10 things I learned on the weekend

1. If, on the weekend that I have a room-painting project planned, and the other plans for a drink or two on the Friday night with some other Ottawa-area bloggers fall through, I will take this as a sign that I should stay home on Friday and start preparing the room for painting. I will not call up another friend and whine about cabin fever until she invites me out to spend the evening playing pool and drinking beer at another friend's house. And even if I do that again, I will come home that night instead of staying over at her house, having a few more beers, and driving home in the morning.

2. It is kind of amusing, in a Beavis and Butt-Head kind of way, to remark to your friend over a beer, "Guess what I bought at Home Depot today? Caulk. [pause] And a caulking gun." Don't do this while your friend actually has a mouthful of beer. (Heh, heh, heh, I said 'caulk'.)

3. You can't get much furniture dismantling/painting prep work done Saturday morning if you're lying on the couch under an afghan with a headache.

4. If you're having trouble smoothing the Polyfilla over some holes in the wall that used to hold mirror-mounting hardware, don't just over-fill them and figure you'll just sand the excess off in the morning. The sanding takes forever.

5. If you bring your upright vacuum (your new upright vacuum) to suck up the voluminous amounts of Polyfilla dust from sanding (see 4. above) remember that even if you have the hose and wand pulled out of the vacuum, the beater bar will still be running. You must be careful that the vacuum is not sitting on the edge of one of your drop cloths, or it will be sucked into the beater bar of the vacuum, thus jamming it and breaking the belt that drives the beater bar. Did I mention it was a new vacuum?

6. When using the caulking gun, just because you stop pulling the trigger, it doesn't mean that the caulk stops coming out.

7. Silicon caulk is hard to get off your hands once it hardens, it's like peeling skin.

8. Painting the ceiling makes your neck sore.

9. If, after you're done painting, you can't get all the paint out from under your fingernails, don't worry. If the paint is light enough, it just looks like you have a French manicure.

10. It was totally worth it. The dismantling of the bed (by myself), the moving of the mattresses, the bedframe, the bureau, the wall washing, prepping, cutting in and rollering the ceiling and walls, and most of that while nursing a hangover. My bedroom is now the exact colour of strawberry ice cream. It's cool and delicious.