Today I am mudding the dining room walls. After over a week of removing the wallpaper and the horrible thick cement-like glue that remained after the paper was gone (and I ask, "You did want your wallpaper to stay up didn't you? Didn't you?"), it's finally time to make the walls as flat as I can. It was good to have Jordan and family come up the past weekend and really took on the bigger part of the paste removal. We were left with the fine removals.

I didn't grow up mudding walls. In my youth the walls had broken up almond shells added to the mix to make a very textured wall....and by the way, that's the kind of walls we had in 809. Linda Zuro taught Susan to mud one day but she was having too much fun so I made that be "not distaff" and I ended up mudding just about the whole main floor and down the hall to the basement.

My parents converted peaked-roof army barracks (which they bought whole and then floated it down the Columbia River and installed it in Kennewick, Washington) into an apartment house. It formed a U-shape. Our family lived at the whole base of the U, and the 2 sides were filled with apartments. When Susan and I were married, we lived in #1. So when an occupant left, I was always called on to paint. I got so that I could paint a whole apartment in a day. Obviously, that's how my painting ability developed. I also can claim to paint a very fine, very straight line between wall and ceiling with only my faithful, trusty brush, named? what else? My Old Trusty Brush. Somehow I lost him...but discovered his hiding place when we moved to 3830. He had fallen behind the old workbench in the old garage. I was a happy camper when I found it!

I love to paint. I do not love to strip wallpaper or the paste. But I think we are going to be ready to paint tomorrow. At least I hope so. The paint has been purchased so all is well.