Because a Little Bug Went Ka-Choo!

It always starts with something small.

I know this because I've read "Because a Little Bug Went Ka-choo!" to my boys. It starts, as expected, with a little bug sneezing. That little sneeze puts into motion a chain of events that sees, among other things, a chicken getting wet, a turtle falling into a lake, a farmer having a bucket land on his head and a boat almost sinking. It ends with that boat flying into town and disrupting a circus parade. Read it to your kids, you'll see. Good book.

And I know this because, in my first home, I tried to recaulk the bathtub. And it ended with an entire bathroom renovation, complete with a brand new toilet, as I put the hammer through the old one while removing baseboard.

Anyhoo, this time around, it began with Sonwun finding a tiny flaw in the wallpaper. He chose to make it a little less tiny. Some would say huge.

And so, while bargain hunting one Saturday morning, Neomom found a couple of gallons of the perfect colour of paint needed to replace said flawed wallpaper. Great! For about $20, we could fix this unsightly problem and life would be good.

But, as is often the case with a 60-year-old house, those that have done renovations over the years have not always had the skill, or desire to do them properly. And a little bug went ka-choo!

So we peeled off the old wallpaper. We found few flaws in the wall that, apparently, those that installed the wallpaper, were trying to hide. No big problem. Nothing a $10 bucket of drywall compound and a few hours of work couldn't fix.

Oh, and the wallpaper went behind the door trim, so we had to pull that off. It's old, it's chipped and, if we're gonna do the job right, it should be replaced. A few more dollars for new trim . . . and a bucket of white paint to paint it. (Not on sale).

And then Neomom noticed that, you know, with the new colour in the stairwell leading to the rec room, if we painted the one wall down there with the new paint (hey, we had 2 gallons, why not!) it would look so much nicer. (A new roller or two, a little tape, no big deal).

And so we did. We pulled that baseboard off the wall, in order to paint it properly, and, in the process, decided it too should be replaced. But not just on that wall. I mean it has to match the rest of the room and the previous renovators had used door casing as baseboard anyway . . . so . . . 100 feet of baseboard . . . a few more dollars. And a little bug went ka-choo!

Meanwhile, upstairs at the original wall, I had removed the door, which has 21 lovely glass panes in it, and leaned it up in the mudroom while I worked on the door frame and trim.

Now, the good news here is Sontoo did not get hurt. But he did find the door and decided it shouldn't be leaning against the mirrored closet doors in the mudroom. So he pushed it over.

More good news here. Not one of the 21 panes of glass in the door was broken. The mirrored closet doors, however, shattered as the falling door bounced up into them. Sooo . . . $200 to replace the mirrored closet doors.

Now, we're still in the middle of this little project and praying we've found the last of the surprises. My next purchase will be a little antihistamine for that freakin' bug.

I hope to put the door back in place this morning, which will, knock wood, eliminate the chances of it getting knocked through something else of value.

I also hope to paint the last of the 100 feet of baseboard in the garage today and install it in the rec room early next week.

"And that's how it happened. Believe me. It's true. Because . . . just because . . . a small bug went ka-choo!