Adventures in Jana-Land
I had a hot date Friday night...with some blue painter's tape. Scandelous.
(Apparently spell check's not working. So feel free to giggle if I misspell/typo words.)
In order to "get it on" with my tape, I first had to move a butt load of furnature. Well, FIRST first, I had to empty out my glass doored cabinet. The one I keep all my stemwear, glass pitchers and other "pretty stuff" in. That took a gazillion hours. I'm thinking I may need to weed out some junk.
I may also need to invest in a muscle-y man. All this furniture movin' business is a little unweldy for me. Thankfully I'm stubborn and managed to wrestle most of it on my own.
And I don't even want to think about what all manner of dog hair and dead bugs I found beneath all that furniture. *shudders* I'd have taken pictures but I was concentrating too hard on not throwing up. (But wouldn't all this be more interesting WITH picutres? My bad.)
Shackin' up with blue painter's tape is just about as excitin' as it sounds. Which isn't very much. And you'd be surprised at how much time and energy it takes to cover baseboards and window casings with tape. BUT, I decided to live dangerously this time and let the outlet covers go commando. I just promised myself I'd be extra super duper more carefuller when painting around them.
So that was Friday night.
Saturday morning I got up early and did my trip to town and brought back breakfast. The DP and I leisurely enjoyed a hazelnut iced latte before breaking out the Zinsser's 1*2*3. I figured I had plenty of time and I was not going to kill myself or neglect mah baybe just to get some stoopid primer on the walls. So we sipped our iced latte and took a stroll around the yard.
Then, around 9:30 (this is late morning for me as I'm usually out of bed and halfway to town by 6:30am) I got down and dirty with some sandpaper and spackle. I think I may need a new tube of spackle, though, because that junk took forEVER to sqeeze and fill.
What's annoying is that after I started priming I realized I'd missed a few random nail holes in the wall. I've said this before but it bears repeating: I don't know what the former owners were smokin' to feel the need to put so many nails in the walls in such random places. Honestly WHY? I'll try to remember to take a picture of a couple of examples before I go back and spackle. But seriously, these jokers were all in the oddest places.
Which, random holes aren't that big a deal with the wood finish. They blend. But once the paneling is painted? Nail holes tend to stand out about as much as I would on a fashion runway. As in uncomfortably glaring.
So anyway, priming. Same ol', same ol' except, I think by the time I finish I might be almost professional in my skilz. Honestly, with each section or room I paint, I learn something more. Do something better. Find an easier way to do something. And it helped that this time my knees were both feeling excellent and young. Which might explain that one time when I first started cutting in along the top and almost fell on my butt when I hopped off the stepstool backwards. I forgot for those 2.4 seconds that I'm about as graceful and coordinated as drunk donkey. Thankfully God watches out for idiots because He caught me before I went splat!
It actually takes a lot of planning and forthought when priming/painting in rooms filled with furniture. Especially small rooms with big furniture. Where to shove the furniture to access the wall. How NOT to spill primer/paint on the furniture. I ended up starting with the living room wall with the windows and door, then moved to the dining room and then finished with the other living room wall so that the first wall had enough time to dry a bit for me to push the chairs back enough to pull the couch out. (Am I making any sense at all or did you doze off after the graceful donkey bit?)
Anyway, there's not a whole lot else to say about priming except that I was halfway through finishing the last wall when the electricity went out. Which meant, no ceiling fan, no music and sweat. Blah. Cause ya'll, it was HOT outside Saturday. But I powered through and finished that last wall around 1:30 or so. Electricity was out for about an hour and a half but I was so filthy and hot by the time I finished priming that I jumped in the shower anyway and enjoyed the cold water. Actually, I had enough hot water to get me started in a warm shower before switching it over to cold.
I was starved, too, but didn't have anything I could eat cold other than a can of tuna which I did not want. So I ate some Tostitos with a little sour cream. Uber healthy, right? At least the Tostitos were whole grain. ;-)
After that, the lights came back on and I pretty much passed out. I took about a thirty minute nap and then laid on the couch and watched three hours of Gilmore Girls on SoapNet.
Somewhere around 6:30 I finally rolled off the couch and went in search of food again and while I was up and moving, I decided to bake a pie. Because what else is a worn out single gal to do on a Saturday night? Spending it with pie just about tops my list, anyway. And you recall how I mentioned I wanted to experiment with orange extrat in my next chocolate pie? That's what I did.
Except, here's how it went down.
I had a prepared pie crust in the freezer--the packaged kind in a pie tin. It was standard size which I assumed would be large enough. It wasn't. But I poured all that filling in there anyway and decided for safety's sake to put it on a baking sheet in case of spillage. The irony here is that the spillage occurred in direct consequence to the cheep baking sheet I used that I forgot had a tendancy to buckle when it gets hot. *sigh*
I had put a tortilla in the toaster oven to warm--I usually set it at 200 but I wanted it to warm faster so I set it at 250. I was opening a can of chicken to make a chicken quesodilla when I heard a pop followed immediately by a sizzle in the oven. A pop and a sizzle in the oven never boads well, in case you're wondering.
So I rushed to the oven to spy all the carnage and sure enough, the stupid cheap 9 year-old baking sheet had buckled and caused the overfilled pie to spill from the crust. Thankfully the baking sheet was there to catch the spillage but if the sheet hadn't buckled I believe it wouldn't have spilled. So. I carefully pulled the mess from the oven and transferred what was left of the pie to the sturdy industrial baking sheet I'd gotten for Christmas and started cleaning up the mess. And by "cleaning up" I mean getting a spoon and helping myself to the half baked pie filling. It was almost to a pudding consistency and far too tempting to resist.
Unfortunately it was this very break in my will-power that sealed the fate of my tortilla. I started notcing something burning and thought maybe some of the pie filling had indeed dripped inside the oven. I checked and it was fine. Then it dawned on me...My tortilla!
Burnt to an ever-lovin' crisp.
Again. Photos would have been nice here. But honestly? I was too distracted by the half-baked pie to be bothered. ;-)
I did finally get my quesodilla made and eaten and I didn't "clean up" all the half baked and spilled pie filling. AND my pie did get done though it was very thin. Not to self. No more prepacked pie crusts and don't use cheap baking sheet as spill guard.
After all that, I think I laid back down on the couch and zoned out in front of the boob tube for a couple of hours before dragging my pathetic butt to bed.
But wait! You wanna see pics of my primed walls, right??
So about that unprimed wall. It's not primed for one simple reason. Remember what I said up top about needing to invest in a muscle-y man? Yeah. I couldn't move the entertainment center and TV so I'm waiting to do that wall until I can bribe Goofus into coming over to wrestle it out of the way.
And about that cute puppy up yonder. You know, this one?
She wasn't around much in the "during" phase of this project. I did have the good sense to fix her up a "bed" on my bed and put the baby gate up in the hallway. The very last thing I need is primed puppy tracking all over my furniture. ;-)
Sunday was church, lunch with the folks and Twilight Prophecy by Maggie Shayne. Oh, and The Killing on AMC.
Today it's misery, work, and a stiflingly hot office for most of the morning. Good news is? Starbucks makes a frappacino that tastes like Samoa's/Caramel delights and A/C was fixed by 12:30. AND I managed to not kill anyone while I was sweltering. If you never believed in miracles before, you should now. :-D
(Apparently spell check's not working. So feel free to giggle if I misspell/typo words.)
In order to "get it on" with my tape, I first had to move a butt load of furnature. Well, FIRST first, I had to empty out my glass doored cabinet. The one I keep all my stemwear, glass pitchers and other "pretty stuff" in. That took a gazillion hours. I'm thinking I may need to weed out some junk.
I may also need to invest in a muscle-y man. All this furniture movin' business is a little unweldy for me. Thankfully I'm stubborn and managed to wrestle most of it on my own.
And I don't even want to think about what all manner of dog hair and dead bugs I found beneath all that furniture. *shudders* I'd have taken pictures but I was concentrating too hard on not throwing up. (But wouldn't all this be more interesting WITH picutres? My bad.)
Shackin' up with blue painter's tape is just about as excitin' as it sounds. Which isn't very much. And you'd be surprised at how much time and energy it takes to cover baseboards and window casings with tape. BUT, I decided to live dangerously this time and let the outlet covers go commando. I just promised myself I'd be extra super duper more carefuller when painting around them.
So that was Friday night.
Saturday morning I got up early and did my trip to town and brought back breakfast. The DP and I leisurely enjoyed a hazelnut iced latte before breaking out the Zinsser's 1*2*3. I figured I had plenty of time and I was not going to kill myself or neglect mah baybe just to get some stoopid primer on the walls. So we sipped our iced latte and took a stroll around the yard.
Then, around 9:30 (this is late morning for me as I'm usually out of bed and halfway to town by 6:30am) I got down and dirty with some sandpaper and spackle. I think I may need a new tube of spackle, though, because that junk took forEVER to sqeeze and fill.
What's annoying is that after I started priming I realized I'd missed a few random nail holes in the wall. I've said this before but it bears repeating: I don't know what the former owners were smokin' to feel the need to put so many nails in the walls in such random places. Honestly WHY? I'll try to remember to take a picture of a couple of examples before I go back and spackle. But seriously, these jokers were all in the oddest places.
Which, random holes aren't that big a deal with the wood finish. They blend. But once the paneling is painted? Nail holes tend to stand out about as much as I would on a fashion runway. As in uncomfortably glaring.
So anyway, priming. Same ol', same ol' except, I think by the time I finish I might be almost professional in my skilz. Honestly, with each section or room I paint, I learn something more. Do something better. Find an easier way to do something. And it helped that this time my knees were both feeling excellent and young. Which might explain that one time when I first started cutting in along the top and almost fell on my butt when I hopped off the stepstool backwards. I forgot for those 2.4 seconds that I'm about as graceful and coordinated as drunk donkey. Thankfully God watches out for idiots because He caught me before I went splat!
It actually takes a lot of planning and forthought when priming/painting in rooms filled with furniture. Especially small rooms with big furniture. Where to shove the furniture to access the wall. How NOT to spill primer/paint on the furniture. I ended up starting with the living room wall with the windows and door, then moved to the dining room and then finished with the other living room wall so that the first wall had enough time to dry a bit for me to push the chairs back enough to pull the couch out. (Am I making any sense at all or did you doze off after the graceful donkey bit?)
Anyway, there's not a whole lot else to say about priming except that I was halfway through finishing the last wall when the electricity went out. Which meant, no ceiling fan, no music and sweat. Blah. Cause ya'll, it was HOT outside Saturday. But I powered through and finished that last wall around 1:30 or so. Electricity was out for about an hour and a half but I was so filthy and hot by the time I finished priming that I jumped in the shower anyway and enjoyed the cold water. Actually, I had enough hot water to get me started in a warm shower before switching it over to cold.
I was starved, too, but didn't have anything I could eat cold other than a can of tuna which I did not want. So I ate some Tostitos with a little sour cream. Uber healthy, right? At least the Tostitos were whole grain. ;-)
After that, the lights came back on and I pretty much passed out. I took about a thirty minute nap and then laid on the couch and watched three hours of Gilmore Girls on SoapNet.
Somewhere around 6:30 I finally rolled off the couch and went in search of food again and while I was up and moving, I decided to bake a pie. Because what else is a worn out single gal to do on a Saturday night? Spending it with pie just about tops my list, anyway. And you recall how I mentioned I wanted to experiment with orange extrat in my next chocolate pie? That's what I did.
Except, here's how it went down.
I had a prepared pie crust in the freezer--the packaged kind in a pie tin. It was standard size which I assumed would be large enough. It wasn't. But I poured all that filling in there anyway and decided for safety's sake to put it on a baking sheet in case of spillage. The irony here is that the spillage occurred in direct consequence to the cheep baking sheet I used that I forgot had a tendancy to buckle when it gets hot. *sigh*
I had put a tortilla in the toaster oven to warm--I usually set it at 200 but I wanted it to warm faster so I set it at 250. I was opening a can of chicken to make a chicken quesodilla when I heard a pop followed immediately by a sizzle in the oven. A pop and a sizzle in the oven never boads well, in case you're wondering.
So I rushed to the oven to spy all the carnage and sure enough, the stupid cheap 9 year-old baking sheet had buckled and caused the overfilled pie to spill from the crust. Thankfully the baking sheet was there to catch the spillage but if the sheet hadn't buckled I believe it wouldn't have spilled. So. I carefully pulled the mess from the oven and transferred what was left of the pie to the sturdy industrial baking sheet I'd gotten for Christmas and started cleaning up the mess. And by "cleaning up" I mean getting a spoon and helping myself to the half baked pie filling. It was almost to a pudding consistency and far too tempting to resist.
Unfortunately it was this very break in my will-power that sealed the fate of my tortilla. I started notcing something burning and thought maybe some of the pie filling had indeed dripped inside the oven. I checked and it was fine. Then it dawned on me...My tortilla!
Burnt to an ever-lovin' crisp.
Again. Photos would have been nice here. But honestly? I was too distracted by the half-baked pie to be bothered. ;-)
I did finally get my quesodilla made and eaten and I didn't "clean up" all the half baked and spilled pie filling. AND my pie did get done though it was very thin. Not to self. No more prepacked pie crusts and don't use cheap baking sheet as spill guard.
After all that, I think I laid back down on the couch and zoned out in front of the boob tube for a couple of hours before dragging my pathetic butt to bed.
But wait! You wanna see pics of my primed walls, right??
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| The dining room from the living room. |
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| The dining room again with the emphasis on the junk on the table. Oh, and there's a cute puppy here, too. ;-) |
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| The living room from the hallway. Yes, I know I missed a wall. |
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| The other half of the living room wall near the entry. |
And about that cute puppy up yonder. You know, this one?
Sunday was church, lunch with the folks and Twilight Prophecy by Maggie Shayne. Oh, and The Killing on AMC.
Today it's misery, work, and a stiflingly hot office for most of the morning. Good news is? Starbucks makes a frappacino that tastes like Samoa's/Caramel delights and A/C was fixed by 12:30. AND I managed to not kill anyone while I was sweltering. If you never believed in miracles before, you should now. :-D
Comments
I'm anxious to get the paint on the walls now. If I weren't so drained by the time I get home I think I'd tackle them one night this week. Since we have a three day weekend coming up, though, I figure I can wait till then. :-D
Looks like you are really making progress on the house, and enjoying all the DIY stuff, despite the hard work. You're much more ambitious than I am. *g*
Glad your sister, her family and her home made it through safely. I wondered how far up your way those tornadoes went but since they never said Madison I figured you were good. I can't believe how devastating it all is in MO, though. *shudders*
Yeah, you know I actually am enjoying the DIY even though I dread the hard work in between projects. LOL But it gives me something constructive to do and the sense of accomplishment is super satisfying. :)