Pictorial Progress Report...

I still need to paint the little desk for under the window and replace the big black chair with something smaller, and a host of other small details.

Something green

It has been way too long since I have accomplished anything house-wise. Yes, I am pleased to say, I am still offloading an item a day from my cluttered home. Except for travel days, I have been consistently identifying something (or more than one something) every day since January 1st. Funny how my house is still cluttered, but it is getting trickier to identify likely candidates to be evicted from the island. Still, it is high time I got back to home renovation. So, at the prospect of a three-day weekend, I decided it was time to get on with converting my unused home office into a library.

I have been planning to do this ever since I switched to a laptop and started doing any and all word processing in other locations. The office became a place to stack things or to occasionally print something. Winifred Gallagher's interesting book, "House Thinking: A Room-by-Room Look at How We Live" encouraged me to think about how I actually use space daily, and to consider my individual habits and needs. And what I need is more bookshelves and a cozy spot to read, rather than a dysfunctional office that doubles as a guest room for guests that almost never visit. Should someone visit, there is always the trailer. When I envisioned this project, the plan was to move the filing cabinet and all the computer peripherals into the closet (taking off the awkward sliding doors) and have nothing but shelves and chair in the room. Showing how a project can evolve, even before it gets off the ground, I have shifted to 2 large walls of bookshelves, and a small desk under the window on the 3rd wall to eventually house an iMac for photography work.

In keeping with my theme of "technicolor cottage", and particularly inspired by this image on a blog I follow, I decided to paint the room bright lime green with white and ocean blue trim. The choice of green might seem a bit overwhelming, but remember two walls will be covered by tall white bookcases and a third is mostly door and closet.
With this project I decided to experiment with the Behr Premium Plus paint and primer in one. I can report that, to my surprise, even the deep green covered well with just 2 coats. (The buglight yellow bedroom got 4 coats and still could have used another.) However, the white was a pain to work with since it was thicker than ordinary paint alone. And cutting in and rolling overly thick paint onto a ceiling was not a joyful job. I assumed the green was thinner due to the amount of added tint, but the deep blue trim paint was also very thick. Weighing the annoyance of the thick paint against the convenience of just 2 coats on deep colors, next time I'll use regular paint for the ceiling and the primer/paint combo just for the deep color areas.

In the future, I would also avoid painting when it is 95 degrees, 10% humidity, and there is no air conditioning. The paint kept drying on the brush faster than I could get it on the wall and the roller kept shifting in my sweaty hands. On the plus side, stray paint does not stick well to sweaty skin.

As always, I added a few coordinated wood-burned accessories. I'll post more pictures once I have acquired the shelves and set everything up. Incidentally, the white paint splotches on the hardwood floor date from well before I purchased the house - I may not be Michelangelo, but I do use a drop cloth when painting ceilings. I did, however, get the green paint on the outlet and plug. I was also working that weekend and needed to paint without unplugging the wireless router.

My new favorite place

When the neighbors cut down their (perfectly healthy) cherry tree, they left my yard furniture without shade or privacy. I took it as a sign to get on with renovating the back porch, which was being used for storage of accumulated junk. I moved the futon couch out of the house onto the porch. Whoever decided futons should not have handles should be shot. (Laura and I have had this conversation before when we moved her giant marshmallow, and we had two people moving it.) I had to take the frame apart to get it out and down the hall. I am feeling a bit smug that I easily found the directions and original hex wrench that came with the futon frame.

The porch is now about as comfy as it could be. I may just have to sleep out there tonight. Meanwhile, time to make some limeade and settle in with some knitting....

Tadah!

Here is a grainy shot of my finished project! I will take better pictures tomorrow when I have some natural light. The before shot is here.

Removing the ugly turquoise paint (complete with brown paste wax) was a bit painful. My finishing job purposefully left the scratches and dents of age and use. The brushy paint job lets the wood grain (and leftover old paint in dents) show through. I used only 2 coats of varnish to protect it without giving it a plastic look. After painting I put back the original hand-cast brass hardware, using the original old screws.

Perhaps some future owner will be pleased to remove my paint job as ugly and inappropriate. Me - I like it very much.

Work in Progress

Here's a sneak peek of a work in progress. It is a pretty ambitious project, so stay tuned for more detail views as I work through it.

New year = New projects

Here's a "before" picture of my next furniture-sized project. I found this cabinet at a cool shop in Tucson, AZ that specializes in large Mexican colonial pieces, antique and otherwise. As we wandered between 10-foot high old wooden doors, huge terracotta urns, and giant heavy wooden sideboards, I remarked that, although I loved everything I saw, I wouldn't be tempted since nothing would fit in my tiny house. No sooner than I uttered the words, we turned a corner and found this well-loved little cabinet. It is solid, very heavy (many thanks to Mim and Sharon who helped struggle it up my steps), and the perfect piece to hold up my TV. First I need to remove the faux-finish turquoise paint. Sharon and Mim were both insistent that I should keep the turquoise, but to me it is way too "southwest" cute. Plus, why faux-finish a piece that is already honestly old? Seems like a crime to me.




While I am considering the options, the cabinet is forming an impromptu kitchen island. Just another in-progress project, sitting on the in-progress kitchen floor, next to the in-progress kitchen table, surrounded by the cabinets needing sanding and wallpaper needing stripping. I sort of have a theme going.

Progress

Two more home projects - one large and one small. First the small: Several years ago I converted the front hall closet into a pantry. Great for food storage, but left a need for alternate coat storage. My brand new orange paint job called for coordinated coat hooks. I found some unfinished shaker peg rails at Lowes. A little woodburning and painting and voila! And yes, I did use wall anchors to secure the rails. Mitten storage was accomplished by hanging a felted bag from one of the pegs.




The bigger project has a long way to go. Having determined that the massively ugly and unhygienic kitchen carpeting was not glued down with asbestos-ridden glue, I couldn't wait to start tearing it up. I spent Friday evening tearing up about half of it. Then I spent much of Saturday pouring boiling water on petrified carpet glue and scraping with a variety of implements. Not a fun process on a particularly hot day. Very swampy. Sadly the installers used an orbital sander to rough up the 1956 linoleum, so the floor revealed is less than optimum. Even damaged, the scarred linoleum is vastly preferable to icky carpeting. Down the road there will be tile. Until then, there will be lots more scraping.

The Orange Hallway

This one is a bit daring, but I'm happy with it anyway. I burned and painted the bulletin board frame to add to the festive color scheme. I used the yellow from the bedroom to paint the linen cupboard doors.

More home work

I have learned many lessons in the course of home improvement projects. This week's lesson is that the ease of a painting project is directly related to how many doorways the space has. One would think that painting the hallway in a little house like mine would be a quick and easy job. Not so. There are ten openings into the hallway: front door, kitchen, livingroom, 3 bedrooms, bathroom, linen closet, pantry closet, and furnace closet. Each opening, plus the ceiling-wall interface must be taped and then cut in with a brush. And every couple of feet along the hall required dismounting, moving, and remounting the step ladder. By the time I finished priming both walls and ceiling I felt like I had spent hours in a particularly brutal step-exercise class. Hopefully the heavy-duty ibuprofen will work its magic and I will be ready to tackle painting the ceiling tomorrow night and the walls Wednesday night.

Here's some pictures of the process so far:

Damaged drywall,















Repaired drywall (I learned this process in a home repair class taken at the local community college),















and wall primed and ready for painting.















And for those who have asked - the purple hoody is coming along nicely. Just half a sleeve, the hood, 2 pockets and the button band to go!

Overdue Project Report

The striped pieces on the bed will be sewn into pillows. The colors in the South American weaving (last picture) will really pop when I hang it on the yellow wall. The little lamp on the bedside table was an ugly bargain purchase that I sanded, painted with the Mango trim paint, then varnished.

Next project: painting the hallway "Mango Madness".

Big project

The spring zipped by faster than a speeding train and my promise of home improvement during Memorial Day Weekend is at hand. Time to paint the bedroom. I took today off to give the project a full 4-day weekend. Wednesday night I moved the wall o' books and disassembled all five bookcases. Thursday night I pushed and prodded all the remaining furniture out of the room and into whatever space I could park it. The queen size mattress only made it as far as the hallway outside the door. I ask you, why would anyone manufacture a queen-sized mattress without giving it handles?! (Not as bad as the 100 lb marshmallow of a futon I helped Laura move, though.) I even took apart the iron bed frame and stowed the pieces in the front hall.

So far today I have shop-vac'd as much cat hair as possible out of the room, taken down the curtains and rod, removed the ceiling fan blades and glass shade, and visited Home Depot for paint and supplies. Unable to avoid it any longer I then tackled the worst job of the whole project: scrubbing the walls and ceiling with TSP water. The ceiling is particularly bad, leaving the scrubber (me) an overheated slimy mess. Double uck. I had to be mighty stern with myself to complete the job right. Given how long it takes for me to get around to things, this paint job will have to last a very long time, so I better do it right.

Spackling is next, then taping, but (I tell myself) I will need to wait until the walls are thoroughly dry. Time for a break. I think I will go knit for a bit. The purple hoody is coming along nicely. Perhaps a short nap...

A few images...

Sorry to be so long gone. Here are a few pictures of recent events in garden, fibers, and home renovation, along with a promise to properly post soon.

Yes, pineapple yellow IS a bold choice for the bedroom. :-)

Not as easy as it looks

With a new year comes new ambitions. First, of course, I wanted to get back to blogging. Here I am. Mission accomplished.


Second was to start spinning through some of my lifetime stash of fiber, rather than buying more. One bobbin down, lots more to go. One mermaid-colored leaflet mitt knit (except the thumb), another to start.

More important than those ambitions, though, is an overwhelming need to get back to working on the house. Driving back from my Christmas trip to Arizona I had ample time to contemplate my many, many unfinished home renovation projects. (Anyone who has driven between Las Vegas and Reno can tell you that, although the high desert is beautiful, there is a lot of it.) I desperately need to finish something. I decided that the something will be the front hall.

A couple of years ago I pulled off the top layer of wallpaper and scraped off the popcorn ceiling. About a year ago I began scraping the next layer off the walls. That's when I discovered the many alternating layers of questionable wallpaper and gritty fossilized paint. I tried scraping. I tried wetting and scraping. I tried scoring and slathering with heavy duty chemicals and scraping. Although some layers came off in patches, so did the paper surface of the drywall. Hmmm...

I shifted my attention to the flooring. In a criminal act, the previous owners had glued faux flagstone vinyl directly to beautiful honey oak hardwood. I spent many hours slowly scraping the vinyl off the floor, hoping to preserve the wood below. At some point I escalated the war and bought a heat gun. Slowly (very slowly) I am scraping away the remaining petrified glue.


With the new year I am once again attacking the walls. I am now the proud owner of a Wagner Power Steamer. Fill that puppy with water and it steams away for what feels like hours. The result of my first go with it tells me that wallpaper steaming will not be my only needed new skill. Hopefully drywall repair will be covered in the home improvement class I am signed up for. I went out on the internet for advice. Most folks said to hire a professional to fix any damage you do to your drywall before painting. My favorite advice was from the guy who said to try a fancy faux-finishing effect so it looks like you meant to do it.

Yup, I meant to do it. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

A plug for your local community college

I have just signed up for a class in basic home repair skills, including light repairs on plumbing, electrical, drywall, and carpentry. It meets for 6 two-hour evening sessions in February and March. It is offered through my local community college.

If you haven't checked out what your local community college has to offer, you are missing out. They typically offer a range of "continuing education" courses from one-day to full-semester, including everything from cooking to auto repair to personal finance. Ours even has courses in channeling spiritual energy, stand-up comedy, and installing solar panels. All at extremely reasonable prices. Over the years I have taken weekend and evening courses on High Desert Gardening, Backyard Ponds and Water Gardens, and Digital Photography.

Other sources of interesting and affordable classes and workshops include the public library system, school district, and museums. The local school district teaches an assortment of adult education classes. I took a Broken-Tile Mosaic class from them that was both excellent and a lot of fun. From the Nevada Museum of Art I have taken Japanese Print Making and Pine Needle Basketry. Next Sunday I am signed up for a follow-up workshop on making lids for pine-needle baskets. And, although I have not taken classes from the public library here, I have in the past taken a class on Cooking with Chilies from the Tucson Public Library.

Here's the description of a popular Truckee Meadows Community College course that I may just have to sign up for some spring:

"Wine Country Safari
Explore Napa and Sonoma like you never have before. Each morning take birding and natural history tours of the region's woodlands, lakes and forests where you'll see an enormous variety of birds and wildlife. Then refresh yourself during afternoon wine tastings."

Progress

The foundation stones have been placed and backfilled. Now the tricky-artsy job of fitting stones begins. Note: Rocks are really heavy.

Earthquake casualties

Reno has been experiencing an earthquake swarm (I didn't make that up - that's what the seismologists are calling it). We have experienced over 5000 "events" since February. Most have been below 2.0, but last week we had several 3s and 4s, with the strongest at 4.7. The folks in Mogul, about 7-8 miles west of my house have been close to the epicenter and losing a lot of sleep. We are expected to have one over 6.0, but for now they have slacked off a bit. So far I have had only 2 casualties. This lovely little wooden sheep was grazing too close to the edge of a shelf and took a dive during the 4.7er. Splintered off both of her port-side limbs. The now-legless robot fell off my desk at work. Time to get out the superglue I used on the 10.5 needle. Meanwhile I have corralled the rest of my breakable sheep into a padded paddock.

Adding to all the earthquake fun, I had a home-repair speedbump that may adjust my home renovation priorities. The outgoing sewage decided to bubble up into my backyard. Not pleasant at all. The fine employees of Jet Plumbing managed to unstop the stoppage for now, but it looks like a portion of the outgoing sewer pipe has collapsed. There may be much digging and repiping in my backyard's future. Or my neighbor's backyard. I am hoping plumbing calamity will hold off until after the summer. To earn good-house karma, I stopped at Home Depot on the way home tonight and bought 34 cubic feet of cedar mulch to begin spreading in the morning.

Stage 2 finished

The Great Front Hall Project continues. Stage one was to remove the vinyl top layer. Stage 2 (a particularly arduous stage) was to heat and scrape up the cardboard backing layer. I have finished this process, except for the bit under the metal threshold. I'll wait until it is a little warmer for the threshold operation, since I will have to work with the front door open. That leaves the residual glue mess you see in the picture. Miscellaneous advice on the internet recommends dissolving the glue with mineral spirits. Of course this advice is from the same optimistic folks who said the glue would easily scrape right off when heated. Still, worth a try. And since I am fresh out of mineral spirits, I can use this excuse to visit Home Depot - I have been thinking of buying a reciprocal saw... And maybe collecting paint chips for after the wallpaper is removed....

Progress

Escalation

Those who have visited my little 1956 house know that I am in a long-term war against 45 years of questionable decorating. When I bought the house a few years ago I made great inroads on the flooring front by removing the unusually blue carpeting that was smothering perfectly wonderful honey-oak hardwood, and replacing many of the ugly-puny light fixtures. I was victorious again when I successfully tiled the fireplace, banished all popcorn ceiling and replaced tired tan wallpaper with paint in the livingroom. Since then the war has been stalled. The greatest ongoing battle is being waged in the front hall. Years ago someone glued down faux flagstone sheet vinyl directly onto the beautiful hardwood floor. Who would do such an atrocity? And the walls were covered with 2 layers of wallpaper, then painted, then covered with 3 more layers of wallpaper; all of it ugly beyond belief. For at least 2 years now I have been scraping at both walls and floor, hoping to preserve what lies below. Considerable elbow grease has resulted in little progress. To add to the, um, scenic nature of this battle zone, Zach has decided that if I can scrape at the walls, so can he. He has designated one of the walls as a scratching zone. It was clearly time for an arms escalation.

I am now the proud owner of both a heat gun and a wallpaper steamer. You can rent either of these tools, but the number of hours needed would cost more than buying the equipment. I spent way too many hours yesterday wielding the scary heat gun. I know it was way too many hours because I can hardly move today. Encouraging instructions on the 'net say just heat the surface and the flooring and glue will easily scrape right off. Not exactly. Six hours of heating and scraping cleaned up about 4 square feet of flooring. Still, this is more progress than I have managed in 2 years.

Next weekend I'll try out the wallpaper steamer. War is Hell.