I woke up early, before 8am with Sam. Since I have to go to bed early when Sam stays, I’ve had my eight hours – and I only reckon I need six – so it is time for me to wake up too. I made coffee and muesli and went back to bed until Shane left for work.
I prop myself up on my pillows and absorb the morning. Mornings are truly lovely. Really.
What to do today? My employer – wow, listen to that – could call at any moment and give me a work assignment. Oh, wouldn’t it be lovely if it was tomorrow instead of today? Tomorrow would be just fine. Mondays off and all that. That way, with a call tomorrow, I wouldn’t be working until Wednesday, which is my preferred way to ease into the working week... the new work cycle.
When I found the paint, Summer Range, last week, for the front bedroom repairs, I also found the paint for my bedroom ceiling, Jade Blue. My bedroom has a blue ceiling, green walls, a sand coloured cornice with mustard in the cove. All of the woodwork is light sand coloured with dark sand picked out highlights. I painted it all myself, albeit quite a few years ago now. They are all heritage Edwardian colours from the Edwardian period.
I had talked to Sam about finally painting over the mess Kim had made of my bedroom ceiling when he flooded my room, and flooded the bathroom, twice. That’s what you get for living with junkies. I would advise against it, sharing with junkies. He was a speed freak for a propensity to get things done, WAM! NOW! LET’S GO! NOW! GO! GO! GO! …like the elaborate sprinkler system, he had for his few hanging baskets. It was a feat and completely over engineered. Just pity those times when he ran out of steam and didn’t realise he’d left the watering system turned on and primed, so that the pressure built up… and up… and up… and… out the water escaped. For 3 days while the rest of us were away for a long weekend and he was KAPUT! In a stupor.
Oh, how many years ago now? Ten years ago? Maybe? Well, I’m sick of waking up in the mornings and having that damage to my ceiling being the first thing I see, when I lay back to take a few extra moments.
Buoyed by my work in my spare room, at the ease at which I completed the task. Feeling good that I still have the talent, even if it has been a long time between renovating drinks.
How long could it take? I thought. I could get this knocked over in the morning? One ceiling. Sure.
First, I had to sand off the patching, which Kim at least did. On a ladder up close and personal to the ceiling, I was soon covered in white powder, like a dusted sponge cake, or a maniac at a cocaine snorting Saturday night.
Cough, cough, cough, cough. I was off to find my face mask in no time. My glasses acted somewhat like safety glasses, but not enough like, and my eyes soon started to sting with the contamination.
I started painting by hand with a brush. I painted over the patched areas by Kim, which kind of confused me in the end, I should have been more scientific about it. I soon got to the point where I wasn’t sure what had been painted and what hadn’t. It all got a little confusing.
Then I had to cut-in the whole ceiling with the different coloured ceiling colour to the cornice work colour… blue over sand. Sky blue, too. If someone said they had a sky blue ceiling I’d think, oh really. But I have one. Funny.
I had a third of the ceiling painted by early afternoon when I was sick of it. Really sick of it, no more. Oh, what to do? Oh, I wish I hadn’t started this. Oh me, oh my. I can’t see the end, it is not in sight. I can’t see it finished, I can’t feel the delight.
Oh. Sigh.
I had been painting by brush because a roller splatters paint everywhere and I didn’t want to have to empty the room. I can paint quite efficiently with a brush without spilling it everywhere. But it takes much longer.
The room was pulled apart, the bed was in the middle of the room, the mats were taken up, the tables and chairs all removed to the hallway. But the bed, the desk, the TV, the paintings and all of the odds and sods on the mantelpiece.
But now I was sick of it and wanted to speed the process up. So… think? I’ll will go and buy some cheap plastic covers from the paint shop and just cover everything in plastic. I’ll get a roller and an extension handle and I will paint the last of it with a roller. Fuck it.
And that’s what I did. It cost $25. Money well spent, let me tell you.
I had it finished by 4pm. I had it all cleaned up by 5pm. My arms hurt and my back hurt and my left foot seemed to have pins and needles, so I had a shower and took to my bed.
I stayed in bed until 8.30. Shane came home but I didn’t feel like talking to him much. I have to sort out the front bedroom with him. I suggested I wanted to rent it out and he said he’d pay the extra. Except, I have already been waiting for him to change rooms since Xmas 2010. More fool me, hey? It’s disappointing that he just seems to think he can do whatever he wants with it, suit himself, but then again, I guess I need to tell him.
I find that hard. (What I find hard is having to continue to tell him)
I always figure that people are going to do what they say they are going to do. But, I guess, I have to keep on it. To discuss something once, apparently, is only the act of opening the dialogue.
I sat back and admired my handy work in the fading light of the day. And I could feel what it felt like to have completed the task. I could feel what it felt like to have finished. Dare I say, I felt pride in the outcome. I felt clever about my efforts. I was pleased, after all this time of being patched, that my lovely ceiling was restored to its original beauty.
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