I Am the Queen of Spackle

The Home Improvement Quest continues.

The front hallway is now sparkly white -- it really looks great. (Anyone want to buy a townhouse in suburban DC?)

I've decided to set teeny tiny goals for myself; goals that I can actually achieve in an hour or so. You'd think that a person wouldn't necessarily have to do that, but the prospect of getting the house in shape is so daunting sometimes -- PAINT! CLEAN! DECLUTTER! RECYCLE! -- that I just get overwhelmed.

So these little mini-goals work for me. Yesterday I put a second coat of paint on the front door while Joe put a coat of Kilz on the remaining bits of hallway. (Have I mentioned that I love Kilz?) Then we went out for lunch and a movie. We chose The Molly Maguires, a 1970 movie starring Sean Connery and Richard Harris, playing at our favorite repertory movie house.

This morning Joe switched to eggshell white for the hallway bits, while I armed myself with the tub of spackle, a wall patch, and the putty knives -- my weapons in the war on wall dings. I'm very dangerous with a putty knife -- nothing is safe from a healing patch of spackle.

I filled up the drywall cracks under the bedroom windows, smoothed over the scratches that the cat inflicted when hauling her furry self onto the windowsill, and then -- the piece de resistance -- I repaired a hole in the drywall. Hurray for Dap wall repair patches! As I was starting down the basement steps I noticed a ding in the living room wall. Hah! Never more will I have to look at that, for I have spackle.

(By the way, did you know that a pumice stone makes a perfectly acceptable substitute for sandpaper? Okay, maybe it's not perfect, but it. will. do.)

Now that the painting and spackling of the walls is complete, it's time for the eating of lunch, the picking up of prescriptions, the getting of gas (in several senses, most likely), and the indulging in of ice cream.

And I will leave the putty knife at home.

**Two pats on the head to Jim, the first to identify Mr. Bainter the Painter as a character on Cap'n Kangaroo, but consolation prizes of one pat on the head to everyone else who guessed correctly!