Sometimes everything happens at once. In this case, the carefully managed chaos worked like a beautifully oiled machine.

Over the course of the past few months, my husband and I have identified several larger renovation projects we wanted to conquer. First was our kitchen counter. When we moved in, it was a eye-piercing shade of retro aqua-turquoise blue. Not only did the laminate spread across the counter, it went up as the back-splash as well.

But the color wasn’t the impetus behind the change; it was the fact that the laminate was literally falling off. After watching my husband glue down a waving strip of laminate (securing the laminate with duct tape until the glue dried), we decided that the kitchen counter replacement needed to take top priority in the list of renovations.

Meanwhile, my husband continued is work on the room we call his office. Originally a shuttered room with a built-in shelf that blocked out the light, he freed the windows to reveal a spacious, sunny room with deteriorating plaster and disintegrating material that used to be insulation.

Somehow, these two projects unintentionally came to a head in the same week. The revolving door of workmen has renewed my appreciation of people who have made a trade their expertise. Some of these projects we could have done ourselves, but not with the quality or experience of these tradesmen. The result is that we will have both a new counter top and a room newly drywall-ed and insulated without having lost our sanity all while providing jobs to the guys who know their trade.

Next step? Back to painting! We now have two new rooms ready and waiting!