Start at the top.

Gremlin's going through a "I want everything on the floor!" phase. Missing an earring? It's probably been batted under the furniture. Your contact lenses case? Try across the bathroom floor. And that wet spot you just stepped in? It's the water you didn't finish drinking last night. The glass is probably on the other side of the room. He starts knocking things over from the top of the nightstand and works his way down.

In similar fashion, the first day I worked on the Cougar, I started at the top. Literally. I began sanding down the top of the roof before anything else. The roof was flecked with surface rust and still had a lot of powder blue paint on it. Dad explained that I needed to sand it down with a rough 180 grit sandpaper before then sanding with a finer grit paper and coating it with primer. I'd never worked a sander before; Dad gave me a quick run-down on how to use it before leaving me to work on it on my own.

For nearly an hour and a half I sanded the roof with the rough grit paper, until the roof was nothing but shiny metal like the day it rolled off of the factory machines. I wish there'd been more time for me to work, but I was on a tight schedule and needed to be getting to work. This is the before and after of day 1: