told her she was supposed to come in and say, “Oh, I love it! It’s beautiful!”  Haha, not my mama.  She’s never been overly demonstrative and is kinda timid about cutting up.  So I painted walls for three days, with all the caulking and sanding and scraping I had to do.  Then I decided she needed some shoe molding, as daddy never got around to doing that.  His comment was “She’s got wall to wall furniture, so nobody’s gonna be able to see it anyway!”  Ever the practical (and always finding the easy way out).  But she has these beautiful hand crafted 8 inch baseboards and they just didn’t look complete.  So for two days I sanded, painted, cut, nailed, caulked and puttied nail holes.  I called her in to show her the progress.  She said “It looks fine.”  Well, after all that, I just couldn’t leave the room with the carpet so dirty.  She had never had carpet before living in this house and had no idea how to clean it properly.  So for two days, I’ve been on my hands and knees with carpet cleaner and a stiff brush cleaning spots from spills, then a good vacuuming.  Cleaned the ceiling fan blades and light covers, caulked around the windows, and started moving my tools out.  I haven’t done the windows and doors yet, as that’s a whole other week of scraping and caulking, priming and painting.  So when all was almost back in place I called her in to see the finished product and she said (with a bashful little grin)  “Well, ain’t it pretty?”  That was worth it all!!!  I do love that old lady.

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