While her husband toils away trying to paint the whole house, she and the kids are living with furniture covered with tarps and disarray and frustration.
Painting, for some reason, is never as easy as it appears it should be.
You look at these wide open walls and think, "How hard can it be?"
You go to the hardware store and look at the pretty little chips and clean brushes and it really sells itself as a doable task.
Then you realize, before even opening a bucket, that there's a good deal of prep required.
Holes must be spackled and cracks must be filled in.
Outlet covers have to come off and lights must come down.
Every picture on the wall has to be taken off and stored somewhere during the process. Curtains have to come down. Every piece of furniture has to move away from the walls.
The ladder becomes a central piece of interior decoration.
If you're living in the space to be painted, it's like living in a cardboard box on the freeway.
Nothing feels pulled together or serene.
Add three little kids to the mix and it's a major stresser.
Paint gets spilled.
The little drip spots on the tarp covering the carpet get on the bottom of little shoes and tracked through the house.
The baby samples the paint.
I had enough trouble painting one room and made a big mess all by myself during the two weekends Marc was gone to Woodbadge.
I can't imagine adding a 6-year-old, a 3-year-old, and a 9-month-old to the process.
So when Kari talks about the situation she has my complete sympathy.
I'm almost moved to suggest she and the three kids move in while Wade finishes the job.
Almost.
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