It All Started With Paint

Early this summer my little family and I went to Home Depot. You know, the store where you are seduced into thinking that any home improvement project will be small and easy. At this point in time I do not recall what we went there to buy, but it was probably something small -- probably something like a box of nails.

However, once we entered the vast empire of paint and lumber, we decided that we would finally but that small amount of paint for the laundry room. And since we were there we ought to pick out the tile edging to finish the tile backsplash Jonathan installed in the laundry room as well. As I type this, that same backsplash has yet to be grouted. At least, the grouting process had begun but never finished. But I digress.

Once this paint and tile edging was picked I realized that Jonathan was leaving for a week-long camping trip which is generally the time I take on a much larger painting project. At this point I decided to pick out the paint for the exercise room. Once I picked out that paint I decided that since I was painting that room I may as well paint Ethan's bathroom. That's when things really started to go downhill.

As we were waiting for the paint to be mixed Jonathan had gone to get some new weather stripping for all our doors -- because, you know, that needed to be done too. And as he left to do that my eyes wandered over along with my legs over to the bathroom vanities. One thing led to another, and I had found a new vanity to go along with the paint I had just picked out for Ethan's bathroom. But a funny thing happened while I picked out this vanity.

The vanity sits right on top of the floor whereas the old vanity was installed before the flooring was. Therefore, if pull out the old vanity to install the new vanity guess what? There wouldn't be flooring underneath the new vanity and it would be visible. So, alas, there was no choice. We had to pick out tile. Which led me to the flooring store.

Obviously, at the flooring store I picked out new tile for the bathroom. But guess what they had on display by the door? That's right, wood flooring samples. So I just had to take a look at those samples and the next thing I knew I had made an appointment to have the guy come measure my floors and get an estimate. All I know is that the flooring people are coming tomorrow to pull up my carpet in preparation to install my new wood floors. However this just introduced a new dilemma. What to do with the banister?

The banister -- which looks like something you would find in an ice cream parlor -- wouldn't match the new floors so would have to be refinished or redone entirely. So naturally I had to call a friend to come give me an estimate to have an entirely new banister made. And don't even get me started on the handrails that would then have to be made in order to match the banister.

So... what started with a small can of paint has steamrolled into a major home renovation project. I'm somewhat puzzled by it all, and yet I'm also not at all surprised. I also know that we need to avoid Home Depot for a long, long time.