Lead Paint

See the "newel post" above, eh? Eh? I know new words!

About two weeks ago, when I first started scraping paint off the newel post (that is a fancy word for the post at the bottom of the stairwell), I looked into lead paint. What I found was enough to make me regret buying this house at all.

I know it's probably obvious to the rest of y'all, but lead paint and children don't mix. And one of the best (or worst) ways to offend with it, is to dry scrape/sand it off surfaces. Which is exactly what I was doing.

After halting any paint removal, I spent a couple of weeks trying to convince Justin of the problem, and the fact we may have exposed even more during the demo if the plaster had lead paint on it, or the floors that we sanded had lead paint on them (they had been painted previously and had a lot left in the corners, where I would usually sand without even a mask).

Justin didn't really listen to my concerns, until his hand started tingling. And I had some major intestinal woes on Sunday, one day after sanding our stairs some more (while wearing a full mask this time, the good one).

So off he went to the Doctor yesterday. Well, it turns out he likely has carpal tunnel in his right arm. And I was probably suffering from my ongoing hormone issues postpartum/breastfeeding as usual. Still, it finally shook Justin what we were doing. Eating 90% organic food (with the exception lately of dominoes pizza and bbq chips), yet eventually moving our family, including the littlest guy, into a home that may continually have lead dust from opening and closing windows, or worse, having said little guy chew on a window ledge (trust me, he will, you should see his crib!).

So while my fears haven't been absolved, at least they have been made more realistic. Looking for solutions (replacing all window ledges? Painting over all trim until we can have it stripped off site and repainted?) is one way to mediate our fears now.

I should share that the Doctor thought Justin had gone totally coo-koo with his lead poisoning theory. He said, slowly "this is very, very rare, lead poisoning" (in his fantastic Indian accent that for some reason makes you feel like a very neurotic white American). Still, Doctors don't know everything, but we are both feeling a little better. We also thought that prolonging our move-in would be for the best. Of course, we won't have one day left to take off by the end of August with Justin's new job and my total lack of accrued vacay days, but at least we have a plan and feel (slightly) good about the house again.

On that note, Justin and his daddy-o started drywalling the kitchen ceiling last night. Boo-yeah! And for those who also watch DIY/Reno shows on TV, just know, the wife does NOT have to hold up the drywall to be put on the ceiling. You simply build a quicky prop with 2 2by4s that holds it up. Not sure why those shows continually propogate suffering on wives!

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking,
"Nice drywalling Justin. But what really stands out is
the sparkle in that kitchen window. Obviously someone
put a lot of work into cleaning each window on a hot
day while making sure their baby didn't run away. Nice."
Thanks.