Sunday, April 12, 2009

Of Wallpaper and GOD

Mallard ducks quietly swimming in a large brown pond. How umm, lovely.



I'm sure at one time it was very stylish, but now, nearly thirty years later, it has lost it's charm. So, the hubby and I decided to devote our Saturday to ridding our home of this fowl wallpaper. (Sorry, it's late, and I could not resist the corny pun.)

It seemed like a pretty simple job. We have a wallpaper steamer. So, I figured I would use the steamer to take down the old paper. Then, I'd paint a layer of primer and a layer of paint, and, voila, we would have one lovely entrance hall, a very worthwhile Saturday project.



Well, my simple project did not turn out to be so simple. We began stripping the wallpaper and found that the 39 year old wallboard that was underneath had never been primed. So, as we stripped off the paper, we started having tears in the in the drywall underneath. We also found 39 year old wallpaper glue that was very thick.
So, we steamed,and stripped, and scraped, and spackled . We spent the day elbow deep in sheets of sticky, ugly wallpaper and long strings of gooey gluey boogers, and we are still not done. Now we are sanding the walls. And we'll probably have to spackle again before we even begin to put on a layer of primer.





The whole time I just kept thinking, "If they had just primed this wall when they built this house, this job would be so much simpler." But they didn't prime the wall. They just put up the wallpaper, apparently, because they loved wallpaper (the rest of my house testifies to that fact), and in 1970 they never dreamed of a day when they wouldn't love wallpaper. They also never dreamed of me. They built this entire house and never once thought of me, the lady who, 4 decades later, would own this house. They never thought of me and my total distaste for brown ponds and water fowl. They never once considered how they could make this Saturday go smoother for me.
So, after 6 hours of picking wall boogers, I had one sweet thought. 40 years ago an ambitious young couple built a house. They built it according to all of their dreams, and they never once thought of me. But at the beginning of time a Holy, all-powerful, creative God formed a world. He built it according to all of his dreams, and on that day, according to scripture, He thought of me. He thought of silly little me! And He thought of you!
Isn't that an amazing truth, and isn't he an amazing God!
Happy Easter.

6 comments:

  1. your entry will look beautiful when you're done :)

    we miss y'all---i'm glad i get to see you at mops, at least!

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  2. Only you... only you!... could take a messy, gloppy situation like that and turn it into a meditation on the wonders of God! Is it any wonder I consider it a great privilege to be called your friend?

    Although, I gotta say, we're going to miss the ducks. Now what is Grace going to quack at??

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  3. your entry will look awesome after all is done! I love that aged piece you have in there now. very cool!

    Miss y'all lots!

    P

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  4. That's going to look so good when you get it done and I love what God taught you while doing it. Isn't He amazing! Thanks for sharing.

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  5. I never noticed you had ducks on your wall! I can't wait to see the finished product. Great blog post!

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