Thoughts of the Lady in the Tower

2005-02-21 - 9:35 p.m.

Hugely productive weekend! A summary:

Painting:
Kitchen: deep green olive, done!
Dining room: chanti below chair rail, light green above, done but chair rail needs to be installed
Living room: "Russian blue", a blue with a hint of grey, done!
Half bath: lighter shade of russian blue (two shades, I think), done!
Foyer: russian blue, done!
Guest bedroom: mint ice cream, done!

Paint has been purchased, and planned for next weekend with mom:
Upstairs hallway: light light camel
Office: light light yellow
Laundry closet: powder room leftovers
Guest bathroom: maybe leftover russian blue? There's not much to do in there. May be too dark, though (but the white bifold doors will brighten). Hmmm.

Still to pick colors:
My bedroom and bath? Wow.

Electrical:
Ceiling fan and light kit in living room, done!
Switch "dining room" and "breakfast nook" lights, replace "dining room" light with blank plates, done! (builder stupidity, there, there's no room for a dining room where they put the light)

Ceiling fan in guest room, not done.... I've got the ladder, so I'm tempted to try and do it myself. It's got instructions and the house is already wired.... how hard can it be?

Other:
IKEA dresser assembly, done!
Huge dent in bedroom mess (but not complete)

Laundry closet, not done (supplies purchased)

Casualties:
Mom burned herself on the high powered light, and I knocked my eyelid on one of it's legs (while Dad was folding it up). Didn't know you could bruise your eyelid, but believe me, you can, and the knot is in my vision. Dad had a few close calls falling off the ladders, but thankfully the worst that happened was a quick jump to the floor (ie, he fell but landed on his feet). He was tired at that point and shouldn't have been there.

My wrists are killing me. Mom's hands bother her, so she couldn't roll. She did lots of prep and cut-ins, but that left me to do the rolling (while Dad did electrical stuff). Dad rolled the second coat on the living room, but the rest of the floor was rolled by me. Plus a bunch on the foyer. Owie. Going to bed with an ice pack again tonight, but I should be fine tomorrow (judging from this morning).

Major casualty: my wallet. Wow, it's the best $500 I've ever spent (and I'll get about $75 back in rebates), but it still hurts to see the money go. However, the decorating shows all say that the way to get a ton of impact for a little money is PAINT.... I'm a believer! Supplies to redo the laundry closet probably ran about $100-125, so for $325 (after rebates) I changed the mood of the whole house. Fantastic!

Lessons learned:
Canvas dropcloths are the Bomb, tile is cold, and you should wear shoes when you're climbing up and down ladders. Disposable stuff is your friend. Stairwells suck to paint in. Four people in a 9x9 room makes a room too hot! Melanie is the roller goddess!

Painter's tape dispensers are AWESOME if you have scaffolding on wheels.... dad set it on the ceiling while Mom and I pushed him around the room, wonderfully taped ceilings (okay, not perfect, but a HUGE time saver).

Plan at LEAST 3 coats of any saturated color when you're using a tinted primer. At about a foot you can see the (tinted) primer showing through on the chianti. At that point I said 'no one should be looking that close anyway; I'm done'. If the primer hadn't been there, the white would probably have showed through enough that I would have felt obligated to do another coat.

I discovered that a major problem with my house (or any unpainted space, really) is that there was no difference in color between the walls and ceiling... and with 9' ceilings, they felt like they went on FOREVER. Painting the walls (ceilings were left alone) gave the ceiling (much needed!) definition. Feels like there's a roof now! The ceiling fan helped with that, too.

Thank-yous:
Big thanks to my parents, first of all (I owned them (and OWE them!) the whole weekend). Also to the Monday crew: Melanie, Evan, and Amalia.

Next weekend:
Pampered Chef party on Friday (woot!). If you'd like to come and I haven't yet given you the details, let me know (I've been somewhat sporadic on this, and can't figure out who I've invited).

Home and Garden show at Dulles Town Center with Mom on Saturday. It's HUGE! It'll take all day to get through.

Painting with Mom on Sunday. Probably start with her guest bath (which needs it!), then move onto my office (which means I need to excavate this week.... UGH). I'm worried about my stairwell. There's a section I can't figure out how we'll get to.

In summary:
The house looks AWESOME! SO COOL! I'll try to get pictures tomorrow (was planning to go shopping, but I think I'll wait a day to develop my shopping list more. I still haven't planned my second dish for the Pampered Chef party, so I should do that before I go grocery shopping).

My house feels like a home, and not just a place where I *am*. I'm happy beyond words.