Sometimes you have to just get dirty!

Bleeding Knuckles - March 14th 2010
Sometimes you have to just get dirty and it was my turn to work the weekend at the duplex rental. Brian couldn't work the reno because he had to work the weekend at the store. I volunteered to put in my time to keep the reno moving forward. A little over a week ago we finally got started in the basement suite. I'm very anxious to see how it is going to evolve. That's what I loved most about the upstairs reno, which still needs more polishing touches before we can mark it off as completed. Meanwhile we're diving into the basement reno with anticipation to see how it is going to evolve as well.

So now I've rolled up my sleevs and I'm ready to tackle my list. Let me explain that although my list is half the length of the one upstairs, each task seems much harder to me. Now because these tasks are very physical (not something I am very adept at) and time consuming, I managed to only get 3 jobs done. I told myself, "Charlotte, tackle the hardest job first while you still have the energy level". So, I knuckled down (pardon the pun, you'll understand why later) and started scraping the hallway walls.

Let me explain why I had to scrape the walls. At one time in the life of this house somebody (it wasn't us) plastered the hallway with some form of stucco you might see on a ceiling. Then the walls were painted over several times (ok, that might have been us but I'm sure it was only once). Scraping walls was necessary and extremely hard to do! Let's just say that even the word "scraping" sounds painful and it was. Sometimes the tool I was using, well, actually the tool using the tool had an over-zealous moment. If you turn the thingymbob at just the wrong angle you can inflict pain on yourself as your knuckles scrape against the tiny, hard bumps along the wall. Actually this instrument of torture should have this warning: "Warning: this scraperthingy you just bought may result in bloody knuckles if not held at a 45* degree angle when in use". I don't know, something like that might have helped me or at least a scraper-do-dad lesson might have been in order.

My husband, a true handy man to have around, just isn't that handy when it comes to tidying up after himself. The upstairs kitchen and living room needed some organizing and general tidying up. I put all his tools in the storage room, picked up all the tools and product strewn all over the counter and then cleaned the sink and counter tops. I swept, picked up trash and recylables. By this time I took a lunch break. It was a beautiful day outside so I drove to Wendy's and got a salad, drove back to the duplex and sat outside in my car as I ate my lunch.

After lunch it was time to move on to the next task. I went back and tried a little more scraping but that didn't last long. Next I washed kitchen walls, although that was even more painful than the scraped knuckles. You see when you use TSP (heavy duty degreaser and all purpose cleaning product made with Trisodium phosphate) you really should wear rubber gloves. When we were cleaning up the debris from the kitchen demolition I already wore the rubber gloves for protection and gripping ability. I really don't recommend using rubber gloves as work gloves. I'm sure it was the nails that did them in. Rubber gloves do not withstand water or other strong, flesh eating liquids when they have holes in them. My fresh wounds came in contact with the TSP and the result was Terrible Stinging Pain.

The walls were stained with nicotine and sometimes I had to scrub really hard. I only say this because when I was done my finger tips were almost burning. Finally I headed back to the hallway and tried again to finish the scraping but by this time my arms are about to fall off so I finally had to call it quits.

Brian will just have to finish this tomorrow.