It smells like headache in here (by Kat)

After hauling the box spring up the stairs, screwing the stair treads back into place, and getting a really good night's sleep, I was forced to move into the next phase of the project--the post-demolition phase.

I don't care for the post-demolition phase of any project as much as I do the actual demolition phase. Tearing down is so exciting, so swift, so easy!

Putting back together is slow, monotonous, laborious. Also, I get too caught up in the details. This slows down my ability to get started due to worrying, and then gets me frustrated during the doing because I can't get the details as neat as I'd like them to be.

So, after the treads were screwed back down, I looked through our stash of paint. The only primer I found was oil-based exterior grade. In an attempt to be frugal, I decided to use what we had instead of purchasing a new can of primer that would languish half-empty (or half-full?) under the stairs with the rest of the optimistic/pessimistic paint hoard.

So, paintbrush in hand, I primed every other step. This way, the stairs remain operational. If you remember to skip a step. Humans are good at skipping steps. Cats do not skip stairs. You can supply your own visual here, right? Four cats should reside in your visual, by the way.

Did I mention yet that it's below freezing here? We're past the open window season. Way past.

Oil based exterior grade primer is NASTY on the nose and lungs!!!!

Yesterday, I bought a can of interior grade latex primer. So, do I re-prime the already primed stairs? Only prime the bare wood stairs? Will the topcoat wear differently or have a different appearance over the two different primers?

So what does a headache smell like, folks? It smells like partially primed staircase.