Last week, while I was at The Write Stuff writers conference hosted by The Greater Lehigh Writers Group, my daughter and her boyfriend embarked on a project to refinish my upstairs hallway.

Our house is nearly 100 years old and the walls are lath, plaster and horse hair. Everything in this house has settled, leading to bubbles everywhere. There are patches from all the trouble we’ve had getting stuff up and down the stairs.

Eva pulled out all the plaster the first day.

Her boyfriend put up drywall the next.

Then, she spent a day spreading joint compound, followed by her boyfriend sanding.

Then a day of painting, and a day of stripping paint from the molding.

Then, painting the molding.

And wallpaper.

And trim.

And laying down the new rug.

Which her boyfriend kept getting splinters so she bought the rug which spurred the whole six day project.

Otherwise known as how Eva spent her spring break.

It looks amazing. And she never hung wallpaper before.

I peeked inside the drop ceiling over the stairs when a piece of the tile had slid. Eva took them all out so I could get a good look at the cavernous space.

The ceiling and trim are pristine.

And that is all above my head over the stairs. It’s huge.

I asked if we could fix it up and leave it exposed and the boyfriend said, “All you need is an extension ladder and a couple of OSHA violations.”