Quarter Round

He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board fence nine feet high. Life to him seemed hollow, and existence but a burden.

Yesterday we decided it was time to put the dining room back in order. But we had one remaining task: put down the quarter round, a narrow piece of wood with a rounded side that ties the baseboard and floor together with just a bit of detail. You might say that quarter round is the plain and lesser cousin of crown molding. Most of the quarter round is missing from our house, and we are not quite sure why, but it has especially annoyed Cheryl from the start.

The quarter round has been in the garage for a week now, and I have been hoping, like Tom Sawyer, that someone would come along and paint them for me. One morning I came up with a idea to put notches into a piece of wood so that the quarter round strips would stay in place while I painted them. What a cool idea (my brain said to me). In effect, I tricked myself into painting the wood.

There were 18 pieces of quarter round to paint. What if I had 180 pieces, or 1800 pieces, or what if I knew that I would be painting quarter round every day for the rest of my life? Could such a prospect cause me to rethink the nature of existence? If you keep your business email like I do, just go back a few months and read one or two at random. From a distance, your real job can lose the sense of variety that you feel day-to-day. Apparently I have been painting strips of wood over and over and over for years, so why not be happy and make the best of it.

Update: the quarter round is down and Cheryl helped by putting the final touches the installation. She has always been interested in the baseboards. Cute, right? Sometimes it nice to work together.