Two men in a house (to say nothing of the rabbit)

For those who remember the famous and hilarious book written by the British writer Jerome K. Jerome, the title would certainly bring them back to the adventure of the book "three men in a boat (to say nothing of the dog).

For the specific tale, I'm going to tell, I'm referring to what is probably the most known of the stories told in the book: "Uncle Podger hangs a picture" (http://rosyhunt.blogspot.com/2013/01/uncle-podger-hangs-picture.html).

For the last two weeks, my house has been almost torn apart to remove the wallpaper from the stairwell walls and repaint it. Two reasons led us to this decision; the first is that we don't really like wallpapers, and the second was that our lovely rabbit decided to create a graffiti ripping it off. I have to admit that she has talent, but that wasn't matching with the rest of the house decor. Therefore, since my husband lost his job, he decided to use this idle time to fix that problem.

He invited one of his friends to help him with the job, and "I promise, in three days, these three walls will be cleared from the wallpaper and painted back."

For the occasion, Carolina, our lovely artist-bunny, was relegated to the kitchen, as this would have been the only place bunny-safe of the house.

So, the first day my husband's friend arrived with all sorts of tools to carry out the job. I left for work, happy to be far from them for the whole day. 

Day one: The wallpaper was ripped away only from half of the first wall. As I returned, I immediately understood something was wrong by the glance in Carolina's eyes. That particular glance that begs you to be brought far away from that mess.

I kindly suggested that to remove the wallpaper, it was sufficient to wet the surface, and the job would have become a piece of cake (I have experience with it). At that point, it was clear that three days would have been enough just to remove the wallpaper, particularly for them.

Day two: I returned home, and the two men could rip the wallpaper from two of the walls. Fine, I considered that, since the other wall was shorter, the third day would have been used to rip the wallpaper and start painting. 

No!

The tension between the men started to grow, and their voices could be heard from the outside. I felt like a kindergarten teacher, and remembering my mother, I silenced them with a louder-than-their yell. 

Me: "I don't want to hear a single fly flying for the next three minutes, and I want you to use this time to cool down."

Them: silently seated, with the tails between their legs.

I started to climb the stairs, and at halfway, they started already to scream at each other. Climbing down, I yelled: "WOW, How fast those three minutes have passed!!"

Silence again, and then the two toddlers returned to be adults.

It took the whole week only to completely remove the wallpaper when their promise of doing the job in three days was already forgotten.

Week two:

Monday, I decided that I would have remained at my office after working hours, log myself out of work and take my time there to market my book, write something new of the new novel (which now is completed), and prepare myself to return home, hoping to see some progress.

Well, to paint the three walls it took another week, when I'm more than sure, if I had called my sister, we would have done everything in a matter of two days. Or even better had we called a professional, this would have been completed even faster.

Nevertheless, at the end of the second week, things started to look like going in the right direction. Carolina looked facepalmed for most of the time and was extremely grateful when she saw me arriving home.

Week three:

At this point, the walls were finally painted, and what was needed was to place back the moulding, clean the mess, and hang the frames on the wall. That was a one-day job, which took the rest of the week for our two men in the house.

Note to self: Next time my husband decides to do some work at home, I need to either be there full-time to supervise or take a long holiday back to Italy, switch off the phone returning only when I receive the confirmation email, Coronavirus, Ebola, black plague or not.

Nevertheless, the result was absolutely fabulous, and after having cleaned the whole place, the house returned to the original splendor:

I hope you enjoyed this small anecdote bringing a smile to your faces. And remember it's better to spend some money and leave the work to professionals than doing it yourself, risking losing your sanity.

Take care!