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Left Chattanooga at 5:50 yesterday afternoon, and got back home before it got completely dark. Plan B was to try to leave there at 6:00, so I feel like I was doing pretty well. It was record time for me, to do that long tedious drive in less than four hours. I was pulling in at 9:20 and surprised to find that it did not take the usual amount of time. I think making a couple of stops in the past is what has made the difference. Guess I wanted to get home so badly, to be done with driving, I did not dally along the way. There was one pit stop when my bladder reached maximum capacity and I had to pull off and run in Wendy's.

Plan A was to try to leave TN by 4:00, but we were so immersed in a project, I felt I could not walk away and leave a huge half-done mess. So hopefully we got close enough to completion that it will get finished this week. It involved the framing on the door to that 'world's longest DIY' in the bathroom: had to be stripped down to bare wood to be repainted. The people who sold them the house had done a remarkably shoddy job of paining latex over varnish and there was only one way to resolve that disaster: messy, toxic, deadly vaporous, dangerous, cautionary, eat your skin off paint stripper. So we did it. And mostly got down to the raw wood, though there was a dark stain under the varnish that is permanent. As I left they were deciding if they would just seal it and leave natural wood, or paint it as planned, which will involve some sanding before a primer and then the actual paint color, to match the other woodwork in the nearly completed, two year long project.

All this deconstruction and reconstruction has been much more complicated than they ever intended or expected, as most home improvement undertakings become. One thing lead to another, as in busting out walls that revealed plumbing that needed replacing, and pulling out plumbing that revealed wiring that needed replacing. And pulling up flooring that revealed wood that had to be cut away and replaced. But I do believe the end is in sight, and they will soon be enjoying their brand new bathroom in their seventy year old house. And hope it will be a while before they start the next DIY that totally disrupts their lives and homelife.