Lessons for the nation

[muckefuck]

1. Good intelligence is key. My original plan for the Horrible Wall of Stucco (henceforth HWS) was to sand the relief down to nothing. Before I could borrow or rent a sander or anything, e. advised me that--based on her web research and consultation with her tool maven BIL--this would be a good way of ending up with a plaster wall in chunks at my feet. She suggested painting it with a nappy roller instead. Well, you've heard from bunj how that went. I blame myself for not starting out with the nappiest roller in the world (1.5"!). Next time, a spray gun and LOTS of masking.
2. Choose your advisers wisely. e. has been a phenom. Everyone loves the colours she picked--I wouldn't be surprised to walk in a few more freshly-painted Parchment rooms before the end of the year. She brought the supplies, she told me what to buy, and she herded at least some of the cats.
3. Know what you're getting into. It was a failure of intelligence not to have more operatives in Bathroomistan. We looked at the freshest, loosest layer of wallpaper and said, "A few minutes with the enzyme spray and we'll be ready to sand and paint." An hour later, e. said, "Well, we got the first and least offensive layer of wallpaper off." FOUR HOURS LATER, we were close to declaring major operations over, but defeating the evil forces of wallpaper had only brought us face-to-face with the shadowy resistance of Peeling Paint and Rotten Plaster. The occupation force has taken casualties every day since last weekend (will the tiny flakes every come out again from under my fingernails?) and talk of withdrawing it soon is premature.
4. Don't open a battle on multiple fronts. With one team slaving away in the living room and another scraping out pockets of resistence in the bathroom, I dove into the bedroom to begin prepping the walls. What was I thinking? We were lucky to get one coat over all the walls in the big room before bedtime. Now there's no place to retreat from the mess--except the closets.
5. Have an exit strategy. Dropcloths everywhere in the living room and they can't come up until I paint the Great Red Wall (formerly the HWS) at least once more and touch up the Parchment everywhere else. That mid-September housewarming date? Now I know why the former owner called me a "brave man" for suggesting it.