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I love our house. It’s spacious, and homey. I feel like we have too much space most of the time, too many rooms that I don’t hang out in. I am constantly rearranging and painting and redecorating and it feels like the projects are unending.

We’ve lived in our house for two years and five days, and I’ve DESPISED the wood paneling in our upstairs spare room for two years and four and a half days. Here’s what it looked like on the day we moved in:



The floor is pretty sweet, but I can’t stand the color of natural wood paneling. It feels unfinished. It feels like 1970. A whole year summed up in wood paneling.

Sean thought it was fine. Why fix what’s not broken. I hated it. And since my loving husband did not want to take it down for fear that their might be giant holes in the walls under the paneling, I settled for painting it blue a few months ago.

This is his sports room. It used to be our Vermont room. When I tell you that we have too much space in our house, I mean it — we name our extra rooms trying to find them purpose. So the blue paint was fitting for Sean because he’s a dude and his sports memorabilia compliments the color blue. However, I could not get in between every single crack on the paneling even after hours and hours of painstaking painting. So there it stayed unfinished and weathered. Sean loved it, I continued to grind my teeth over it.

For Christmas, Sean bought me a Point and Paint “As Seen on TV” trimming tool. I guessed it was a Snuggie and was happily surprised when I tore through the wrapping paper. A tool for painting? Well I’ve already painted every other room in the house. The sports room is the only one left. And it’s got paneling. Was he giving me permission?

And two relatives gave us Home Depot gift cards. It was fate. Sean knew that the paneling would soon be coming down, there was no stopping me now. So tonight we started demolition phase 1: tearing down the paneling. Finally.

Sean stepped on a thumbtack and cried like a baby (figuratively) until I brought him a bandaid and a beer.


Avery hid petrified under our bed for the three hours of demo. Sam and Jazzy ignored us and slept right through our noisy board throwing.






Avery surfaced when he thought he might get some beer from his daddy. Nice try, Scavenger.



And after having a great time together and getting it done faster than Holmes on Homes, we were done with phase one.



My favorite conversation of the night went as follows:

Sean happily states, “This will be the last room we ever paint in this house” as if he is asking for a promise in return.

“Unless you keep buying me painting tools for Christmas,” I retort, “What were you thinking?”

And in his reply is the wit I married, “I don’t know. I should’ve just gotten you a fucking Snuggie and we’d be on the couch right now watching football.”