Our beautiful blue walls, which turned out so perfectly once they had dried, were destroyed by the 3M company and their psycho painters tape. Alright, maybe it's not the TAPE's fault, but as we began to remove the tape, no matter how slowly and carefully we worked at it, chunks of paint came off with it. EVERYWHERE. Along the ceilings, the baseboards, the trim, the corners... EVERYWHERE. Not only was the paint ripping, but the tape was ripping and leaving miniscule slivers IN the paint, that then had to be dug out with a fingernail, and usually took more paint with them once they were finally removed. Ugh. Needless to say, Ben was just about beside himself with pure, unadulterated rage by about 5 minutes into the process, while I sat quietly peeling tape and trying not to express my own frustration for fear that even my small contribution would be the straw that broke the camel's back, and the roof would finally give way and go flying off. It was NOT an enjoyable afternoon, to say the least. This was Saturday. We got rid of the tape, sat around in the floor being pissed off, and then went to Ron and Jeanne's for some good, old-fashioned sorrow-drowning. I didn't feel so hot the next day, after my two beers and at least 3 glasses of wine. Yikes. But I needed it after trying to calm Ben's Bonner Fit all afternoon. "You can paint all you want but I'm DONE." "We're painting it all back to white and never touching a paint can again." You get the idea. So that was AWESOME.Sunday we went down to DC to see the cherry blossoms, which were in full bloom on a lovely spring day. It was actually a little hot walking around the mall! Being such a lovely day, and a weekend day at that, it was INCREDIBLY packed everywhere we went (the subway, the sidewalks, the memorials, the FOOD STAND... I won't even get into THAT fiasco execpt to say that it took us about 3 hours to have lunch!). We walked all over creation, saw the Washington monument, the WWII memorial, the Lincoln Memorial (from a distance), and walked along the Potomac with the lovely cherry blossoms and weeping willows. We were with Amberly and Chris and the boys (Leo, 4 and Evan, 16 months), and they actually did very well. Leo LOVED the metro ride - he just LOVES trains so between the metro train itself and the cargo trains that run along side it, he was in heaven :) Evan got a little restless at times, but he did take a nap in his stroller for part of the time, and he was generally pretty cooperative for a 16-month-old. It was a long day for them, so they were definitely starting to hit that invisible wall toward the end of the day, but it was a lot of fun and I'm so glad we got to spend the day on a nice outing with them :)
Monday, we went back to the apartment to try to fix "the mess". Ben still wasn't really in any frame of mind to be working on it, but we both REALLY wanted to get it taken care of so that it was off our minds. We tried a few things on a small scale that were obviously NOT going to do the trick, so we ended up re-taping, filling in along the edges with a sponge applicator, letting the fill-in dry for about 2 hours (during which I took him to our neighborhood PF Changs for a beer and some good food in hopes that he'd chill out!), filling in again with a second coat, and then immediately peeling the tape off. It worked. Since the paint never dried completely to the tape, there was no ripping. The combination of the eggshell finish (which of course changes the chemistry and the behavior of the paint), and the fact that there were 3 coats of completely dry paint forming a bridge between the wall and the tape, made for a total disaster that we now know how to avoid. Either don't tape and use an edger, or remove the tape immediately and re-tape if a second coat is necessary after the first one dries. If nothing else, this has helped my cause with the giant living room wall situation - Ben definitely doesn't want to paint it dark red anymore :) We'll still do the dark red on some normal walls as an accent, but the big wall AIN'T HAPPENIN. I'm thinking of doing a lighter color in the kitchen too, just because I don't want to have to prime and do 2 coats in there, with all the cutting in and trimming around things that painting the kitchen requires. I'm thinking perhaps a nice sunny orange or yellow, or maybe a sage green. We shall see. But I need to make sure that it fits with the color in the living room (the space sorta runs together, at least visually), and I'm really not going for the McDonalds look, so yellow might be out. The red is definitely on the purple-y side, so it wouldn't be too bad, but I'd rather just avoid the possibility of my home looking like a hot dog stand.
So that's where we stand on the painting project. We've spent two weekends working on it and the bedroom STILL isn't finished. We still have to fill in with the light color where the tape for the blue walls was, and that's going to be a BLAST because I refuse to put any tape ON the blue walls. I think I'm going to have to use the edger and then fill in the seam by hand. Ugh. At least we've learned what the specific challenges of that particular scheme (two walls one color and two walls another) are, and we'll know to avoid them next time. Ben will NOT be participating in that project. I hope to start the kitchen and/or bathroom this weekend, and I hope to have some pictures of a FINISHED bedroom to post!
In other news, I am going to be in miserable debt for the rest of my life. I got my "financial aid award letter" from school today. They use the term "award" rather loosely. The only thing I was "awarded" was a 4,000-dollar-per-year grant that I don't have to pay back - the rest (approximately $50,512) is LOANS. DEAR GOD. This is PER YEAR, mind you. DEAR GOD. I knew that this was the amount I'd need to cover tuition and fees and living expenses and such, but I was really hoping to get more free money than that. I think there's still hope for a Senatorial Scholarship from the state, but even that's a long-shot so I'm not putting too many of my eggs in that basket. I looked through the budget that they're giving me these loans for, and I found about $5200 that I can trim (which is over $20,000 that I won't have to borrow over 4 years - HOORAY!), but the rest is on me. Anyway, I'm feeling a little overwhelmed by the reality of all that debt at the moment. I've known that it was coming, but now I actually have to do it. I have to sign the promissory notes and put all that debt in MY NAME. It's scary as hell, depressing as hell, and like I said, very overwhelming. Ben about dropped his teeth when I gave him the total figure. "You can't go to medical school babe. Don't go! We're going to be paying 2 mortagages for the rest of our lives!" ...oh the drama. Ugh. On that note, I think I'll go look for pennies in the sofa.
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