Memories of Mom: Painted

To see the reason for my writing this "Memories of Mom" series, see the first post in the series.

When I bought my house in Oregon, it was a bank repossession and it was in bad condition. The floors had been trashed. The wrong materials had been used in the bathroom tub surround and the wood joists around it had all rotted; the bathroom had to be gutted. The fireplace was not in good enough shape to be a working wood-burning fireplace. Most of the little wall-insert heaters were situated behind doors and were also from the years that had been recalled due to fire danger. Because the house was being bought with a remodeling loan on top of the mortgage, the bank insisted that the tiny, aluminum, 1960s windows in the bedrooms be replaced with windows that allowed egress according to current building codes. A lot of work had to be done before I could even live in it in the barest form, much less in comfort. 

But work went along and the bathroom became a thing of beauty (but that's for another story). I worked as the general contractor for the work, with a contractor friend working as the main contractor. Lots of extra things came along, as things do, and it wasn't until December that I was up to putting in new flooring and painting the walls and ceilings.

This is when my mom surprised me. Never before had she shown any interest in doing this sort of work. She paid to have someone repaint the walls in her own home. But she wanted to help me paint my house. So I let her.

I had painted before; I'd completely scraped and repainted the exterior of my previous house. I had done a lot of research before that to make sure I knew what I was doing. My mom had never so much as held a paintbrush. I just made sure to cover anything that needed covering. The floor was still old linoleum that would soon be covered with floating plank flooring (Mom paid for someone to lay the floor in the living room and kitchen for me, so they would be done at least), so it didn't need covering thank goodness. The amount of paint that ended up on that floor was tremendous and I have to say that only some of it was my fault.

So for about three weeks, every day after I got home from work, my mom came over to my house. She brought dinner. I put Christmas CDs in my boom box. And we put on our paint hats and after eating dinner went to work.

I've never had so much fun painting as I did those three weeks, and I had adored painting my bathroom. But Mom and I painted and I soon learned to stay away from her because of the paint that was dripping onto my hair. We took turns doing ceiling versus walls. We had to prime everything first because it was all such a mess, and because the living room and hallway were paneled in dark wood. We'd crank up the tunes and sing Christmas songs and try to not step in the paint trays.

Mom had so much fun. She looked terrific in her paint clothes and painter's hat, her cheeks rosy from the exertion. She loved the colors that we were painting everything: pale greens in the living room, hall, and kitchen with pale yellow ceilings, and light orange in one of the guest rooms with a pale blue ceiling and pale blue closet interior (it was a very big closet). I couldn't decide what to paint my bedroom, so we just primed it white, and I couldn't decide what to paint the bedroom and sunroom of the addition onto the house, so I just left them alone.

Mom got so into the painting and having fun that she even swiped me several times with a paintbrush or a roller — On Purpose! Then she'd laugh her evil laugh, the one that sounded like a demented cackle. Oh, she thought she was hilarious.

Luckily, it was easy enough to pay her back, so it didn't happen often and I only had to go to work with paint in my hair a few times. 

When we finished, I don't know who was more proud: me or my mom. Painted, with flooring and furnishings, the living room, dining room, and kitchen looked stunning. I didn't love the house itself: it was a very basic tract ranch-style, but I'd put enough cottage style into the new windows and the paint colors and my own furnishings that I loved what I'd done with it. I think my girlfriends at work were all a little envious of how my mom helped me paint — I don't think even one of my friends had a mom who would do that and even if they helped they couldn't have had as much fun as my mom and I had.

Even after all of our years, and after knowing my mom as an adult and even getting drunk with her, she continued to be a surprise to me. I'll never paint another room without remembering that December painting with Mom.