A young exuberant couple bought a home in desperate need of repair. Built in 1880 (or around there) this home had knob and tube wiring, broken piping, and was essentially uninhabitable. Now, they hope to finish the rehab by February-March 2011. Each day SHOULD (best laid plans of mice and men) chronicle an improvement to the home to achieve this goal.
Well, despite my drywall goals today I stole some time to paint our front entryway a green color...I figured I deserved doing something rewarding after the horror of working for like 6 hours yesterday above my head. I mean, I have these flabby arms that do not enjoy being lifted above my head for hours at a time while on a ladder. I am pleased with the outcome. Now all we need is for Nate to frame in the door to the half bath...and BUILD the half bath of course. Some things are way beyond my limit of capabilites, and crawling around our crawl space trying to weld joints is included in that. I can just imagine the abject horror I would have if I saw a spider **shudder**.
The half bath will be located beyond where the green ends.
View to the now painted front entryway with the pin lights that will shine upon an yet undetermined art piece.
Then it was back to the BANE OF MY EXISTENCE. Finishing ceiling drywall. Today I worked on SANDING the joints I taped etc yesterday. Pretty much hell on earth.
Cough cough....cough cough.
Note the horrible drywall junk that filtered down upon the floor. Half or more of that is ON me. And not in the good way. (I wanna BE on you).
"I think I've got the black lung pop." There is all kinds of junk on me and dust.
Here is a picture but not that interesting since it looks the same as yesterday and will until it is painted.
In other news, I worked on finding a cabin to rent in Gatlinburg on our mini-vacation that will allow dogs and has a great view. I think I found one so I am hoping for a sexy/romantic holiday with my hubbadub. We will see if it is to be or not, but I am pretty excited....because....
There is not that I love more than a hot tub and a brewsky. Seriously. Well maybe a beach but with the oil in the Gulf I am not likely to be going there...not to mention my hubs is practically albino and more likely than not to fry to a crisp in any sun brighter than a cloud covered day. I hate trying to get him to wear sufficient sunscreen to. Hurrumph.
Anyway, I will likely be in the hot tub a majority of the vacation and "liquid is the essence of moisture", and I will be a mer(wo)man! Hooray!
Today I worked on the ceilings...one of two things I had hoped to do today. I worked on the seams and the drywall screws and whatnot...a long and boring day.
"Keep it light" was the advice of one of my puppy buyers in relation to finishing drywall. "Many home owners make the mistake of laying it on too thick."
It occurs to me that this is a good euphemism for reality. It seems best to not delve in to the realism of life with people you know, but rather stay on the solid road of meaningless discussion. Issues like family, death, loss, etc lead to painful feelings; happy conversations seem the way to go to maintain a semblance of normalcy. Of course, I am not saying this to preclude the reality of being there when someone needs it.
But really, what is wrong with pushing the inadequacies of life under the rug if it makes you happy? To me it seems best to focus on the positives of life rather than bring up failings and loss. But perhaps this is just where I am in life....or rather it is insidious creep of the not wanting to share with others as I age, which is what happens to most humans the older they are. Of course, not talking about your problems with REAL issues results in a lifetime of suppressed pains (like trying to live on normally after the death of someone major in your life etc). But, I think there is something to say about focusing on positives rather than relishing the negative. Personally, I think all one must do is accept the failings of one's past as a part of you, then move on.
Anyway, back to the evil drywall....
Tomorrow I shall sand the ceilings/walls then move on to a second layer. I also HOPE to do some painting (which is way more gratifying than working on drywall) but in the light of how little I got done in hours of work, I think I will likely only work on ceilings :0(. Sadness.
I finished "The Eye of the World" audiobook today. It is a whimsical tale of a young man able to access a tainted magic that is likely going to make him insane with it's use. I read it as a youngin'...and the books that follow, until my parents discovered and removed them from my grasp. As an 11 year old reading it they felt it was too mature for me (having never read the books themselves). Now at 27 I am revisiting them and enjoying them as in my younger days.
Aw magic...how I wish you were real. Much like God and an afterlife....rather cold reality....
No witty repertoire tonight...I'm drained and tired. Many apologies y'all.
Sadly, our date night last night wasn't to happen....we settled in to eat dinner around 10-10:30 and Nate promptly fell asleep afterwards. Nor a HUGE surprise I suppose though...we are both sleepy lil' babies right now with all the work we are doing. I am not sure when we are going to have time to go see Harry Pooter. Boo.
Well today was a long day!
With the stucco in place and dried, and my paint purchased and ready, I had planned to just paint the two walls that I had stuccoed today. But as I painted I kept wanting to paint more and more and ended up painting the entire downstairs! I like the color I chose, although I am a little worried it is too dark.
I made handprints because I got my hands covered in paint switching from the normal paint roller to the stucco roller
Tomorrow I hope to work on the ceiling drywall (and the ceiling-wall junctions) and to put the glaze on the stucco to make it look shadowed like real stucco. You use a shade darker than your base and a natural sponge (which my dogs found and ate most of! Ugh counter surfers!).
I have Breeding business to do this week- including calling Continental airlines to make sure I have everything needed to ship a pup to Canada on Friday and to find a cabin to stay in....for a trip to Gatlinburg we are taking December 4-7. We are driving to deliver a puppy to a woman in Atlanta, Georgia and are going to stop in Gatlinburg on our way back. We haven't been on a vacation together in YEARS! So I for sure wont get anything done on the house those days :0(. But yay time with my Naterman! I have a wonderful friend who has agreed to watch my doggies after she takes the GRE! Now that is a friend :).
Something I was thinking about today.....
Lots of people I know are pregnant now...or just recently had their first little one. Shopping for kids toys makes me so envious! Yesterday when I was shopping I saw a father playing a game with his kids in Costco...he seemed like such a wonderful dad and it made me tear up. Pathetic. Guess the ole uterus' clock is ticking. Good things come to those who wait.
Well off to make steak and veggies for dinner. MmmmMMMMmmm. :)
Last night I finished work and clean up around 10:30 pm...and then Naters and I went to dinner!
We are both exhausted...you can tell. I got a Cobb salad...he a steak salad.
Well....not much got done today. In the light of my stressing over christmas gifts and other necessary items I spent the day:
1. Going to the vet to get the health certificate for flying a puppy to Canada.
2. Driving to meet some people from Pennsylvania with their new puppy, Coco.
3. Going to Costco and getting my niece and nephews' Christmas gifts. 4. Going to Lowes and getting drywall and paint for the stucco walls.
Number 4 is a house action item though....so work WAS done WAHAHAHAHA.
I tried to motivate myself to paint walls but by the time I got home (around 8) I was too exhausted to do anything more than drink a glass of wine, arrange for the guest dogs' pick up tomorrow, and plan for us going to the Harry Potter movie (Hairy Pooter for my college buddies!). Hey, it is Saturday night and I need some relationship time. After all, I DO love my hubbadub and love to cuddle him during movies.
It may have been horrible that it rained ALL day yesterday, but today was pretty much best case scenario....the pools of water FROZE overnight and I was able to let my dogs (and visiting dogs) out to play a lot today. This makes me really happy because, like real human children, if they are cooped up for a day they can run in circles for hours the next day. Luckily I got to see them play a lot today :).
Faux Stucco!
Why would anyone stucco anything voluntarily? Honestly I asked that question a couple years ago (the church next door is an UGLY unpainted stucco). However, one of our neighborhood restaurants (my favorite) has faux stuccoing and I LOVE it.
Anyway, back to why....well when we moved in we had all sorts of crazy wall paper in our living room. Thinking it would be easily removed we started pulling it away...only to find that after years of like 7 layers being piled on top of each other they began to coalesce into a paper horror. After many attempts to remove it and many Googles of "how to remove old wall paper" I (yes this is MY fault as many many things are) decided to just paint over it...especially because it seemed the plaster would crumble if we were ever successful in removing the wallpaper.
So I read a lot about how to cover uneven plaster walls. Some suggested ....guess what?...WALLPAPER! And others suggested Faux Stucco. Having sworn to myself never to apply wallpaper seeing its deleterious effects, I decided to go with the Faux Stucco. Time will tell how this ends up, but I would much rather do this than take DOWN the plaster wall. If you want to suggest this, I suggest YOU spend a day or two in a home where a plaster wall has recently been taken down. Once you have the glorious BLACK GOLD (name for your nasty snot in the time surrounding the fallout of dry wall) you will never wish it on your worst enemy. I'm for seriously guys.
This is an up close and personal view of the stuccoing. Next I will need to let it dry then I will paint it a base color, then a small amount of an accent color to give it depth.
By the way, today I thought I was having a stroke. I kept smelling pickles (olfacttory smells that do not exist are a first sign of a stroke). In fact, next time I saw Nate I asked if he smelled pickles...he sniffed the air and said "No". I thought, A. I am having a stroke, B. my body is producing a strange smell (which cannot be because I ALWAYS smell of roses and sunshine), or C. I am going insane. I insisted Naters "come closer" to me. In fact, once Naters investigated this he too smelled the nefarious odor...and accused me of eating pickles and then tricking him. Turns out the dry wall compound smells like pickles (ew).
It took me a while to get the hang of this, so it is likely that some areas will look different than others. Soon I will need to go to Lowes et al. and pick out some colors to paint ALL the downstairs walls. Yay!
I also worked with plaster today to fill the gaps between a drywall wall and a plaster wall- I didnt know it but lots of warm air was seeping out through those cracks (could almost here it whistling while it worked...out our house)
Ta-Da!
There is a strip of plaster that needs to be fixed somehow. Right now it is seeping air so I am thinking I will try to patch it with plaster (this will be a lot of plaster) or we intend to put a strip of molding down it. This would create a nice stop of the transition of stucco to normal drywall.
BTW, I like the plaster I am working with...but it has VARIABLE DRYING TIME! Sometimes it takes it 20 minutes to begin to set (which is what it CLAIMS it should...) or it can take 5 minutes. This could be user error though (okay it likely is...).
Another view of the new stucco. Start to finish this took me 7 + hours.
Since the Holidays are coming up, I started worrying a little about when I was going to buy presents for my family and Nate's. This led me to thinking about a topic my Dad and I were discussing while he was here....namely, how men do not notice details like women do, and how women normally tend to "orchestrate families". Have you ever seen a man send out the Christmas cards (when he is married)? Is it because woman take up slack easily and men just take advantage of it (or maybe just my man)? I think my father struggles with this a lot...trying to fill a void he is not naturally inclined to fill.
I suppose now I should mention I am HORRIBLE at sending cards etc. I blame this on the fact my mother is dead and I was not properly trained to do womanly things. Yes, I realize this excuse can only be used for so long and I am likely teetering on the edge of, well...it not being a valid excuse anymore. I also suppose I sort of need to send out Christmas cards now I am discussing it (whoopsy).
But is this difference Nature OR Nurture?
I think it is partially both. I will say men should appreciate their wives more ;0). (Quasi feminista moment is now over). But seriously, that door swings both ways. I mean...without Naterman who would open jars and doors, carry heavy things for me, tolerate my cold hands and feet, and tell me my food is good when it is not?
Speaking of the Naterman, he spent the day working with the permit office, talking to contractors about our deck, emailing deck plans, and is NOW (at 9:35 pm) upstairs working on making our upstairs flooring not make you feel like you are on a tilt-a-wheel when you are up there. Round of APPLAUSE for the mancandy!
I am thankful to be healthy and have a family and a good relationship with my husband. I am thankful for my dogs.
Well...it has been a rainy Thanksgiving day for us. Nate and I are not doing anything for the holiday...foregoing visiting with family to work on our house. We haven't even had anything remotely standard thanksgiving food like...for dinner we are having cheese and apples; lunch we had eggs and bacon! I did make chocolate chip cookies for Nate today though!
Today I sanded and painted the front entryway.
I think it turned out the best of any drywall I have finished yet. Perhaps I have been dreaming about it after all!
The house has been kind of nuts today...we are dog sitting a friend's dogs and they do not like being crated. Of course it is pouring so they do not want to potty outside...UGH. We also started crate training what pups we still have left from our litter, so they are unhappy and crying with bring kenneled. Muddy paw prints are everywhere! I have now mopped our floor twice in the last 24 hours.
Nate spent the day working on deck plans. He needs to go to the city permit office and get the project approved tomorrow...they require a ridiculous amount of information to be submitted to them...and then they don't even ever come out and check it. I am sure this rankles Nate since government bureaucracy drives him nutty. Nate, being a voluntaryist, believes in personal property rights and cannot understand why he should pay someone to tell him what he can do on his own property.
For those who do not know of voluntaryism, Wikipedia explains it:
Voluntaryism, or voluntarism,[1] is a philosophy according to which all forms of human association should be voluntary as far as possible. Consequently, voluntaryism opposes the initiation of aggressive force or coercion, which is formalized in the non-aggression principle. The word 'initiation' is used here to make clear that voluntaryism, does not oppose self-defense. Voluntaryism usually entails anarchism, it is compatible with a variety of anarchist positions. However a voluntarily-funded government is a voluntary society and is usually thought to be one possible transition to anarchy.
Nate came to this different way of thinking after searching for something to entertain himself during his 45 minute + drive to his job each way! He began listening to podcasts and in particular he listened to Free Talk Live (http://www.freetalklive.com/). He is drawn to the non-aggression principle. Once one believes in the non-aggression principle, it becomes difficult to support conventional government that relies on coercive force to get things done. This was a difficult concept for me myself to grasp...yet another issue that made remaining in medical school difficult.
Today I worked on the drywall as well as working on the bathroom plaster. Pics to follow. I shall be ready to paint to walls of the front entry-way in a day. Oh calloocallay,
Soon hopefully the front entryway is finished.
This pic is from our bathroom. When I pulled off the wood surrounding the middle of the room I ripped off the plaster. So now I am trying to fix the hole that was left.
Some pics of our house now...after YEARS of work...
Ever wonder why Plaster is called Plaster of Paris? Me too. Let us see if Google knows!
Answers.com claims:
Used since ancient times, plaster of paris is so called because of its preparation from the abundant gypsum found in Paris.
from: Britannica Concise Encyclopedia information about plaster of Paris on Answers.com.
Neat-o.
So guess what I did tonight?
Yes, as it says, I am in fact Patching Plaster. When our windows were replaced the contractor was none too careful with the plaster surrounding the windows. In our bathroom it is particularly bad.
Tonight I added the first 1/4 inch needed for patching plaster. If you lay it any thicker it would crack as it dried. As it is I hope this sets okay!
In other news, Nate and I went on a hott date last night to a neighborhood bar/restaurant. I needed to pilfer the free newspapers for my puppy litter so out we went and we built on our relationship over a bacon cheeseburger for Rebekah and a pizza for Naters. The food wasn't much to speak of but at least I didn't have to make it!!! But I did have a yummy-in-my-tummy IPA and Naters had Dead Guy Rogue. Yums.
Aren't we cute?!
Tonight I am making soup by boiling the turkey bones/breast from our thanksgiving we had early last week. Mmmmm. AND I managed to find my favorite winter ice cream- PEPPERMINT whilst I was shopping in the grocery store today! Hooray for small joys.
Sorry for a sort of blah posting, but today I suffered from a migraine and the stupid thing has dulled my wits. Cant wait until bed so I can shake the effects (hopefully). Unfortunately Naters is working late so I don't even get to complain about it to him. Bah.
Well, despite my drywall goals today I stole some time to paint our front entryway a green color...I figured I deserved doing something rewarding after the horror of working for like 6 hours yesterday above my head. I mean, I have these flabby arms that do not enjoy being lifted above my head for hours at a time while on a ladder. I am pleased with the outcome.
Now all we need is for Nate to frame in the door to the half bath...and BUILD the half bath of course. Some things are way beyond my limit of capabilites, and crawling around our crawl space trying to weld joints is included in that. I can just imagine the abject horror I would have if I saw a spider **shudder**.
