My Hand Is Messed Up!

Say this like the Chan-Chan Man, obviously.

I spent all three days of the holiday weekend working. No no, not at WORK working. This was self-inflicted VOLUNTARY work. What is wrong with me? (No wait, don't answer that.)

I don't know if I've mentioned yet or not, but at the end of June I'm moving out of my apartment. My friend Heidi has a house and wants a roommate, so off I go. It's a 4-bedroom house in an ok neighborhood with a nice backyard and a pool. Good stuff. However, the house was built in the late 50's and I don't think it's been decorated since the 70's. The rooms that will be mine boast these lovely features between the two of them: cheap wood paneling...LOTS of cheap wood paneling, dated wallpaper that must have been attached to the wall with some sort of Harry Potter-esque Sticking Spell, sky-like blue and white splotched paint on all four walls AND the ceiling, and--the kicker--mirrored tiles (with the fancy gold leaf design, mind you) covering half the wall. Oh my.

My putty knife was either my best friend or my greatest foe these past three days...I can't decide which. I mean, it came in uber-handy and all...but DANG. I spent THE entire weekend scraping wallpaper, scrubbing walls, breaking up and knocking down mirrored tiles, chiseling off glue, spackling and sanding holes in the walls, and painting a primer coat of paint on all surfaces in the two rooms. Yikes. I'm planning on doing some of the actual painting next weekend. I'll post pictures when I'm finished with the whole shebang.

The upshot: I'm packing some pretty sweet guns right now--arm wrestling, anyone?

The downside: all this manual labor comes at a price. My hand has essentially become The Claw.