Our story so far: As we approached the painting phase of our church renovation, I’d settled on creamy beige for the trim and medium gray for the walls. All the trim. And all the walls. And then my paint chips met hard reality in the great room of the church. 

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As my friends and I chatted over the options in form of tiny chips in the natural afternoon light, I also realized every choice would look different in morning light. And under cloudy skies. And in artificial light (which I already learned from the Lighting Savant came in various shades of kelvin).

Did I really want to paint the whole house in the same colors? The trim in the sanctuary of the church was originally creamy beige. Did I really want that everywhere? Did I really want medium gray walls?

My resolve was dissolving.

My friends urged me to get some paint samples and paint big swatches of the colors on the trim and walls of the church and look at them at all times of day. They departed and an hour later, I was at the nearby Big Box store choosing paint samples in a half-dozen colors. And that evening, when all was quiet and Tyler had already gone to bed, I burned the last half hour of natural summer daylight painting those samples on trim and walls all around the great room.

Some of my artwork.

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Today’s headline is a quote from James Cash Penney, the founder of J.C. Penney stores.

Tomorrow: Vacillation leads to a breakthrough. Read about it here.

Our story so far: My husband and I purchased a 126-year-old Methodist church to turn into our residence. We gotten through demolition and installation of new mechanicals, and now we were deep into the drywall, painting and flooring phase.

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Chapter 30

If you google “decision paralysis,” you’ll find 11,900,000 results. If Google didn’t prioritize the options for you, oh paralyzed one, you might never learn what it means. But Wikipedia’s definition rises to the top and you learn decision paralysis is a common problem in the modern world where one is faced with too many detailed options. The perfectionist is caught up in finding the one right one, and pretty soon, her over-analysis prevents any option from being taken.

Decision paralysis was beginning to affect our church renovation. We’d been choosing from among a million different options for months—granite or quartz? pecan beams or antique cherry? polished chrome or brushed nickel? Now we were presented with decisions that affected the look of the entire church cum house, and we would have to look at them every day: Wall paint and trim.

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Tomorrow: How to choose? Read about the dilemma here.

Our story so far: As we wrapped up a long week that began with a flooded basement and ended with all kinds of kitchen cabinet issues, our electrician installed a ceiling fan in the sanctuary of the old Methodist church we had spent months rehabbing into a residence.

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Our electrician agreed to come back the next day—a Saturday—to install the sanctuary lights, the ones the former pastor had sold to us for practically nothing and that I had repainted and rewired. They had new LED Edison bulbs and were ready to go. This time in the rental unit, I put my hands on them immediately. I briefly thought I’d misplaced the assembly screws, but they were right there in the bottom of the box.

Our electrician ascended his ladder to perform his magic (again, I couldn’t watch the high work), and Tyler called me into the sanctuary of the church.

Our great room ceiling was complete—drywall, paint, beams, fans and lights. It had been months of effort and required the expertise of dozens of men (and one woman). We’d busted the Tequila Budget but not by that much actually. Tyler and I sat in the two rolling chairs he’d situated in the room for just this occasion—to ponder our work.

We leaned way back in the chairs and marveled at how finished and coordinated everything looked together. Our terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week was over. We couldn’t yet watch TV or dine or even do dishes in our “chome,” but we didn’t want to leave yet either. Finally, it was very good.

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Tomorrow: Chapter 30 opens with decision-making overload. Read about it here.

Our story so far: There comes a time in every mountain climb—and every renovation project—when exhaustion sets in and the craggy cliffs appear insurmountable. That time came for us when the days were literally the longest days of the year and nothing seemed to go our way.

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Friday, Tyler assembled the ceiling fans for the great room. He discovered the fan he’d scored on an open-box deal no longer had the necessary screws for assembly. So he carefully salvaged the one leftover screw from the box in which the brand-new fan arrived, and he drove to the hardware store to purchase duplicates.

Only he dropped the screw in the crevice of the truck console.

If you’ve ever shaken my husband’s baseball-mitt hand, you know it’s not built for salvaging tiny screws from narrow openings.

He talked a clerk at the hardware store into lending him a magnet. “We don’t usually loan tools,” she said, as she reluctantly handed it over.

He fished the rebellious screw from its hiding place and bought 20 news ones. Just in case he dropped another one in a crack somewhere.

At this point on Friday afternoon, I began feeling a tickle in my throat, signaling I was in for a cold (which was par for the course the week had been), but the rain had finally stopped. Tyler called our electrician, who wasn’t otherwise engaged (serendipity), and he agreed to install one of the fans before we all called it a day.

The electrician completed his work, and Tyler called me into the sanctuary of the church.

When I walked into the great room, I was like the mountain climber cresting a hill. The view of the summit—so much closer than it was at the bottom—was amazing.

The fan was majestic. Artistically designed. The perfect color.

After a long week, things were looking up.

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Tomorrow: Chapter 29 concludes with a look at the revamped sanctuary lights. Check it out here.

Our story so far: It was turning out to be a tough week filled with disappointments at the old Methodist church we were turning into our home. As we unpacked some of our kitchen cabinets that had been in storage, we discovered problems.

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Thursday, we determined the luxury crown molding for our kitchen cabinets was wide—too wide if we wanted to have a standard distance between the bottom of our upper cabinets and the countertops. Oh, we could order shorter upper cabinets, of course, for a price. Or we could go with narrower cheap-looking molding. What we couldn’t do was change the height of the support beam which dictated the height of the kitchen ceiling.

After some breathless waiting, the building inspector informed us that the standard distance was simply preference not code-required. We could tighten it up a bit if we wanted to. We opted for a non-standard distance between countertop and cabinets in order to keep the luxury crown molding.

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Today’s headline is a partial quote from professional wrestler and actress Ronda Rousey. Her full quote is, “If you want to be the best in the world you can’t cut any corners. Why do you think swimmers shave their arm hair off? Because every little thing counts.”

Tomorrow: All is not lost. Read about our redemption here.

Our story so far: We were enduring a week of setbacks at the old Methodist church we were turning into our home. We kept losing bits and pieces for starters.

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I finally found the well-hidden glass door fronts wrapped in furniture blankets in the back of one of the rental units where I had been directed to find the poles for the ceiling fans, which I had painted and stored weeks before.

Wednesday, we unpacked the new upper cabinets we’d purchased to fill in some of the kitchen gaps. After removing six layers of packing, we discovered we’d ordered custom cabinets in the wrong color.

Phooey.

Instead of being mounted, they would have to be exchanged. We hadn’t saved any time by ordering them weeks ago; in fact, they cost us money to store them.

Double phooey.

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Tomorrow: First wrong color. Then wrong size. Read about the heartache here.

Our story so far: Our spiral stairway arrived, and a dozen people tried screwing it bottom first into the front door of our converted church. But it was a no-go. So our master carpenter removed the front doors and the doors into the sanctuary while we sweated it out on the front lawn.

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The spiral stairs proprietress’ head man suggested we turn the spiral stairway around in the front yard to spiral it in top first.

Much grunting ensured, but before long, our spiral was completely screwed inside our entryway. One doorway down, one to go.

Experience made the second doorway easier, and gruntingly, the spiral was inside the sanctuary of the church.

We (or more accurately, the men, because I was spent) lugged the spiral across the room and, after one last round of grunting, tipped the spiral upright.

She (our stylish spiral presented as a she) was bolted in place, and within minutes, Tyler and I climbed to the balcony on the steps of our spiral. Total installation time, including false start: Forty-four minutes. Not a record, but a competent average.

She was beautiful in all her black hammered spindles punctuated by her elegant basket balusters. She fit the corner of the great room perfectly, both in size and in style.

Tyler and I posed for a picture standing at the top of the steps in all our sweaty glory. We couldn’t stop smiling.

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Today’s headline is a line from Stevie Wonder’s hit “Isn’t She Lovely” written to celebrate the birth of his daughter. You can thank me later for this uplifting earworm.

Tomorrow: We are plagued, it seemed. Read about it here.