Yesterday, I had someone ask me, “Are you going to finish painting the ceiling before or after you finish the cabinets?” To be clear, this was not a snarky comment, and it’s perfecty fine to ask questions. She was just wondering about my process, and I certainly understand that. And you want to know what’s funny? Once again, I had conveniently forgotten that I still haven’t finished painting the ceiling and walls in the studio. ?
The ceiling looked like this months ago, and it still looks like this today…
As I mentioned a few days ago, I’ve developed a kind of blindness to it at this point, and I’ve become hyper-focused on my current project — finishing the office area cabinets. Those cabinets looks like this right now. I’ve finished the side panels, the electrical for the sconces, and the cubby bridge.
At this point, I really don’t remember the unfinished walls and ceiling unless I’m making a mental list (or an actual written list) of the projects that I still have to finish in the room. And at this rate, painting the ceiling will probably be one of the very last things I do to finish this room.
I’ve always been a DIYer who does things my own way. I’ll be the first to admit that my ways don’t always make sense, and they’re very often not the most efficient way to do a project. But after 30+ years of DIYing, and especially since we moved into this house and I had such a daunting whole-house remodel to tackle pretty much by myself (only calling in help or pros when absolutely necessary), I’ve learned that I have to be led by my motivation.
My current work in the studio is a good example of that. I’m absolutely dreading having to paint that ceiling. I don’t know why, and it’s probably one of those projects that I’ve dreaded for so long that I’ve made it much worse in my head than what it will actually be. But whatever the reason, I just don’t want to do it. So if I insisted on doing things in the order in which they make the most sense, or the order in which they seem them most efficient, and I tried to force myself to paint before doing anything else, I’d be making excuses every day as to why I can’t paint, and the whole studio project would be stalled.
Instead, I went with my motivation. I felt motivated and excited to tackle the office area cabinets, so I went with it. Will that make things more difficult for me later? Maybe a little. Now, before I paint the ceiling, I’ll have to drape the cabinets and the wallpaper mural with plastic, and I’ll have to cover the floor. But that’s not a huge deal, and it’ll only take about an hour to get all of that done before I can paint.
And I also suspect that when the office area cabinets are finished and looking beautiful, I’ll actually feel motivated to get the ceiling and the rest of the walls painted. At that point, I’ll be super excited to get the whole studio finished, and to tackle any project that’s standing in the way of me having a completely finished studio. That’s generally what happens. I eventually get excited to complete those projects that I’ve been dreading and putting off simply because those are standing in the way of me having a finished room.
I know I’ve shared all of this before in previous years, but I just want to reiterate for those of you who are also working on big whole-room or whole-house projects. Yes, there’s probably always a “correct” order in which to do things. But we DIYers aren’t strictly bound by them. Obviously, there are times when things do need to be done in a certain order. Yes, you have to hang drywall before you can install cabinets. Please don’t install cabinets on studs and then try to drywall around them just because you hate drywalling and want to put it off. ?
But you know what I mean. Don’t be so strictly adherent to a proper order that you find yourself dragging your feet, procrastinating for days, or weeks, or months, because the “proper” next step is one that you absolutely dread. Instead, see if there’s a way that you can move on and find something else that you can do so that you can see progress. And if you’re anything like me, once you see that room coming together, you’ll find yourself waking up one day excited about getting that project finished, and you’ll finally feel excited to do the very thing you’ve been dreading.
Just don’t be so hard on yourself, or so strict with your schedule and order of projects. It’ll all get done eventually. And I’ve found that creating a little bit of extra work for myself later (like now having to drape everything with plastic before I can finish painting the ceiling) is well worth it if I can just move forward and make loads of progress on other things that I’m truly excited to tackle right now. That’s been the story of my 30+ years of DIYing (especially since 2013), and things always seem to work out in the end.
So with that in mind, I’m going to ignore my unpainted ceiling and walls, and I’m going to spend my afternoon and evening trimming out my cabinets and getting them prepped for primer and paint. It’s going to take a lot of trim, wood filler, and caulk to get this thing looking like what I see in my mind, but this is the fun part!
And perhaps after these cabinets are finished, I’ll wake up one day feeling excited to pick up the paint roller, drag out the scaffolding, and get that 11-foot ceiling with the ceiling fan and 10 recessed lights painted. ? But for today, I’m incredibly motivated to work on these cabinets.
Note: On a completely different topic, I know that my email program has been sending out doubles, one hour apart, over the last few days. I’m so sorry about that! I promise I’m not trying to spam y’all! I thought I had fixed it on Tuesday, and then it did it again yesterday. I took another look, and I really do think I’ve fixed it now. I hope. So you should only get one email a day, but please let me know if it’s still sending out doubles. So sorry for the annoying double emails lately!
Addicted 2 Decorating is where I share my DIY and decorating journey as I remodel and decorate the 1948 fixer upper that my husband, Matt, and I bought in 2013. Matt has M.S. and is unable to do physical work, so I do the majority of the work on the house by myself. You can learn more about me here.
