Original Instigator.

 Junior Instigator.

And this is what happens when they work in tandem.

After my run this morning, I was in my magical shower and noticed that my fingernails were no longer tinged orange. This discoloration wasn’t a consequence of my questionable nail polish choices, but rather a remnant of something far more utilitarian: paint stripper. After promptly disregarding the “apply while wearing gloves” guidance on the Non-toxic Citrus-scented Paint Stripper bottle, I learned that the stain removal process takes two weeks on a human body. Nice. 

So why was I engaged in the evil task of stripping paint two weeks ago? That should be easy to answer if you remember my blog entries from January 2010: I was at my favorite spot (home) and quickly up to my neck in another project with my brother and Dad. After last year’s workload, I thought I had gained a healthy distaste of joint compound, but I think it is safe to say that I hate stripping paint far more. 

Just so you know, you should hack down your entire house before you ever decide to go the route of smearing off paint that is happily absorbed into a wooden surface.

Here’s how it all started:

Verizon text received in my e-mail: “I have an idea for a project when you come home”

Which progressed with me following up on this text when I finally got home:

John: “We should build a bench in the living room.”

Me: “That’s a great idea- we can easily get that done in a few days.”

Actually yes, the bench did go in easily. John even let the dumb naval officer use the wood router without destroying his handiwork. I have good teachers.

That was the easy part. How we jumped from building a basic bench to undertaking an evil paint-related albatross is still a mystery in my mind….

There’s a post-Christmas snow storm going on outside and all of a sudden the small bench project has transmogrified into chiseling paint while wearing headlamps in the middle of the night during a power outage (snow + heavy wind = almost like Dakar). 

This was fun for exactly zero seconds…

…and who knew a simple mantle had so many tiny grooves that would require scraping? 

I spent a lot of my Christmas vacation sitting by the fireplace and not getting toasty. Still, there was something very zen about doing this work. Call me a little twisted, but in some respects I actually enjoyed the detail work. Much easier than bricklaying for sure.

We didn’t even tell Dad that we were gonna undertake a massive refacing of the living room woodwork. We just started while he was out for the day. I blame John. My brother and I were working together in happy silence (as usual) when Dad eventually walked in and scanned the living room. He had that “What are you guys up to now?” look that opened up this blog entry up top.

Without a doubt, Dad has the best hand for detail- so we were lucky to rope him into our Tom Sawyer unpainting ruse.

You go nuts if you are knee-deep in a tedious project for too long – every now and then you have to break away and do something fun. So over the four days that we toiled, we usually relaxed in the only way we know how:

And his team won. John earned some white flashes from Dad’s light that signal he was playing well, and like that we were back at home, scraping away while listening to Mel Brooks’s running commentary of his movie Spaceballs.

Still at it. It’s like watching paint dry. But exactly the opposite.

So I don’t have an “after” photo to show you yet. This is because we simply ran out of time before I had to go back to this Africa land business. I’m hoping that by posting this incomplete entry, the lads will get on with putting the finishing touches on the bench and restaining the mantle to a nice wood color.  Do I have my concerns that these projects will be at the same stages when next I return home? Perhaps. But my money is on the power of shaming my Dad and brother into getting their asses in gear since by calling them out in a public forum.

Get up! The job is not yet done!