When opportunity knocks, watch out for wet paint

The front door of our new home sported this brick red, which I-M-(not-so-)-Humble-O was vaguely reminiscent of Texas Aggie orange.  That *might* have been okay, but it also suffered from the fate which plagues most metal-and-glass doors:  the caulk and adhesive under the oval molding had slipped and oozed a bit, leaving a cracked and dingy gray ring around the oval leaded glass.  And the paint was scratched and nicked in a few places.

Here it is, with a fall wreath, which managed to work its way off-center as though it were wishing it could quietly slip away and disassociate itself from the situation.

The door was beginning to show its age.

This painting project has been on my hit list of to-do's for a while; in fact, my paintbrush-holding hand has been itchy to pull the trigger since I first approached the door back in late November of last year.   It just cried out for a fresh coat of paint.

But first I had to wait until the house was ours.  (For whatever reason, society and our legal system frown upon attempts to improve property that doesn't belong to you.)

Then I had to find a day when it wasn't blistering hot, because painting the front door involves leaving the door open for a while and the thermostat is in the foyer.  That would have meant sweating out everyone to turn off the air conditioning for a couple hours, or be a wanton spendthrift and leave the door open and a/c units running non-stop. Neither of those sounded like attractive options.

Plus, I wanted to make sure Luci-the-cat wasn't in "escape mode."  (She goes through spells, which probably correlate to the moon phases, where she will persist in attempting to flit through any open door.  Once she's out, she either freezes like a deer in headlights, or goes a little spazzy - either way, we can usually catch her and bring her back inside. But that won't necessarily stop her from making another break the next day, and the next...until her mood changes back to being content with the life of a fat and lazy housecat.)

Finally I had a few weekend hours to spare after fall break, when the weather was mellow and so was Luci. (Random thought:  can a door project have a "WINDOW of opportunity?" Hmmmm.)  Anyway, I had a guy in the paint area of Home Depot brew up a quart of French Roast.  Really - that's what the color is called.    With a little prepping and cleaning, the door went from that to this in about two hours on a mild Sunday afternoon:

Do you see a door hanger?  Nope, me either.

I also managed to ditch the door hanger, trading it in for a super-simple combination of a small angle bracket and some fishing line. 

Basically this plus this:

Looks like this on the inside:

and this to the rest of the world:

I'm using 20-pound test line, but I will probably ramp it up a bit when I hang the next wreath, especially if the next wreath is heavier than this one.

Happy painting!

Day of rest, week 5: my plans were not their plans

Swimmer girl and I dropped off her friend and arrived home safe and sound from fall break early Friday evening.  We barely had time to catch our breath on Saturday before we hopped in an eastbound car and headed for Knoxville for a 6 pm game.  (I have almost no voice after my failed efforts to cheer on the Vols and I was practically speechless watching the Titans lose on Sunday.)

But before we headed to the game, my mental wheels were turning:  what was my gameplan for food and "fun" on Sunday?

I determined that food was in place, but I didn't have anything in mind (except maybe a nap to catch up on some lost sleep.)  I've been wanting to paint our front door since the first day I laid eyes on it. and I decided Sunday would be as good a day as any to transform it, so I ran to The Home Depot for door paint and patted myself on the back for ensuring my Sunday was lined out.

After grabbing a quick bite for Sunday lunch and mixing and measuring for a pot of chii in the crockpot, I set to work transforming the door from UT (that'd be Texas) burnt-orange/red to "French Roast," which is blackish brown just like the coffee beans.  A couple hours later, the door and my fingers were well-coated in paint.

See, I did my part to help us avoid the stores and eateries.

However, my mental safety net didn't extend quite far enough and Mr. Official and Swimmer Girl had other plans:  they headed to town to look for a new sectional sofa for the bonus room while I was tied up painting.  One of the furniture stores is threatening to go out of business soon (and will continue to threaten to "close their doors forever" for the forseeable future), so dad and daughter did their part and took a sofa off their hands. Then they hit Sonic for happy hour, and brought me a diet cherry limemade as proof.  I drank it with a small twinge of guilt. 

Now let's just hope the sofa fits in its new spot when it arrives.  (They traipsed off without a tape measure or room measurements.  God love 'em both.) Next week I'm determined to keep us ALL out of the retail establishments.  Wish me luck!


Happy Monday,

A large loose end was lassoed last weekend

Try saying THAT three times fast.  (And I don't mean "that, that, that.")

Last weekend was a long one, so we used it to stain our new picket fence. Whew.  Before we began this project, I estimated it would take a five-gallon bucket of clear sealer and two gallons of stain (I always cut the stain with clear sealer because I think it's too opaque otherwise) to do the deck AND the fence.

This is why I should not go into the painting business, or become an estimator.  

Sing with me: "16 gallons of stain and sealer on the fence, 16 gallons of stain and sealer..."

All-told, it took twice what I originally bought, plus two more gallons of sealer.   That's my tower of empties to prove it and I could really use another quart for touch-ups.

R.I.P, old sprayer!

This project also took two paint sprayers.  The trusty old sprayer (on top) was purchased when we painted the outside of our first house way back in 1987.

In the 24 years since, it has painted a lot of walls and siding and ceilings and trim in several homes, so we weren't too surprised when it conked out halfway through this job.

The new replacement sprayer (in the box on the bottom) looks and sounds almost identical to the old one, but Mr. Official said it worked better.  He would know, since he was the man holding it all weekend.  Hopefully, normal sensation will return to his right hand and fingers in the next few days. 

The final casualty of our  weekend project was this 3-inch brush brandished by yours truly.  This brush was in pretty good shape until I used it to stain between the deck planks.  It went downhill from there.  By the time I had slathered on the last bit of stain, I felt like this poor brush looked: frayed, frazzled and permanently stained redwood color, although I'm sure the spots on my toes and hands will come off sooner or later.  

And now we can put this to-do in the ta-done category, at least for another year or two - hooray!  (Note to self:  when it comes time to stain again, we should definitely aim to tackle it in April or May, or September or October. Definitely not in June, July or August.) Here are the results:  front and side yard views.  I already showed off the deck a couple of weeks ago.

At least the other loose ends are indoor or shady spot projects.

Happy lasso-ing your loose ends!

Loose ends: Hanging by a thread

Okay, it's hanging by more than a thread; picture hooks and picture wire are holding everything up.

This week was jam-packed full of activities and precious few loose ends got tied off.  But one memorable ending is now hanging in our bedroom.

Last winter, I was scheduled for a painting night at Faithful Strokes when a heavy snow canceled our class.  So I waited and watched their calendar for the right class to come along.  Call me fickle, but it wasn't until last Thursday that my schedule and their class schedule were in sync. I finally got to paint "Brown Eyed Girl" and "she" is now hung in our bedroom.

I also framed a trio of photos: one from each of our trips to South Carolina and one of the St. Aloysius church ruins at Morley,  near where I grew up.  (Note to my mom.  Yes, that is the 1986 print you gave me how-many-years ago, finally framed and hung.  Yes, I found it while moving.  Amazing what one finds when one moves one's uhhh, "assets" from one abode to another.)  Note the blank spot beneath the photos. Wouldn't a dresser fit perfectly in that spot?  I'm determined to make that happen in the next 30 days.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I moved more (yes, more) plants this week. I can now say this is truly "my" garden. In addition to the irises and Shasta daisies and peonies and gladioli that were here, this area now has clumps of my favorite daylilies and coneflowers, bellflowers I grew from seed, a tickseed Coreopsis that has survived years of neglect, my Verbena bonariensis, which is supposedly not hardy to this zone (ha!), a lone Dahlia survivor (harsh winters and a weed-warrior neighbor did the rest in over the past few years), the one-and-only lily I have ever bought (a red 'Garp'), some blue Echinops, a Kniphofia and my precious ornamental Alliums. They join some new plants I set out a month ago: Guaras, Amsonias, some ornamental grass, and the Dahlias and Acidanthera bulbs I planted a few days ago. It's the best of all worlds - old, new and inherited. Hopefully next spring will show a melding of colors and textures (and not a shouting match.)

I brought some 'Herrenhausen' oregano and my rosemary over to start a kitchen herb garden next to the house. (My car now smells of rosemary - mmmmmmmm.)  And I brought other plants, too - variegated 'Illumination' vinca and native Pachysandra are going in the ground today.

One new loose end got tied off promptly this week: thank-you notes for the wonderful (and completely unexpected) gifts we received during our first housewarming party go out in today's mail. Friends have a way of knowing EXACTLY what to surprise us with, and I am humbled beyond words.  Y'all rock. 

The final loose end for the week: summer swim practice and meets are officially over for swimmer girl. For the past eight years, this occasion has been accompanied by a thundering rendition of the Hallelujah! chorus.  (There are 23 stoplights between our house and the pool.  Ask me how I know.  Ask me how many times I stop at each of them while taking swimmer girl to practice 4 nights a week.  Go on...ask, I dare ya.)

But the celebration is muted this year; there's only one more summer swim season left on our mother/daughter dance card, and she'll be driving herself next year. Sniff. Can someone please, please make time slow down for the next two years? Because I don't want to miss one. single. minute. She's our baby bird, and she's swiftly growing a beautiful pair of strong and capable wings that will send her sailing into her future.

This week should prove interesting: a long holiday weekend launches it (and we ARE taking some time off from projects), and another gathering of friends is slated to cap it off next Saturday. Wonder what I can tie off between now and then?

Happy tying,

Moving: Out.. No, Really. O-U-T.

We moved into the new house a month ago this week. Moving in took some pre-work and some hard work on moving day, but it went fairly smooth and stayed on schedule. Moving OUT of the old house? Not so much - it's been neither smooth nor on-schedule.

Almost every day since we moved, I have visited the old house, picking up a few things here and there, sorting things, shuffling them around. But still there was a LOT of stuff to contend with. Some of it we need, some of it we don't, and some of it I'm not sure if we need or not.

But it's time to quit dithering and decide what moves and what gets sold or donated or just plain tossed. This past weekend, I hauled a carload of books to the Friends of the Library (they sell them and use the proceeds to help support our Linebaugh Libraries), and a couple carloads of other stuff back to the new house.  The boys helped Mr. Official clear the attics on Monday. It was blazing hot outside and even hotter in that attic. But they hauled it all down and we sorted and stockpiled. Every family member has a pile, and there's a massive and growing pile for a garage sale (coming soon!)

After we finished that exhausting exercise, I continued tidying and cleaning, picking and choosing. The big curbside trashcans were empty and are now full again. The garage sale pile is steadily growing.

I'm giving everyone a week to cull through their own stuff and decide what they are keeping and what they aren't. Oldest son has the biggest pile (and ironically, an attic of his own to haul it to.) Hopefully by next week at this time, the garage will be empty except for the garage sale pile, and by the week after that, THAT stuff will be gone too. In the meantime, the painters are lined up and ready to start painting. I hope. Because I'm ready for them to start and the paint is waiting in the den for them to begin.

We are meeting with our Realtor to discuss the market analysis she's prepared, and we hope there will soon be a "For Sale" sign in the yard of this newly painted and spiffed up house.

Happy moving, for reals.

My house of many colors

I am not a white girl.

Well, I am, but I am not a white-wall girl - I don't think I've ever bought a gallon of white wall paint.

Ever.

Okay, maybe once when we were renting and I was covering some hideous shade of apricot in the bathroom and white was a safe choice the landlord wouldn't mind me using. 

And a garage or two.

But beyond that? Nope, never, no way, no how.

I love color.  That can't be a surprise, right?  I am a confessed Fiesta fiend, remember?

I've used every color of the rainbow except dark blue and purple to paint walls in one house or another. A range of pinks, reds, yellows, oranges, greens, light blues, and several "safe" neutral shades of taupe and gray have graced our walls over the years.


In our current house, we have 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 2 living areas, 2 eating areas, a bonus room and a utility room. At last count, our walls sport 3 shades of green, 2 shades of yellow, 1 shade of orange, 1 shade of pink and 1 shade of taupe.

Twelve rooms, nine colors.  And some of them don't play well with others.

The house that nearly captured my heart was painted a toasty taupey color all the way through. Its soothing neutrality was bee-yoo-tee-ful and ultimately, was a huge selling point for me:  it was move-in ready without anyone lifting a paintbrush.

The ultimate "THE" house has twelve rooms - pretty much the same as what we have now (they're just bigger and better arranged) but just six wall colors. And three of them flow and blend to transition nicely from entry to den/kitchen/eating area and into the sunroom. I'm leaving well enough alone in those rooms, and re-coloring only the bedrooms, dining room and bonus room (a bathroom will get a subtle do-over in a different shade of green soon after we move in.)

When I'm done, the house will have picked up a seventh color, but several of the rooms will use the same color: the bonus room and two bedrooms will share the master bathroom's taupe color; the dining room and swimmer girl's bedroom will share a rich mocha brown color.  Her room will get a pop of frosty pink to up the score to seven colors.

I think as I get older, I'm starting to find a better balance between my love of color and my attraction to flow and congruity in a house; instead of using various shades of the same color for these rooms, I picked one taupe and one brown, and I'm making them do double or triple duty. There might be four *perfect* shades of taupe out there, one for each room, but I'm not going to agonize over the colors or mess with repeatedly cleaning out brushes and rollers to move from room to room. And long-term it's a nightmare to sort and store touchup paint when you've got several variations on the same theme sitting around in half-filled gallon paint cans.

And after we move out of our current house, it's getting the taupe treatment - every place except the kitchen and master bathroom, which are staying their same current shades of green. I hope it'll make some buyer's heart go pitter pat to have all that lovely flow of soothing congruence throughout.

Happy painting,

Strategic Moves

When faced with a massive project like moving four people and years of stuff from one house to another, where do you start?

Logic says with the end in mind, of course.  Last week I started strategizing every aspect of the move that I could think of, so it will go as smoothly and easily as possible.

Step 1: Compile a list of to-do's.  Or - in my case - stop chasing my tail and start writing stuff down.

Step 2: Set a final deadline. Ideally, we'd like to be moved into our new home no later than May 8 - just over two weeks after we close.  That may sound like a lot of time, but trust me - there's a lot of stuff to move.

Step 3: Prioritize all those to-do's and give each of them a date.  It's a good thing Microsoft Excel is my friend. I've compiled a rather lengthy (okay massive) list of detailed things to remember and do to get us moved in and living in our new abode.  And that list doesn't even begin to touch the bulk of the stuff stored in the attic or shed.  Egads.  There is definitely a garage/yard sale in our future.

Step 4:  Reconnaissance.  I poked around the garage during the home inspection and unearthed leftover tiles from the master bathroom. In the box.  Move over Charlie Sheen, I'm winning now.  That half-full box of tiles will make it much easier to plan the shower re-do.

It looks like this now but our plans include something a little snazzier, so we got some bids.  The contractor we chose to install the tile looked at the pics and quickly figured out he did the original tile work in the house.  Anybody wanna hum "It's a Small World" with me?)

He's lined up to start the last week of April - perfect timing, so my next to-do is to see if we can locate the same (or similar) tile and have this project ready to start on time.

I also found labeled paint cans in the garage.  Bless the former owner's hearts - their thoughtfulness made another project infinitely easier, too.  To paint the master bedroom I just need to match the bathroom color, which is a taupe-y, greige color.

(Sidenote:  it took me a while to figure out "greige" is a legitimate word, meaning mixture of grey/gray and beige.  To all the designers tossing "greige" around, do you really think it is easier to pronounce and/or spell than taupe?  Or less subjective? Taupe is defined as brownish-gray, and greige is defined as grayish-brown.  Hmmmm.)

Whatever you call it, I like the bathroom color and it is similar to the color in our bedroom now.  So why reinvent the wheel by agonizing over dozens of oh-so-similar paint colors to choose the "perfect" color, which is ultimately going to be almost identical to this one?

And to keep things simple, the second bedroom is getting treated to this color, too.  The bonus room will probably also be painted the same hue.  Swimmer girl's bedroom is going to share color with the dining room, which is going from brick red to milk chocolate brown. (The bedroom will also get a jolt of raspberry, either on a wall or the dormer nook...not sure which yet.)

Painting those five rooms is the only DIY project to tackle before we can move in. (Remember, one of my goals was to buy a house that needed virtually no renovation work.  This home delivered perfectly on that requirement.)  The only other to-do's to get done before moving are getting the carpets stretched and cleaned, both of which I'm leaving up to the professionals.

Step 5: While we wait.  Next week I'll go through closets, culling out things to sell, give away or throw away, and readying the other contents to be moved, then emptying bookcases and cabinets. 

Any tips or pointers?  I could use them!  When it gets really quiet, I hear a clock, quickly ticking down the final days and hours until the moving frenzy begins. 

Happy strategizing,

While the boys are away...

the girls will play.  (The "boys" are headed to Knoxville for the UT-Bama game.  Fingers crossed we can keep the score close. Or just get on the board. Yes, we have low expectations, so anything we get is a gift.)

So what's on our agenda today?  We're puppy-sitting Sadie, and I was reminded why you don't buy one toy for two kids.  Little dog enthusiastically snagged the new toy (a cat-like tennis ball with rope legs), much to big dog's chagrin.   I think this look and howl can be safely interpreted as "Mom, make her share with me!"

 As soon as we pulled the pumpkin gooey butter cake out of the oven, we girls took "the girls" for a puppy walk at the greenway.  

Now that the pooches are exhausted from the brisk 3-mile round trip, we will leave them to nap and take the gooey cake to a painting class this evening at Faithful Strokes.  Yes.  Me.  Painting. Artistically.  With something smaller than a roller or 2-inch wide trim brush.  Using more than one color.

They promised me anyone could do it, so we'll see...

Happy weekend!

It's not the same color

Yesterday I made good on my commitment to paint the hall and den this month.

Today my neck and legs are paying penance for the painting marathon. Here's the "before" shot of the den.

You can see the drywall patchwork on the ceiling (if I had a nickel for every drywall patch I've made in this house, I'd have a lot of nickels.) You can also see the mantel. In case you can't guess, winter mantels are a struggle for me in my annual post-holiday funk. Anyhoo, the wall color is called "dried grass" and it's decidedly in the green family, although it leans toward khaki.

The new color is called "winter garden" and I used it to great effect (IMHO) in the formal living/dining room. It's a mustard-y color, or so I thought. You can judge for yourself. After I got the walls painted, the men-folk in our family strolled in and both said "it's the same color as before." I harrumphed them out and insisted they were dead wrong. And they were...but if I were under oath, I'd have to confess the two colors are...well...similar. At least the mantel has been made over, thanks to some sepia-toned prints of photos my better half snapped while we were enjoying the beach in South Carolina. The biggest print is a rowboat in a marsh, a la Sparks' "The Notebook" and was spotted by DD when I was getting the photos framed today. Good eye, that one. Takes after her mama.

Of course, now that I've painted the den, the adjacent kitchen and breakfast nook are suddenly looking a little shabby. Sigh...this is how I have managed to paint every room of this house 3 times over in less than a decade.