PAINTING BY NUMBERS

There is a life other than writing--especially if you have a home.


The task we decided to undertake seemed easy. Others on our street had done this and, after all, we had once built a home, had remodeled others, and had done numerous interior decorating stints. All we needed was to find the time for it in our busy retired life, to purchase the necessary materials, and to tackle the project.


If my talented husband hadn't created the beautiful stained-and-beveled glass window for our guest bathroom, we would probably never have considered the remake. But when hubby replaced the old-frosted glass with the gorgeous pieces, the walls screamed at us.


The walls were covered with birds and foliage--figures that sort of faded into the background until the beauty of that glass accented the drabness. Those birds had to go.


The home improvement guru said it was a cinch to repaint the room. Since the walls were manufactured with the vinyl wallpaper adheared to the panels it was impossible to remove the offending covering. The know-it-all in the paint section assured hubby one coat of the primer would allow us to give the room a new look with the misty-green paint we'd chosen.


Luckily, bathrooms are small. It didn't take long to prime that room. Deciding to let the coat dry for several days, my husband closed the lid of the can tightly, cleaned up the brushes, and went off to complete his wood-working hobby.


Three hours later the birds were once again singing--right through the first coat of primer. It took three coats of that white primer and two heavy coats of misty-green latex to strangle those fine-feathered friends.


It is much easier to write.