2.

"Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work." (Ecclesiastes 4:9)

This verse was read at our wedding, and it just popped into my head last night as we continued to finish up home improvements -- or at least get our house back into some sort of appropriate shape for family coming in this weekend.

We've learned many, many lessons these past few weeks, the biggest of which is: don't do home improvements yourself. One project has led to another to another to another... I told CJ tonight that our parents were probably sitting back laughing at us, that they probably wanted us to see for ourselves what can happen when you attempt improvements like ours.

For those of you playing along at home, here's what the past two weeks have looked like:

We decided to replace most of our flooring with hardwood laminate floors. The kitchen, entryway, hallway, and living room were supposed to be completed a week ago. We haven't even touched the living room.

Installing new floors led to new trim. We hauled a load home, only to discover a day later that it did not match our doors. So, we went back, picked out a new batch of trim and new doors. (I hated it all anyway, so no love lost.) As he cut the trim yesterday, it started to melt on him. So it was back to the drawing board again. We're on our third set of trim now.

Installing new flooring led to replacing our bathroom tile with new tile. That also led to new trim in the bathroom, and it also ended up with me painting our bathroom last night. (I was pretty proud of myself for painting the bathroom and painting doors too.)

And those doors? They were only primed white. We have ten doors in our house total, three of which CJ hasn't touched yet. So I've been painting seven doors this week -- but just the front, because I don't have time to finish them off. Each door requires three coats of paint. So it's really like I've been painting twenty-one doors this week.

What's left? Our new microwave has to be installed, the bathroom tile isn't yet finished, we're short two pieces of trim, the bathroom door still needs two coats of paint on it, and the old trim needs to be put up in places. And the guest bathroom needs a mirror, light fixture, toilet paper holder, and hook installed too. Quarter-round needs to be installed, but that doesn't look like it's going to happen this week. It's my goal to finish painting tonight, leave work a little early, run my errands right after that, and then spend the evening cleaning.

So it's good there are two of us. The work goes much quicker. And, although we've been at each other's throats sometimes (mostly because I can't keep my mouth shut, I'll admit), we're actually turning this house into our home, which is nice.

The paint must be dry by now, so I should probably get back to work...