Day 3

So, here it is, Day 3 of the project and the schedule is already in flux. I can't just go pick up the shelving in my car because it won't fit, and since I have dinner plans for the night anyway, borrowing a truck won't work tonight. So instead:

Revision A to Tentative schedule for the project:

Monday evening: Paint cabinets, install and paint supports for under cabinet shelves, prime 3rd wall

Tues evening: borrow truck, Lowe's run for shelving supplies, build shelves under the stairs, install wire shelving under cabinets

Weds: paint 3rd wall (if i'm home), spray paint cabinet hardware

Thurs: begin taping off and painting stripes

Fri: hang out with friends

Sat am: move washer and dryer, wash and prime wall behind w/d, go get my cousin in Toledo and head to my Gram's 80th birthday party. after the party (meaning late at night) paint w/d wall

Sun am: continue painting stripes, particularly on w/d wall so i can move them back into working position, LT superbowl party

Some day the following week: Project clean up, move stuff back into laundry room organized on the new shelves

more updates?

You know how when you watch Trading Spaces or Flip that House on TLC, they update you on every little detail, just so they can fill the hour show? well, I told you I'm pretending this is one of those shows... thus all these totally boring updates. If you're tired of the painting project, read no further... if you're bored and dying to know what color I chose for beneath the cabinets, read on...

Its the end of the first day of the project (midnight in fact), Reenie is tired tired tired but pleased with how the project is progressing. The back wall is primed and painted the back wall- its now green and awaiting colorful stripes. She did have a bit of a mishap with the paint colors though... Since she'd bought all the paints on clearance, she didn't entirely have control of the colors. When she opened the green, looked like a pale celery kind of green, it was kind of a yucky color (thus the original owners returned it to Lowes). Instead of a happy pale green, it was kind of a greenish tone to a beige... not what she had in mind. Undaunted she surveyed the other paint cans... forest green, left by the previous homeowners, maybe if she mixed a little of that it would help the color out. Well, the date on the paint can said 1996 (yes that is 12 years ago), and it took 15 minutes to pry the lid off. The paint itself looked fine, once stirred, but adding some to the celery green didn't help, and it was then she noticed the rusty paint can was flaking into the paint... lovely... she's going to dispose of that ancient forest green and not use it further. Anyway, then I added some of the lovely medium blue (purchased from Aco for 1.50 yesterday). It brightened up the celery to a nice happy shade of green and she began painting.

After much pondering (about 1.5 minutes), Reenie decided on the pale pink for beneath the cabinets, behind the future wire shelves. It looks quite nice, although she was a little surprised that she, a professed pink hater for many many years, had just painted an entire wall pink. That just shows how far she's come :) I think it will look quite nice and already the room is so much brighter and happier with the green, pink, and white primed cabinets. And as always, clean up is kind of a mess, as I headed upstairs to freeze the rollers, I definitely managed to give Suzie a green snout... but hey, at least its a happy green :D

Next up? Well, Sunday is a birthday brunch, Life Teen, and maybe a pre-LT meeting, so our fearless home decorator won't get much done (okay, won't get anything done).

Tentative schedule for the project:
Monday evening: purchase and install the wire closet shelves
Tues evening: build shelves under the stairs
Weds: Paint cabinets (2 coats) and add support to cabinet shelf, spray paint cabinet hardware
Thurs: put hardware back on cabinet doors, put cabinet doors back on
Fri: hang out with friends
Sat am: wash and prime large paneled wall, go get my cousin in Toledo and head to my Gram's 80th birthday party.
Sun: Move washer and dryer, clean, prime, paint wall behind washer and dryer, paint paneled wall, begin striping.
Some day the following week: Finish striping, project clean up, move stuff back into laundry room organized on the new shelves :D Yay!

Now its really like a TV show... and I'm positive, just like on TV, you'll hear the narrator say at some point "Reenie is falling behind schedule, although she'd planned to be done by now, she still has a lot of work to do..." Stay tuned...

Saturday night

5.00 PM Update
John Denver, Barry White, Guster, and I have been singing it up in the basement... note: I do not like spiders and I just had to kill a big gross one... at the risk of admitting to being a wussy girl, encounters with large spiders make a shiver run up my spine. and the next two big fluffy dust bunny's that fell during the wall cleaning made me jump (but don't tell anyone I admitted that). After vacuuming part of the laundry room- it stopped sucking... grrr... out of vacuum bag apparently.

Successes: most of the stuff is moved out of there, except Kara's table and chairs, the laundry soap shelf, dog crate, ironing board, water softener. Furnace filter has been changed, 2 loads of laundry done, part of the water softener disconnected. several bags of garbage, some old cushions and carpet squares ready for the trash. one wall has been washed in preparation for painting. under the stairs has been measured for shelves.

Failures: Vacuum bag situation, its butt cold down there, seriously grossed out by big spider, haven't figured out how to disconnect the rest of the water softener, old water softener (from previous owner) is too heavy for me to drag out to the garage, did i mention big spiders gross me out big time? oh yeah, and as of breakfast, we are totally out of dog food.

The Plan, revised: Head out to the wilds of saline unshowered as I am in search of vacuum bags and dog food. And when I get back, maybe I will break the job into sections for priming and painting. If i finish one more wall, I could prime and paint 2 walls, leaving the rest of the room (including washer and dryer in place and usable).

8.00 pm Update
My run into Saline yielded dog food, vacuum bags, and a few other painting supplies. I definitely slid through a red light on the slippery roads... nice job... luckily it was at the Wendy's light, where the one car waiting watched me slide through and then made his turn. Nothing like a little adrenaline though.

Finished vacuuming the walls for painting, finished washing them, primed the two prepped walls. and now I'm starving so I'm taking a dinner break while the primer dries, then the coat of light green will go on. So, along one wall that has upper cupboards (old ugly ones that will be painted) I'm going to put wire shelves below the cupboards to the floor. The question is, what color do i want the wall behind the shelves to be?? The green is rather light and won't be very interesting. I'm thinking the cupboards will be purple... hmmm... maybe the pale pink? maybe blue? my inner creative genius is struggling with this one... or maybe that I'm not a creative genius at all, just a girl who needs some sunshine and finds organizing and painting projects all consuming and a good creative outlet in the midst of a crazy life. Well, I'm off to eat something. Stay tuned for color decisions...

Saturday morning

I love the weekend. I love sleeping in after being up too late. I love that the second my foot hits the ground (out of bed) I can hear the jingle of excited bitches waiting at the bottom of the stairs. I love that this morning Suze attempted a flying kiss (where she's so excited she jumps straight into the air and tries to lick your face). I love slowly waking up reading the paper, drinking coffee. I love that the geraniums are blooming. I love that the seed catalogs are pouring in lately, lots of room for garden dreams while the snow is falling outside.

The Latest Plan:
The laundry room is a rather dismal basement room at the Nichols homestead. Its time to redo it, repaint, reorganize, add some shelving, totally revamp it. Since its the laundry room (where virtually no one goes) I've decided to go cheap and exciting. I've been checking the clearance paint shelves for the last couple months, and for $15 total I now have a gallon of light green, a gallon of dark purple, and quarts of pale pink and medium blue. Then last night I went digging into the old paint from the previous homeowner and found even more colors to add to the palette: hot pink, navy blue, forest green, creamy white. Now I'm thinking these might be too many colors for my feeble mind to handle. But for the time being, I'm thinking stripes, colorful stripes. And maybe ladybugs to accent the room. Thats what I'm thinking at this moment anyway. Feel free to leave me suggestions if you're inspired by that exciting palette :D

Today's task is to move everything from the laundry room into the storage room, organizing as i go. Then everything needs to be cleaned, the walls, the cobwebs from the rafters, everything. Thats probably as far as I'll get today. So maybe next weekend I'll commence the priming and painting. Stay tuned... I'm going to take some before and after pictures and pretend I'm on Trading Spaces or something like that. Okay, I really need to get to work, Happy Saturday friends.

Good morning friends, happy Thursday.

A momentary vent: It never ceases to amaze me the kinds of people we, the american people, vote into office. Mayor Kilpatrick of detroit is back in the limelight for lying under oath about an affair he was having. Not only did he get elected the first time, but then it was shown that he misused city funds, and then he was re-elected. What is wrong with this picture??? I hate politics and politicians in general. Why is the voting public so stupid sometimes? And why does it seem like all politicians are lying, cheating skunks? Grrr.

On a more cheery note, I love Fr Gordon at St Andrews. What a joyful and beautiful man, so in love with the One he serves!! I'd vote for him any day! I am sometimes just awed at the blessed life I lead. Many people struggle to find one good, orthodox, solid priest near them, and I have a dozen of them within a half hour of me! I am so blessed!! Thank you Jesus.

One more note, has anyone else noticed that it is COLD??? Good heavens, its like 8 degrees out right now, with a windchill of -1. Have I mentioned that I am ready for spring?

Couch Shopping

My green couch has seen better days. Actually, it probably saw its best days looonnnggg before it came to live with me. Let's see, history of this couch... in summer 2001 Michele and I found it on the curb with a matching chair (both in a horrible aztec print). We picked them up, cleaned them, and recovered it in green checkered fabric and it moved from Michele and Tina's apartment to our Forest apartment where they they lived happily with Tina, Michele and I for the year. Then we moved them to the Hamlet house, where they saw many roommates, many friends, many teens, many cats, and a few goats. In November 2002, the chair went to the curb and the couch moved with me to the Nichols homestead. It seriously needed a new cover, so we recovered it sage green, and here it has seen many roommates, many friends, many teens, and a couple bitches. The time has come... its current cover is looking dingy, falling apart, and frankly I'm not recovering it again. I'm ready to let the poor thing actually retire. Anyway, so I got some money for Christmas and that strengthened my desire for a new couch (although new tile in the kitchen was a close second).

Anyway, Art Van was having a sale this weekend (the biggest sale ever, as usual). I spent an hour Friday night wandering around Art Van sitting on couches, and realizing I must have really short legs! I mean, I know I'm no tower of height, but I've never felt so short in my life (and I have some tall friends)... most of the couches didn't let me touch the floor! Sigh. The few couches in my price range were okay, nothing I was totally excited about. Besides feeling short, its a little strange to realize I've bought cars, a house, appliances, and yet, I've never bought furniture! (Thank God for grandparents and couches on the curb). Anyway, the salesperson was sort of helpful, but the only couches I really liked were way out of my price range and the ones in my range were fine... ugh. decisions! Oh and I like that the salesman told me that couches like this last over 10 years, you will easily get tired of them and get a new one to redecorate before they wear out. Try me, I thought to myself. I've had a free couch off the curb for 10 years now and a pink couch from my grandparents for over 5. Sigh. Exit Art Van agonizing over the decision.

Saturday afternoon I headed for Ikea. I've definitely lusted over their couches in the past and they recently added the one I like in black, very nice. After my mediocre experience at Art Van, I was debating getting the well made Art Van model, probably better than Ikea couches, for the same price... hmmm... I just don't know. So Ikea was insane, apparently a cold Saturday afternoon is a bad time to be in Ikea as everyone is there with their antsy kids. And apparently Ikea is just the place to let them run screaming all over the place, push each other in carts, run into patrons, etc. at least you're busy scoping out cheap fixtures and don't have to deal with them (note the sarcasm in my tone). So Ikea was nuts, but there it was, the black ektop sofa I've been pondering... I sat down, its the right balance of comfortable and firm, and guess what... it fits perfectly! My feet hit the floor while my back rests on the back of the couch. Very comfortable. I like the color, the cover is removable and washable, its exactly the right price, yeah... Decision made... its Ikea all the way. Now I just need to borrow a truck to go buy it and bring it home.