Prime Time

AT LAST!

Yesterday we primed Alex's room.  I know the entire internet world has been waiting for this day to arrive.  I know I have.  And yesterday was it.  First there were a couple of ugly patches where bubbles and seams left by the previous (sloppy) painters needed to be sanded down, which exposed this ugly yellow paper from the wallboard, so first I put a coat of primer on those two spots (there's an even bigger spot in Julia's room, but we're not done in there yet anyway. 

So after I got those two areas patched, I taped down a biodegradable material dropcloth (which alex thought was going to be a permanent part of his room.  He liked it.)

and taped around the parts of the window that won't be painted, and removed the remaining switchplates. 

Oh, yeah, and I taped around the light fixture, too. 

And I taped the outlines of the spots in Alex's doorway where the hardwoods are missing from the floor, just so no one forgets about the dangerous ankle-twisting potential there.

And then, after a delivered dinner of pizza, Bill and I primed the room.  He did the big areas with the roller, and I did trim and corners and smaller areas with a brush. 

Julia only careened into the room - and the paint - twice, which was pretty good, I think.

And here's the room now:

This morning I need to put another coat on the sheet rock portions of the room - the dark gray shows through - and after that - time to add color!!

So that's the update this morning.

I'll be running errands after Alex goes to school - bank, Farmers' Market, grocery store, Lowe's,
Salk's (an ACE Hardware store - I need a funnel for my canning adventures) and...I think that'll be it. 

I'm halfway done with the puff pastry how-to post - it's a long one.  Hopefully that'll be up today, but I can't make any promises, now that Alex's room is coming together.  It would be so nice to be able to move the kids' mattresses in there by the end of the weekend and set up OUR bed in what will be our bedroom some day, and not sleep in the basement any more. 

We are also now on kind of a deadline.  Well, we always were - we wanted to get the rooms done before assorted family members arrive in July.  But now the deadline is more, well deadliney.  The final nightmare project that needs to be done is to sand and - horrors - polyurethane the floor.  The WHOLE hardwood floor upstairs, which includes both bedrooms and the hallway.  So we'll have to move EVERYTHING to lower floors before the sanding.  And it looks like sanding will be done in two weeks.  Yes.  Two.  That's going to be pretty soon.  So we need to finish Julia's room and patch the hardwood spots before then. 

And then - when we poly the floors, we have to move out for the duration, so the fumes don't pickle my kids' brains.  Or ours, though ours are already kind of battered anyway.  And we'll move the pets out as well, at least the ones with brains that seem active.  My sister is going to let the cats bunk at her place, and I think our friends across the street might take the lizard. 

And then, after that - we can move all our stuff back to where it belongs and get ready for the annual July Festival of Family.  Just kidding.  There's no festival.  But there is family.  And now we'll have an extra bedroom!  Yay.

Okay, gotta go for now.  Almost time to run my errands.

Comments

[Lynne]

Aha! It is a triumph of sanding and filling expertise we are seeing here. The preparation is sooooooo important.

I award you the Holey Moley Filler award... :)

[Carol Peterman]

Exciting progress. Getting to add color to the walls is so gratifying. Nice job on masking. I am often amazed that people don't bother.

[productoftupelo]

I am so glad I have reached a point in my life where I have no.....absolutely NO drive to tackle those kinds of projects anymore. Been there, done that. Got the tee-shirt and the hat.
You are doing a wonderful job btw, and I really admire your youthful drive. LOL!
I live in a lil 100 year old house that has crooked door frames and about 10 cabinets in the kitchen. I have 3 closets and one bathroom and I love it here like nowhere else I have lived! (and I have lived large) Simplicity to me is so key right now....I love it.
BUT I also love doing all my cooking from scratch which is where YOU entertain me!
Silly huh? Ya think I would have an already shredded bag of lettuce and frozen packages of crockpot meals. I love a cooking challenge and am completely engulfed in the idea of making my very own mozzerella cheese. No clue why that interests me so, but it does, and I am up to it! Thankyou for inspiring me!

[jomamma]

Like PofT says, this day and age it's something to find someone who still cooks dinner, much less bakes. And then in the middle of all that you start redecorating your house only to break from that to do canning. You are one ambitious person.

[Jayne]

It's funny. I'm somehow at both those points you describe. We NEEDED to make two separate rooms for the kids at some point, and things just fell into place (or the stars and planets fell into alignment) this spring and we were off and sanding. I love the fact that we're doing it ourselves - Bill and me and our nephew, Joe, who was the crew chief as far as all the electricity and demolishment and building went. He'll also come over to build doorframes for Alex's doorway and the two closets. He had the experience and the know-how for all that - AND that youthful drive part as well.

Then when the joint compound application and sanding and more joint compound and then sanding started to seem very much like Sisyphus and the rock, all that youthful energy and drive I'd had evaporated for a while. I started thinking we'd still be sanding when the kids went to college. So finally getting to prime was like a huge reward for all that work. And the best part (for me) is the painting and, as Alex puts it, the decoration.

But all the decorating will have to wait until AFTER the floors are done. And that's the part I absolutely dread.

Because in truth, I'd love to live in a 100 year old house with crooked doors and 10 cabinets in the kitchen, just 3 closets and 1 bathroom. Actually - that's kind of like the house I grew up in, except that my dad's business took up the front part of the house, and there was, when needed, fresh paint or (ugh) wallpaper.

I, too, am craving simplicity - perhaps more so because I'm in the middle of all this chaos at the moment. I'm itching to get everything back where it belongs. All (or most) of the kids' toys back intheirROOMS. Our bed back in an actual bedROOM and not on the floor, in the way of the washer and dryer. And so on.

I think cooking from scratch dovetails nicely with simplicity. Sure, every time I make mozzarella I use up every bowl I own and make a huge mess of splattered whey. But still...in the end, I have mozzarella. And despite my mess, it IS just a plain and simple straightforward process. Kind of meditative at times, too, with the stirring and the scooping and the kneading. And it's incredibly satisfying to make something yourself.

So not only am I filled with both youthful (ha!) drive AND a need for simplicity, I am also incredibly long-winded. :)

[productoftupelo]

Oh My Gawd......NO KIDDING......where she pulls it from I have no clue. ;-)