I made the announcement yesterday that Our Big Bodacious Painting Project will be continuing into next week. I also published a short blog column the other day explaining why we weren't gliding through our project at a rapid pace. You can read about that here. Towards the end of that blog column, I promised to go into detail about why. It's nothing major or earth-shattering. Nothing terrible happened. It was just a matter of a few obstacles amid our schedule, a late start, and those things that fall into the 'Under the Circumstances' bucket.
To back up a tiny bit, and for those just joining us, I was going to begin Our Big Bodacious Painting Project the week before Lisa went on vacation.
She took this past week off solely for this project.
Unfortunately, I got very sick. The week before Lisa's vacation, I spent most of the time on the sofa. Things had gotten so bad that Lisa took that Thursday off. I haven't been that sick in well over a decade.
By the end of the week, I was still sick, but I was ready to get moving. In short, I was sick and tired of being sick and tired.
Obviously, nothing was accomplished the week I spent on the sofa.
On Saturday, May 12th, we officially began Our Big Bodacious Painting Project. However, due to a previous and very important commitment, we only got about 2 hours of work done. You can read more about that here.
The following day was Mother's Day. We got a little painting done, but I spent most of the day grooming our kids and baking lots of homemade dog treats to get us through the next couple of weeks. And because it was Mother's Day, we didn't work late because we wanted to spend time with our kids.
The rest of the week, the stuff that falls into the 'Under the Circumstances' bucket, went a little something like this...
1. Our kids. They don't like change. They don't like it when we move furniture. They don't like it when we have a room filled with boxes and totes. They don't like it when their Moms are doing something out of the ordinary. The list goes on. We tried to keep things as "normal" as possible this week, but moving the furniture, taking wall decor down, and having to gate them from certain rooms during the week greatly elevated their stress level. We made sure to take lots of breaks for extra playtime and snuggle time. The kids got extra treats. While that eased their stress, it didn't completely diminish it.
2. The grass appeared to be on steroids. On Monday, midway through Our Big Bodacious Painting Project, Lisa noticed the lawn had grown several inches on the overnight. She had just mowed the lawn the previous weekend. The weather for this week called for lots of rain, humidity, and sporadic bursts of sun. We knew that by the end of the week, the lawn would be twice as long. During the late afternoon hours, we made the decision for Lisa to mow the lawns while I continued with painting.
3. Severe storms on Tuesday. When I went outside early Tuesday morning, something was in the air. I used to get that feeling when I lived out of state in a high-risk tornado zone. Later in the day, I checked the weather forecast. Connecticut was under a severe weather and tornado watch. They weren't joking. During the late afternoon hours, west of us was hit with 4 confirmed tornadoes along with microbursts and macrobursts. Trees and power lines snapped in half. Many towns are still without power. The same storm system passed through our area. It got dark...like night. The streetlights came on. The sky was green. Lots of lightning, thunder, wind, and rain. It got scary for a bit. But, we were spared.
4. We created a fully functional DIY Dog Mom Project Room. When we launched Bodacious Biscuit Love back in 2013, we transformed our guest room into the biscuit room. This is where our 7-foot table with trays was located along with all of the supplies for packaging, shipping, and events.
During the past year and a half, it's served as both the biscuit and DIY Dog Mom Project Room. We bought another bookshelf to store our DIY Dog Mom Project supplies such as paint, fabric, sewing supplies, paint brushes, etc.
Up until this point, I've been utilizing our kitchen table to paint DIY Dog Mom Projects and create fabric pieces. Because of that, I can't work on painted pieces and fabric items at the same time. And, we haven't been able to use the kitchen table for its intended purpose. More often than not, we have been eating dinner on the sofa. That's a major pet peeve of mine.
After much deliberation, we made the decision to switch our bedroom to the middle room where the biscuit room was and create a functional DIY Dog Mom Project room. Our former biscuit table will be my official painting table. Fabric pieces will continue to be created at the kitchen table.
I'm excited about this. I can work on painted pieces and fabric items at the same time. We can eat dinner at our kitchen table every night. More so, it'll give me more flexibility and allow me to get more done throughout the day.
5. House and Pet Sitting. From Thursday through early tomorrow morning, we're house and pet sitting. Although it's not a big deal, it requires frequent trips and time spent away from Our Big Bodacious Painting Project. It's a mild interruption to our "we're on a roll" moments. But, as always, when we pet-sit for our fur-nieces and fur-nephew, it's always fun. A therapeutic break from our crazy, busy norm.
6. We didn't just paint. To understand this, I'm going to use our home office as an example. Before we could paint, we had to take everything down from the walls. Move all the furniture out except for my desk. Wipe down the walls. Spring clean the entire room. Deep clean the carpets. Take out all screws from the wall. Fix any cracks in the wall and fill in screw holes. Paint the trim. Paint the walls. Let dry.
Once the trim and walls were dried, we planned out the changes we wanted to make for the home office and each room towards the end of completion. At that point, we moved the furniture back in and hung the decor on the walls. We made sure all items were wiped down and/or dusted. From start to finish, it took about a day and a half to fully complete a single room.
7. One room at a time. We adhered to our rule of thumb most of the time. One. Room. At. A. Time. On a few occasions, we started taking down wall decor and Spring cleaning in the next room before we had the room before that one done. This was necessary to keep the kids' stress level down and prevent us from having standstill moments.
8. Where did everyone go? *ahem*
9. I was still sick. Although I was much better than last week, I wasn't nearly up to par. I was fighting chest congestion, the Laringytis was obvious, and I didn't have all of my usual energy back. The hardest thing to deal with was how sore I was from the waist up because of coughing. I continued to improve every day. As of today, I'm about 80% better.
10. We did our best to keep a somewhat "normal" routine for the kids. Our kids were already stressed out from the chaos of Our Big Bodacious Painting Project. Messing with their routine would have only made it worse. We made sure to feed them meals and snacks at the same time, take lots of time for indoor and outdoor play, and have quiet time with them in the afternoon.
11. We're human. Moving furniture, taking down wall decor, Spring cleaning, wiping down walls and baseboards, deep cleaning carpets, and painting is a lot of physical work. We went to bed late and got up early. On occasion, we took longer breaks. Twice last week, we quit early to give our bodies a rest.
12. Sometimes, you have to cut yourself a break and extend a project a little longer. Yes, we could have gotten all of the rooms done, however, we didn't want to rush, push ourselves to the breaking point, or ignore the needs and stress levels of our kids and our fur-nieces and fur-nephew. We took things day by day. Sometimes, hour by hour. We didn't stress about what point we were at versus what point we should be at. The sky wasn't going to crumble if we didn't get all of the rooms done.
On Monday, I'll be diving back into Our Big Bodacious Painting Project. I'm excited to do the kitchen. I think out of all the rooms, the kitchen will be our biggest makeover.
I've got this!
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