You spend half your life saving up to buy a house. Then you spend the rest of your life working to keeping the house from falling down.

When we first moved in to the old fixer-upper, I made a chart with all the projects that we were going to tackle. Paint the bedrooms. Fix the ceiling in the entrance way. Clean up the basement. That enthusiasm lasted for a while.

As former renters, we had a world of spackle and primer to investigate. I wielded a caulking gun with gusto. I chatted with neighbors about the best way to fix cracks in plaster. I explored the aisles of Lowe's and Home Depot. Steve got big books about plumbing and electric wiring. I was Martha Stewart, Bob Vila, Paige Davis.

Nearly four years later, that's all grown a bit old. It feels like a losing battle. Decay and erosion happen faster than we can repair. Even as the men constructed a new kitchen, the house laughed at our efforts, and the upstairs bathroom sagged another inch with the weight of a waterlogged floor. The paint jobs of the first year faded and new cracks formed. I positioned another potted plant over a hole in the porch floor.

Still, this losing battle of home repair must go on. We decided that instead of mounting steady and weekly skirmishes against time, that we would reserve certain weekends for shock and awe against the house. We blocked out this weekend for one of those major campaigns. We had to paint the kitchen.

We briefly talked about hiring someone to do it for us, but Scrooge McDuck nixed that idea. We're still feeling the sting in the checkbook of putting in a new kitchen and Steve didn't want to stretch us any further.

Two days of priming and painting. The ceiling and the walls are done. The trim is primed, but not painted. We ran out of clean brushes and energy by this afternoon, so the battle may continue into the evenings this week.

It does look lovely. The walls are an off-white (Benjamin Moore "Moonlight White"). In a couple of weeks, a ketchupy hand print or two will decorate the walls. Gradually, the house will find more sneaky ways to undo our efforts. But, for the moment, it is peaceful and perfect.