If You Mess Something Up on Accident, You Can Make Something Better.

I like to paint things just for the heck of it. Sometimes my patience keeps me from painting things properly, resulting in a poorly executed $5, 2 hour craft project that because of its failure, turns into a $100, plans-needed, 1 week build fest.

I cant say that I was entirely crushed when the silver paint job that I did on our black shelves scraped off with the 1st attempt to move them back against the wall. Clearly my prep job was less than stellar (no patience, I just want to paint. Who wants to sand?) and the silver paint didn't stick. Why would I want to paint perfectly fine black shelves with silver paint? Because it seemed quicker than the silver leafing process that would have looked (in my dreams) like this piece from carsonandco.com

Granted, the above is a properly proportioned cocktail table and I was starting with a shelf that had a thick coat of black paint covering up all of its ugly bits and pieces. See what happened:

Strange shiny silver proportions with black scratches (that actually don't look too awful in this picture). This was definitely not going back against the wall. So on to plan b: BUILD a bigger console cabinet with the clover leaf pattern radiator sheet metal as the cabinet doors. Specifically the clover leaf patter for 2 reasons: 1. I had it in my head, once something is there it will come to fruition. 2. Because I wanted to put the stereo in the cabinet and be able to hear the music with the door closed. One of the reasons I wasn't ever too fond of the black shelves was because the stereo stuck out about 1.5 inches.

So, I built this:

I still need to put a back on it so you can't see through the center shelves, and it needs feet. Its currently sitting on 2x4s that are collecting dust bunnies. That may take me a month or two since its pretty much 'done' in my book and can sit on 2x4s until we move. I stained 3/4 inch birch plywood with a dark gray stain then rubbed it with silver paint and wiped it off before it dried. This way it has a slight shimmer, but the wood grain still showed through. 3 coats of urethane, some coral colored knobs from Anthropology and bam, done. Clearly I need to organize the books better on the bottom shelf...

*and I have no idea why the type font is different and the pictures are misaligned.

If You Make a List it Will Get Done

As like many many people, I have more ideas than I have time…and money to do them all. So, I need to prioritize. Things that NEED be done (like projects that have been started but not finished), things that SHOULD be done (yard projects, closet organization and the like), and then things I WANT to do (furniture pieces, decorating projects, crafty stuff).

The first thing on my list is the bathroom ‘update’ downstairs. It has been started and is in the throws of the re-mudding process to cover up the horrible texture left there by the ‘flipper’. It seriously looked like a topographical map of the French Alps; walk to close to the wall and your arm would be cut open by a sharp peak of poorly applied texture. So, were sanding it down, putting dry wall mud over the entire wall and ceiling, sanding again and painting. Easy enough, just not ‘fun’.

Then there is the trim in the basement windows. When we remodeled the basement (2 years ago!) we never got around to COMPLETELY finishing the trim. We cut the pieces and placed them, but didn’t finish nailing them in, caulking them and painting. Again, not hard, but not fun either. This project will probably take another 2 years to finish.

Then there is the deck railing. This is a rather important one, as it is the railing on the 2nd story deck. Two of the support posts need to be replaced since they have split and summer bbq season is coming. This one is reallllllly low on my fun meter, and there IS a railing on the deck so take this as a warning…the railing is loose, don’t lean on it!

Then there is the Should Do projects. We really should get dirt in those planter boxes we made. This is a time sensitive Should Do, since last I checked the earth is still rotating around the sun, slightly shifting its access, and changing the seasons from grow-stuff-spring to too-late-to-grow-stuff-summer. Gotta get on that.

I also REALLY want to put one of those closet systems in our office. Our house was built in 1948 when people must have either run around naked, or only wore one outfit because thats all the closets would hold. Literally they are the width of one standard door. Their size leaves little for fashion re-discovery. There is no “Oh wow, I dont remember getting this” or “Ah ha, I found it!” because the closet is so small its impossible to lose anything in its deep pockets of darkness. Because of the super small space, we had to get one of those gigantic IKEA corner closets to hold husbands things. That, along with an 8 drawer dresser which takes up the entire wall in our bedroom and it becomes an overdose of Maple laminate. I want both gone, replaced with maybe a 5 drawer tall dresser and a small chair. Both of those items I could turn into ‘fun’ projects if I can get all of husbands things into the office closet…

The Perils of Waking Up Before Your Spouse

*Amendment: There is now a practical pound of dogs kiddy corner to the back or our yard. They ALL bark...Incessantly. This has solved the problem below.

All week I start tallying up “stuff we need to do this weekend”. This habit places me at odds with my weekend as it is then a race to the clock on sunday night to finish all of the “stuff we needed to do this weekend”. If the list is not completed, a self loathing sense of failure enters my being that is then carried over to Monday resulting in yet another mental list of “stuff we need to do this weekend”.

This mental mindset somehow manifests itself deep in my REM sleep psyche by rousing me from my slumber HOURS earlier than my spouse. So what are the perils you ask, as many people would see this as valued ‘alone time’ and something to be desired and cherished?

Let me list just a couple of the ways:

1. We have a small house. Maybe for you McMansion-ers this is not a problem, but in 2000 square feet, there is not a lot of places you can go where your sounds will not be heard.
2. Our house squeaks. Maybe screams is a better description of the moans and protests it makes as I walk around the top floor trying to find ‘quite activities’ to occupy my time until my sleeping beauty wakes up. ’Quite’ activities are rarely if ever on my weekend list. Thus rendering my early morning alone time useless.
3. I count minutes. Today, after trying to stay in bed as long as possible, I exited my resting place at 8:07. It is now 10:14. That is 2 hours and 7 minutes of noisy productivity that I have lost never to be found putting me behind schedule. I like my schedule.
4. No breakfast. That would require noise, beeps and banging to produce.
5. Cant get ‘dressed’. That would require constant entering and exiting from our room. (read #1)

Why not just make my noise and if he wants to sleep he will just have to put a pillow over his head? I dont have a very good answer for that other than, its not polite. Im big on manners, and its rude to be loud when you know silence is necessary for someone in your vicinity to complete their task at hand.

Ahhh, it is now 10:24 and the hibernation of husband is complete… I have list I need to finish and noise can now be made with wild abundance.

Im Going to Start

Blogging. Im not sure how I completely feel about it. I enjoy reading all sorts of blogs, mostly ones with lots of pictures of house stuff, some fashion, maybe a kid, definitely a dog or two. So I feel like I should participate in a part of the world wide web that I could spend hours perusing. I have had fits and starts with this idea. The one thing that always stops me is the thought of constantly having to plug in my camera and down load all sorts of pictures. There are two problems with that task. One is actually having the camera with me at all times and taking the very pictures I am supposed to download. Two is actually plugging my camera into the computer. Not a difficult task, I know, but for some reason I am always putting it off. Also, I love before and after pictures, so naturally I would want to make this part of my ‘blogging’, however I NEVER take the befores! That would require having the camera with me at all time (problem) and having the patience to put down the hammer/paint brush/shovel/tool BEFORE I start.

So here it is, a VERY small and limited declaration to the public that I am going to blog. I am going to try to blog once a week…er maybe 3 times a month…lets just see how the 1st week goes.

Ps:
I vow to never call myself a blogger. For some reason I really don’t like the word blog.