It absolutely frustrates me whenever my father suddenly gets the urge to do some sort of DIY project inside the house. I hate to say it but the result is often some amateurish job that makes me shake my head in disbelief. Thing is, once he gets that idea, there’s no stopping him. Often all I can do is resign myself to the fact that I’m going to have to put up with ugly for the next while.

A while ago, he mentioned that he wanted to add colour to the lower half of wall in the sitting area with moulding. For the longest time I suggested the idea of colouring a room or a focal wall, but my parents were staunchly against it with the reason that colour would make the room look smaller. All of sudden though, he picked up the idea to do this project so it struck me as odd. I figure he must have seen it in one of his friend’s houses. In theory, the idea has potential to look good. However, I had a feeling that it just wouldn’t look right if he did it himself so I protested heavily. Ultimately he got angry at me saying “why are you stopping me from doing everything I want?” Ooh, that had potential to get uglier than it already was so I just walked away.

This idea was just sitting around for the longest time. Then, one day I came home to see a pencil line about mid-height along the wall with some wood moulding on the floor. OK…I just ignored it. A day or two after, when I came home, I saw the wall along the sitting area painted in what I will call baby poo brown. Ugh. I complained at once, but there was nothing I could do. My father basically said “what am I going to do, it’s already there.” I gave one of my what-the-hell looks to my mother, and she somewhat gave a resigned “well…it’s not thaaaaaat bad.” The paint job was kind of splotchy so I figured that he’d give it another coat before doing anything.

This morning I heard heavy pounding and when I came down I saw the unpainted wood moulding nailed to the wall. On some corners he bothered to at least do a diagonal cut where two ends met, but on one he didn’t bother. There are gaps in the moulding where one piece ends and one starts. You can see the nails in the wood. I asked him if he was planning on painting the moulding and he said, no. He argued that the wood would go well with the white of the wall. The paint was still splotchy, meaning that what I saw before was the final job. I asked him about it and he blamed the splotchy white paint underneath. Sure, you can blame it, but that’s only half the story. Why didn’t he tape the paint for clean lines? Why didn’t he prime it so the wall wouldn’t be so porous?

Man. Seriously, I consider it to be a horrible job and it makes me extremely sad to see it done. I told my father flat out that I thought it’s ugly. He just told me that it’s done and there’s nothing he can do about it. And then he followed up by saying that I never give my opinion on such things. Bullshit. He just has selective memory. I asked him about primer and giving it another coat. He said that he was running out of time. Apparently, we have company coming over tomorrow. I argued that if he didn’t have enough time he shouldn’t have started such a project. I mean, seriously, if you’re going to do something like this, do it right instead of a half-assed rush job. And now? We’re going to have people come over to see this horrible job? UGH. I will be absolutely embarrassed. He seems satisfied with it though. How could he be? I don’t get it.

I dunno. I’ve been watching some home decor shows on TV so I can sort of recognize horrible jobs. Say, if Colin and Justin were over and saw this baby poo brown and wood kindling they’d be shrieking. There’s a lot of potential with this space, but it’s all gone to waste. I want to complain and raise bloody hell, but ultimately it’s not my house. It’s not my place. You know what? That drives me nuts.

ETA: Well, my mother thinks it’s OK. She likes the colour and to her the job doesn’t look too bad. She told me that I should be more supportive of my dad’s projects because he puts a lot of effort into them. I suppose that’s true: I’m usually too critical. Still…I’m not sold on this one in particular. I think once everything is put back it might be something that will grow on me. However, I’m really not sure.