Everyone return to your original position

Today's the day we put the house back together.

Finally, everyone is well, except for a bit of coughing. My husband has finished the drywall repairs in the corner of the kitchen. I put up a coat of primer last night and will finish the painting today. It has been funny having one unfinished corner in an otherwise fresh-painted kitchen - kind of like an artist was drawing our kitchen and stopped working at that corner. Two coats of cream of pumpkin should be up by mid-afternoon if I finish fooling around at the computer and open the paint can soon.

Andy bought a new storage cupboard for the corner of the kitchen. This houses our recycling system, my giant bins of flour and potatoes, the printer/scanner, assorted paper and computer stuff and our cleaning supplies. For 3 weeks all of these things have been distributed around the house. Some of it has just been missing for three weeks.

He also bought a new computer desk, so the kitchen computer can have a proper setup. Finally, and to his intense joy and jubilation, he bought a flat screen monitor for the kitchen computer. To be honest, I think the monitor is what got him motivated to finish the project. He's very excited to see everything in place. The monitor is hooked up to our temporary living room computer station. It's as wide as a prairie sky, and very bright and clear.

Once I've finished painting there are several more tasks: assemble the new furniture, run the computer wires through the kitchen (we have some neat conduit that should hide it pretty nicely), move in the new furniture, put the fridge back into the kitchen and wire in computers. That's Andy's job. I think he gets to take the pieces of the old storage cupboard to the dump too (oh joy!) I will have the fun job of finding all of our stuff and returning each piece to its storage/hiding spot. There's also about 3 weeks of dusting/vacuuming to do. We have a bit of drywall dust and a lot of dog hair settled all around the place.

The trick will be to disengage from the process in time to go out for pre-valentine supper. Oh yeah, also there's tap dance lessons and a promise to take daughter and her friend to the animal shelter to fulfill part of their "Global Citizens Project" plan to volunteer dog-walk this afternoon.

Sometime tonight or tomorrow most of the stuff will be back where it belongs. I will have a quiet place to sit and play with the internet and/or write something at the computer. We will eat Sunday supper at our dining room table all at the same time. Four big people will migrate out and repopulate corners of the house that have been abandoned due to inconvenience. A reasonable level of disorder will be restored.

We are lucky to live in such a great place, and to have the resources and ability to do projects like this. However, I will be very happy when this is really finished.

Question: Why is it always a bit more than we thought?

mompoet - remembering that we also have to put the baseboard in the dining room sometime, but that can wait until another weekend.