If we disappear, you'll know who to look for...

So there we were... standing in Lowe's on a rainy Saturday, scratching our heads and arguing over paint colors. Once I won, which we both knew I would, we made our way to the paint counter to get the goods. We got a gallon of "Clear Blue Sky" to paint baby's walls and then we began to look for other things.

Clear blue sky:

To go with the paint, we would obviously need brushes, rollers, tape, putty for the nail holes, yadda yadda...

We found all of it.

Then... We found the darkest shade of black that they had in the store and ordered a gallon of that too... to paint Raleigh's furniture with.

As we were standing there getting the "black onyx" paint mixed, another man (named Donny) at the counter says to us ... "Are y'all painting today" --- being naturally sarcastic, like I am, I thought to myself... "Really, whatever gave you that Idea, Sherlock" --- but I held my tongue.

He then began to tell us a story about how his house burned to the ground 3 months ago and him and his wife were living in a hotel. He said that for work, he did odd and end paint jobs for misc. contractors here in town. He was there with one of these "contractors" so I had no reason to be a skeptic. He then made George an offer that George thought was too good to refuse... He asked us if we would let him paint the baby room for $40. For those of you that aren't up on your painter costs, that's insanely cheap. George asked him if he painted furniture too... and when he said yes, George agreed to let him do the job.

So... in the rain, we loaded all our paint goods into the back of the CRV and headed to pick up his wife from the hotel. He wanted her to help so he would be able to get done faster. Her name was Tracy. It was roughly 11:00 and she had obviously just woken up... she walked barefooted to our car with her shoes in hand and didn't say more than two words to us all the way to our house.

When we got home, he went right to work. He sent Tracy to the sunroom to begin stripping furniture and he started on the room. In the baby's room... he was FANTASTIC. He never even used the trim tape and he didn't mess up a thing.

It took him a little over an hour to finish the whole room and when he was done he walked out to the sunroom to help Tracy. About this time, I ran and grabbed us all some McDonalds and we sat at our kitchen table and had lunch. Over lunch, I learned that Donny and Tracy have 3 sons. Their oldest son manages a clothing store, their middle son works at a produce store and their youngest son is looking for a job. Their middle son is having a baby soon, a little boy --- so after lunch, while they were working on the furniture, I pulled out a box of baby boy clothes that I knew we wouldn't need and George walked out to the shop and found Sarah Jane's old pack and play. We let them have them both.

When they were done stripping the furniture and started to paint it... they realized that Lowe's had given us a lovely shade of purple paint. Which would not work... at all. SO George and Donny loaded up and went back to Lowe's for more paint. This time, Donny suggested that George get an oil based paint. So he did.

When they got back, they went right to painting. They must have painted for hours b/c it got pretty dark outside...

Since it was now beginning to be late afternoon, George was ready for them to be done and move on --- as were they. So, when they got done - George paid them, helped them load up their baby things, and then took them back to the motel.

When they left, it was dark and rainy... and from what I could see in those conditions... and in our sunroom light, they did a pretty decent job on the furniture too. .......Yeah, boy was I wrong. In the light of day... the furniture was terrible - and by terrible, I mean horrible! I cried for the better part of Sunday... and I know that sounds absolutely crazy (and in retrospect, it was) but at the time, it was a really big deal to me. I desperately want everything to be perfect when he gets here - and this furniture was FAR from perfect. So once I stopped crying and put my big girl panties on, we went back to plan A... which was to sand it down and spray it with an air compressor.

George spent the better part of a day sanding off the oil based mess that Donny and Tracy and left behind and then yesterday we did this:

Now, I know that may not be perfect... but at least the shelves are painted completely and there are no huge globs of dried dripping paint..

When George left Donny and Tracy at the hotel the other night, In parting... he said to them... "If you ever need anything, let me know"...

That was the wrong thing to say.

George now has a stalker. He's since tried to con Zaxby's into giving him money by saying that he did a job for George that he didn't get paid for and he also has been there asking to see George and telling them he needed money for rent. We gave him enough money to pay his rent and buy his meals for 5 days. Now, I just keep waiting for him to show up at our house looking for George. It's really scary. We definitely learned a lesson on this one.

I am ALL FOR helping people that need help - everyone that knows me would tell you that. BUT, that is the one and only time someone that we don't know comes into our home.

and I'm serious... if something happens to us, check with them first.