Gone... painting!

I'm painting the master bathroom today!!

This doesn't sound all that exciting, but TRUST ME, it SO IS... I've been trying to get the master bathroom, plus my little "dressing room" and closet painted since... well, FOREVER, if the truth be known.

When we first moved into this house eleven years ago, the decor was very "eighties". Our bedroom was painted a rather putrid peach-y colour, and the adjoining dressing area and bathroom were hunter green. Let's all just say "UGH!" in unison, and I promise not to bring that colour scheme up in conversation ever again.

Since then, the rooms have been re-painted a rather lovely butter yellow, but it was done while I was still just learning HOW to paint, and the job wasn't a very good one. My cutting-in was a bit splodg-y here and there, and the rolling was streaky. Come to think of it, the paint quality wasn't all that great, either. But, we all have to start SOMEWHERE, right? And it was better than it HAD BEEN.

I re-decorated our bedroom three years ago, when Child Number Three was just three months old (and still sleeping a fair bit in the daytime). I copied a Sarah Richardson design I found in a magazine, and the results were spectacular. But it's taken me THIS LONG to get to the rest of the job.

In truth, the entire bathroom really needs to be just ripped out and completely replaced, but that's "in my dreams", with our current budget, and my non-existent plumbing skills... We had a mildew "issue" under some wallpaper that I had put up a few years ago without priming properly first... The drywall repair that I had to do was enough work and stress to put me off completing the project, once I collapsed from exhaustion from all that sawing and taping and plastering and applying layers of "Killz" sealant (WHOO!! Does that stuff ever STINK!! But it's an interesting kind of "high", let me tell you).

The second thing that kept me from spending much time in that bathroom... was the squirrel problem.

We had squirrels in our attic in spring, 2006. Don't ask me why or how it happened, and I KNOW, people, Ontario Springtime is the time when most NORMAL wild animals start making their homes OUTSIDE. Suffice to say that we had a deranged, vagabond/tramp of a squirrel take up housekeeping just above our master bathroom a year ago last June. The noise was enough to keep us awake at night, and I was assured by my parents that the damage that squirrels can inflict on one's household can include sabotaging the electrical system, which not only poses a fire risk, but is also not covered on a lot of insurance plans...

I called our friendly neighbourhood exterminator, Carl, who recommended immediate "treatment" with Warfarin. NOT a very nice chemical. Definitely lethal, however, and Carl assured me that any vermin who had ingested the pellets we spread liberally in the attic would go OUTSIDE the house to desperately (although likely not successfully) seek liquid refreshment.

Well, guess what? Squirrel didn't make it out.

Squirrel died... somewhere in the wall between my shower and my clothes closet.

And that very week, it was about thirty-seven degrees outside. I'm talking WITHOUT the humidity factored in to the calculation.

The. Smell. Was. UNHOLY.

Our bathroom reeked. Our bedroom reeked. And, even my CLOTHES from the CLOSET reeked.

It was the kind of stink that, once you had it in your nose, no matter where you went for the rest of the day, be it the Hershey Chocolate Factory or a perfumery in France, you just couldn't shake the rank odour that lingered in your nasal cavities.

Yes, it was THAT BAD. Gag-me-then-pass-out bad. You-had-to-smell-it-to-believe-it bad.

And THAT, dear readers, is what one gets for playing with chemical weapons, and trying to screw with Mother Nature.

Husband and I wound up sealing off the rooms, and evacuating to the spare bedroom for about five weeks. Once the worst of the high summer temperatures were over, we were finally able to re-open that part of the house.

To say that my enthusiasm for decorating the master bathroom had WANED by that point would be a colossal understatement.

And so the rooms stayed. Primed, with a couple of ugly "trial splotches" of colour scattered here and there, and still slightly whiffy-when-warm...

Until this weekend.

This weekend, my blessed Mother-In-Law arrived for a couple of days to corral the girlies for me, so that I can FINALLY get this job done. It's taken me nearly a year and a half from start to finish, but it's almost done.

The walls are now a lovely pale-lilac shade, and tomorrow, I'm off to Home Depot to find some sparkly new mirrors and accessories to finish the whole thing off. I'm even replacing the drawer-pulls and handles on all the cupboard doors.

It's been a loooong process, but some things are worth waiting for.

And I'm waiting for that first bubble bath, where I don't have to close my eyes to the Horror and the Mess, remembering the REEK and the GUILT...

All of this makes me think of a wonderfully silly song my father used to play for me when I was very young... We were HUGE fans of the British singing duo, Flanders and Swann. Their feelings about the importance of the bathtime ritual were expressed in their tune, "In the Bath":

Oh, I find much simple pleasure when I've had a tiring day,

In the bath, in the bath!

Where the noise of gently sponging seems to blend with my top A,

In the bath, in the bath!

To the skirl of pipes vibrating in the boiler room below,

I sing a pot pourri of all the songs I used to know,

And the water thunders in and gurgles down the overflow,

In the bath, in the bath!

Then the loathing for my fellows rises steaming from my brain,

In the bath, in the bath!

And condenses to the milk of human kindness once again,

In the bath, in the bath!

Oh, the tingling of the scrubbing brush, the flannel's soft caress,

To wield a lordly loofah is a joy I can't express,

How truly it is spoken one is next to godliness,

In the bath, in the bath!!

I wholeheartedly concur... and... I. Can't. Friggin'. Wait!!!