I feel like I should just have the paint roller duct taped to my hand, lol. For the last couple of weeks we have been pretty much painting non-stop, and that includes getting someone in to paint all the trim and doors in the house. The last room is almost done (I'm typing while paint is drying upstairs), so there is light at the end of the tunnel. David, my sainted other half, is the one who should get major kudos though, and maybe a medal and a knighthood too, since he took on painting the wrought iron spindles in the stairwell. It was a job and a half, chiselling off old paint, sanding, priming and painting each and every wiggly bit of iron up three flights of stairs. Oy.

That stairwell has been a challenge (I went mano-a-mano with the acrobatic job of priming and painting the walls and 15 foot high ceiling) and not just from a paint perspective. Nope, we were going too and fro over whether to keep the original banister and spindles. Twice we had it quoted to switch everything out to something custom and modern in tempered glass and steel, and twice the quote came back at $8,000. Gulp. So, instead of auctioning off a kidney, we decided to embrace the kitsch and re-work the original one. As for the old gouged and cracked gold handrail; I managed, after a fair bit of Googling, to find a company to come and replace it for a spanky new one in white. The price? Way less than $8K and from a local company no less - Alku. So, if you've got a place from the Fifties or Sixties and need a new vinyl handrail, check them out.