Staycation

 - Photo courtesy of www.time.com - 

Last week, I took a little time off... a "staycation" if you will.

I did quite a bit last week. You'll be proud of me. I worked out everyday! I also ran a ton of errands and got to see a few friends in there too! Ty and I hosted a "co-ed baby kegger" at our house on Saturday for the Dumond's so we did have a few home projects on the list as well.

Ty and I decided it was an absolute must that we Ty stain some shingles on the outside of our house before the party. (Obviously people spend several hours staring at the front of the person's house they are visiting so this was critical.) At one time, these shingles I speak of were freshly stained. When we bought our house last year, I obsessed over the fact that they were no longer brand new looking so I have been talking to nagging Ty about them ever since. Husband of the year award goes to.... TY, FOR TAKING TWO DAYS OFF WORK TO STAIN SHINGLES THAT HE COULD CARE LESS ABOUT!

It doesn't end there. We stained a teek bench the weekend before and it turned out awesome. We thought that the color looked great and assumed (stupidly) that it would stain the same on cedar shingles. I know what you are thinking. I could have told you that! Rookies...

Yep, you were right. We made a HUGE, VERY TIME CONSUMING mistake. We stained the shingles on Thursday. By "we" I mean Ty stained and I supervised. By "supervised" I mean I watched him stain the dang things too dark and didn't stop him. (Good boss. I just went ahead and let him fail.) It was really dark. I knew it the whole time. I kept saying, "Looks good right? "A little dark, but it's just wet right?" "It's not going to dry that dark right?" As if it wasn't bad enough after one coat, we thought that if Ty painted on a second coat it would get lighter. Smart.

Let's flash forward to Friday morning. Around 9am. Ty and I agree it's too dark. Right as I am about to burst out into tears, Ty says he'll take a quick trip (take note here) to Lowe's and I'll get out the electric sander and start sanding it off. Good thing we bought the expensive oil based mahogany stain because it only took twelve hours to get it off. Ty's quick trip to Lowe's lasted about 2 and a half hours. By the time he got home, I had only gotten done with the corners of each of the two pillars. Just. The. Corners!

During the time Ty was gone our neighbors on all three sides of our house had spotted me. They didn't have to say anything. I could read it in their eyes. Poor fools. It was obviously too dark from the get go. It shouldn't have taken two coats and 10 hours to dry for them to realize it.

By 9 pm, Ty was done.

Lesson learned. Staining is fine. However, don't stain the whole thing until you know it's a color you actually like. And for God's sake, don't let your husband keep staining them when you know you hate it.

For all you new homeowners out there, this one's for you!