Last month, the kids and I spent a week at the cabin 1) to celebrate Kyla’s birthday, 2) to kick off our lifetime’s most unusual school year, and 3) so I could do heaps and mounds of exterior maintenance. This time, I was ready to tackle the inside.

Guests do all sorts of head-scratching damage. There were large dents in some bedroom walls in really usual places. The boogers dried onto the bedrooms walls weren’t all Wes’s, and the dirty footprints in the same places weren’t all Kyla’s. We got there Saturday afternoon, and by midnight, I had the kids’ room repainted. [Since I had been there a little earlier to meet the exterminator, I had washed and patched the room then.]

I got 3 gallons of the same paint* and painted all three bedrooms and the landing over the week.

*Calming Cream, from the Joanna Gaines collection at Ace, satin, $50/gallon, for my own records.

This was the most time-consuming project, but not the worst. Tuesday was my day to use a wrist-torquing high-powered drill and hole saw to drill a 4″ hole behind the dryer. The original dryer vent went through the floor, kinking through the crawl space, and out a perpendicular wall. When we had the new dryer installed about 5 years ago, I never noticed they used a non-standard (read: COMPLETELY WRONG!) hose. That, combined with the long, winding venting path led to longer and longer drying times, which is pretty much the bottleneck in turning over a short-term rental quickly for new guests. It took hours, and lots of “Ouch, ouch, DAMN!’s”, and even when I tunneled all the way through, the pipe didn’t quite fit. Fortunately, my parents came over the next day and Dad has quite the useful and esoteric tool collection. He had just the right sort of power tool to smooth out the few ridges preventing the tube to go through. In just minutes, we had the new vent installed. Thank you, Dad!!

The final task was to get rid of the mice, the mouse poop, and, completely related, thoroughly disinfect the entire downstairs. We have owned the cabin for 8 years, almost to the day, before our first signs of mice. One guest canceled because of the mice, and another postponed their trip, but after the joint efforts of pest control and myself, we have not found any new evidence and hope to button up this problem soon.

On our very last evening before finally getting to go back home to Dwayne, I built a bonfire fueled with the pruned cherry tree branches I had piled up last time I was here. The kids had their sausage roast and s’mores. Our fav kids (and parents!) joined us. There are few more delightful moments than kids just playing–jumping, hiding, running, and doing the Penguins Drinking Tea camp song. It was a delightful way to end the week, even if not quite as good as a solo paddleboard hour.

Once again, Mischief Managed!