Halfway through the Cure! — Our Little Farmhouse

Happy halfway point!

Week two of the January Cure has been in the books for a couple days. And I’ve hit a snag. See, my project got completely derailed this week. I mean, not completely, but it’s definitely not going to end up how I wanted. But I’ll get into detail of that later. First, here’s a rundown of what happened this week.

Monday was mini-meditation and we got to pick our projects. The goal was to pick a space, and sit without distraction and really take in how it feels. Needless to say, I failed that part. Our house hasn’t seen silence since August 7, 2015, the days before we closed on our purchase. Luckily, I was still able to pick my project, even though it got all off the tracks.

Tuesday was the 30 minute closet clean out. I overachieved and straightened both the linen closet and my closet, which were both completely out of hand. No pictures, since I knew that I was going to be over sharing enough with a messy kitchen photo Saturday. It was just a bunch of bath toys strewn about and clothes hanging over the rod, waiting for hangers.

Wednesday was living room reset, or any room really, where you clear out a bunch of the excess and see how you feel. I skipped this one. Not because I don’t like it but because it’s now a habit I’ve combined into my Christmas in-decorating routine. I take a day between removing everything and placing the usual things back in place. It not only gives me time to make sure everything is cleaned, but helps me switch some things around.
Thursday was the day to plan a get-together. But hello pandemic, so not sure when it’s actually going to happen. It is a double birthday month in our house though so I say it works! I’ll combine that with sharing the pics with all of you and call it good!

Friday started the big task- cleaning the kitchen. (And the weekly flower purchase, compliments of my oldest.) If you missed the before picture on Facebook, check it out. I love how we built our open shelves but wow can they get messy! When we built them we were a family of three, working outside the home. Now, we’re a family of four with two of us working from home. We’re feeling the need for a pantry and itching to start our complete house overhaul, which fingers crossed will be in a year or two. Meanwhile, I’ll count myself lucky that it only took an hour to reorganize this mess, wipe everything down and put it all away.

I also took the time Saturday to get started on my main project, since I know it would take some time. Our main living area really needs some attention. The baseboard are nicked, the walls crayoned, the doorways peeling… you get the idea. But I didn’t want to just paint, oh no. I could tell from the larger chips in the doorway to the kitchen that the white trim was stained wood underneath. And ever since then I’ve envisioned the trim returning to its natural glory. I finally convinced my husband to let me open up the can of worms, as he said. Then Sunday I admitted defeat.

I started slowly, using a paint scraper to try and get up the paint, but it was not working well. I thought about using a chemical stripper but nixed that idea because I didn’t want to accidentally ruin the floors. So I ordered a heat gun and waited for its arrival. It worked really well, and I got into a rhythm. After my first hour, with many interruptions from the kids, I finished the doorway starting point. I patted myself on the back, mentally calculating that I could have the trim stripped totally with less than ten hours of work. (And yes, the idea of spending ten hours stripping paint kind of is my idea of fun. Take from that what you will.)

But then I saw it. The random spots the paint remained. And I realized that they used knotty pine trim and the paint was embedded in the wood. I tried sanding it, picking at it, and debated on fire when I came to the realization that this ‘quick’ doorway was now taking hours, and I’d have to repeat this tedious picking process for each knot I came across. I had to admit defeat, with the knowledge that I gave it a great try and would be able to fully replace it with stained wood sometime in the future. Plus then I get to use the table saw! So really, it’s almost a win-win!