Back into the swing(set) of things…

The “painting of the house” phase of the swingset installation has begun. We have an entire crew working on every side of the house, or maybe it’s just one guy that follows me from room to room. All I know is, every time I look out a window, there’s a guy on a ladder with a caulk-gun looking back at me.  Yes, I said caulk-gun. You caught that did you? I thought they were hired to paint the house, too. Apparently, you can’t just paint a house. There are MANY steps before you can even THINK about picking up a paint brush. {sigh} Oh, my kingdom for a one step project.

Steps you must take before painting the house:

1.  Get city of Celebration’s approval to paint your house. (color chosen from the official Celebration’s paint choices book that you have to check out from city hall by leaving a $100. deposit.)

2.  Hang the official permission papers in your front window so everyone knows that you’ve gotten approval and are a rule-following, no-wave-making, left-my-spine-at-the-border citizen of Celebration. 

3.  Find and hire a painting contractor that can live up to my anal…um…I mean perfection-seeking husband.

4.  Warn said contractor about my husband’s expectations and make him sign in blood a private agreement that he WILL meet my husband’s expectations or both of our lives will be a living hell.

5. The house has to be “prepared” or “prepped” to be painted. This includes tearing off all the rotting trim from the house and replacing it with new plastic trim. (chew on THAT, you damn termites!)

6. The entire house has to be pressure washed. Mark was downright giddy because the contractor washed our fence “without even being asked”. I think it may be true love.

7. The shutters (which are fake) have to be removed and replaced, along with the fake screen on the fake window in the fake dormer which is on top of our house. (Hmmm…maybe we should have paid fake money when we bought this place.)

8.  The house gets not 1 coat of primer but 2. 2 coats of primer and 2 coats of paint. This house will be painted 4 times before they’re finished. 4 coats of paint for the house and I can’t even get 1 coat of polish on my nails. Where is the justice I ask you?

The best part about having the paint crew here is that Mark had 3 guys to help him lift the play-house onto the swingset’s platform!

We have actual progress at the Hooper household. No pennies, but actual progress.