Home Improvement Lesson Learned Numbers 1 and 2

Let me start from the beginning. We are currently in the middle of, lets say, 4 home improvement projects. I am hoping to finish said projects before we own the house outright, but that is neither here nor there. We started by replacing the siding on the back of our house, which still needs painting. Then we moved to painting the front of the house, which looks fabulous even though it lacks minor touch ups. Then we moved inside and replaced the dry wall around our brand new beautiful french doors. My wonderful brothers all have amazing talents and limitless knowledge when it comes to these projects and have helped us immensely. And I am blessed with a husband who is smart enough to design and assemble a spacecraft to the moon if he set his mind to it; he is really good at whatever he does. So I wanted to be just as gifted and asked my little brother, Jonny, to come over and show me how to texture a wall. He came on over and did a crow's feet texture on the back wall. He performed the task effortlessly!

I figured if my little brother could do such a great job, it would be a breeze to texture my front entry way . . . on my own. Hmmmm. So I ripped down the hideous textured wallpaper (what were they thinking, honestly?!) I mixed the mud with some water, just as I had seen Jonny do . . . or at least so I thought. And I began to dip and splat my brush. Agh, by the time I had finished, I had learned home improvement lesson number 1: Never, under any circumstances, should I texture a wall unsupervised.
It was such a horrible, thick, sloppy job (I don't think I added enough water to the mud). So I decided to make it right. I borrowed my Dad's palm sander with the intent of erasing my texture job. Which brings us to home improvement lesson number 2: Always! No, Never!, No, Always! Yes that is right. ALWAYS!!!! Listen to your Dad when he tells you to use the dillybopper to punch holes in the sandpaper PRIOR to using the palm sander. Dads are pretty smart people. Again, on my own, I decided to sand down my big texture mistake--with no supervision. I vaguely remembered my Dad's warning about punching holes, but I figured I wouldn't waste the time. I wasn't really sure how to punch the holes and I didn't spend the time to look inside the case for a hole puncher thingy-ma-bobber. So, goggled and masked, I started sanding down the walls.

Everything was going great and I was so happy to see the texture fade as I dutifully sanded. My goggles were slightly tinted, so I didn't realize what was happening around me as I worked. I noticed the mounds of fine dust building up around me, but didn't think too much of it. Ehem, well, when I finished the job to my liking and took the goggles off, the house was filled with a fine cloud of dust. The girls were sitting in front of the tv, the picture hazey behind the dust, a soft film of dust covering the girls' hair. The floor was covered with dust, the tables were covered in dust, the couches were even a lighter shade of tan thanks to the dust. We quickly opened the doors to try to air the place out and we all grabbed rags and started dusting EVERYTHING! There is still dust in places that I never would have thought possible. And I am sure I will still be cleaning up the dust next week.

So, in conclusion, those are two mistakes I can add to my list of mistakes that will NEVER be made by me again!