DIY home renovation projects are not only teach you how to work your way around power tools, we are also getting some serious lessons in marriage. This weekend we hit our first mini renovation disaster.

In my account, getting the walls up should have taken a week…at the most 2 weekends. 3 weeks later and we finished up the last of the plastering this weekend, but Walter did a flawless job, so I guess there is a price for perfection. I’m not going to say mistakes weren’t made during this phase of the project. We neglected to cover the furniture in the room where Walter did most of the cutting. Now the place is so dusty, I’m just waiting for Miss Havashim to appear from somewhere in the shadows.

I could bask in my glorious rightness as it was I who suggested we cover the furniture, but I am just as culpable in this mess as my husband. I didn’t lift a finger during this phase and I could have covered the furniture myself, but didn’t.

We forgot about 50/50. I organized and cleaned the whole upstairs before we started with Walter on the assist. During construction parts Walter takes the lead and I assist. I’ll probably take lead on painting tomorrow, mostly because I like being the lead on things.  I’m a big picture person and often get lost in the details, whereas Walter is keen on the details, but bigger stuff can get thrown by the wayside. We need to work together to get the balance, picking up each other’s slack. Bitching about the slack isn’t going to help anyone.

As much as I love being right, I have to learn to suck in my disappointment and anger when things go wrong, especially when I am also partly to blame. This is the first time either of us are undertaking a project of this magnitude, mistakes will be made.

I am still cleaning dust from parts of me I didn’t even know dust could settle and I can’t help but laugh (because if I didn’t, I’d cry). This won’t be the first blunder in this journey and there will be plenty of times to have screaming matches over whose fault it is something didn’t go right (most likely it will happen in Home Depot).  I’m glad we took this first blunder in stride, turning to humor and Mad Max quotes to get us through the day.

Today I start as lead on priming and painting, here’s to hoping we are done before Game of Thrones season finale. (Greg has been hounding us for the HBOGO Pasword)