[irritating tense and personal voice change - so I'm not an English major]

Next came the mess and distress. Find places for all of the extra furniture and things that had moved into the living room. Move the upholstered furniture into the the dining room, roll up the rug and find a place for it, move the big table into the living room to serve as my work table. Spread the floor tarps. Hang a big plastic tarp over the archway between the living room and the dining room. Such total disorder,/ What happened to our comfy home?

Then came the demolition stage. Check each wall to see how many of the cracks in that old old plaster needed the full clean out and re-plaster treatment and which could get by with a simple top coat. Dig and scrape and clean up the mess. Make the first layer of the patch. Wait a day. Make the next layer of the patch, set up the scaffold and start the spot patching. Wait a day. Clean up the plaster work mess and start the prep for the primer paint. Spend a day laying blue tape around the edge of the floor, follow with the protective paper, top with the tarps and invoke the friendly house spirits to guard the hardwood floors.