So far this week, I’ve exercise precious little, and I’ve exercise to the point of exhaustion. How? Remodeling. For various reasons, we put off the painting and the re-tiling. You know how it is. Then we hit and hit it hard. We started simultaneously with the bathroom and the kitchen.

Forty plus year old wallpaper adorned the walls that had seen their time. Forty years means no easy pull off vinyl wallpaper. No, this was a matter of scraping and scraping and scraping some more. The first night, my husband had to ask me to stop despite the fact I was determined to finish the kitchen.

After removing the wallpaper, it was time to paint. Being the artistic one in the family, the painting was left to me. I tried my hand at rag rolling, not too dissimilar from watercolor techniques. I started with the bathroom. One thing to bear in mind with doing such work is that the dried product looks different. At first, I was disappointed, then elated. The kitchen also turned out splendidly. As if that wasn’t enough work, then I started on the storage closet. It was like moving. Brutal. I have a huge load for the trash and the recycling.

So what did my efforts earn me? Estimates, of course, but as I can near figure it, here goes:

• Painting–2 hours–422 calories
• Wallpaper–6 hours–1,266 calories
• Cleaning storage area–4 hours–844 calories

Now if that doesn’t count as exercise, I just don’t know what does!