At the end of May, I had new floors installed in my house. For a month before that, the house was a whirlwind of moving EVERYTHING into the basement, culminating in about two weeks of painting.
The living room and half of the kitchen (the half involving the wall behind the fridge — there was some strategy involved) were painted before the floors were installed on the theory that it was better to drip paint on the carpets that were being removed than on the new floors. Time ran out however and most of the painting was done with a great deal of caution so as to avoid any spills.
By mid-June, the entire house had been painted except for some touch up work in two of the bedrooms and the upstairs hallway, and that pesky other half of the kitchen. That’s when the procrastination set in. Fast forward through June, July, August, September, October and the first week of November.
This past weekend, I decided to stay home on Saturday and did all the touch up painting. The upstairs bedrooms and hallway are painted, and I even put an area rug in the master bedroom. Sunday evening, I put the curtains back up for the first time since May. (This is about as “domestic” as I get.)
All that remained to be done was to finish painting the darn kitchen.
Tuesday was Veterans Day and I had the day off from work. Here’s how the kitchen looked by mid-afternoon. Everything off the counter, painters tape on all the edges.
The paint had dried by Wednesday evening, so I took down all the tape and put up the curtains. This evening I put the various wallplates back on the outlets and switches. Here’s how the kitchen looks now.
I still have stuff to do — it’s a house after all, so the TODO list never ends — but at this point, I’m ready to declare this particular project complete.
Tag Archives: painting
Foot Warmer
In the past month or so, I’ve discovered that one of the downsides to the wooden floors is that as the temperatures drop, wood isn’t nearly as warm as carpet. This makes getting out of bed just that much more difficult. (Wylie’s perspective is that because it’s more slippery, wood floors make it more difficult to launch yourself onto the bed. He gets stuck halfway about once a week.)
Last night, instead of dancing, I stayed home, and after some minor prep work, touched up the paint in two of the bedrooms. (When I took down the masking tape a few months ago, some of the new paint came with it.)
This afternoon, with the paint dry, I put the furniture back, and at long last put down my first area rug.
I think it looks pretty darn good, but now I’ll have to find a new excuse for oversleeping.
Making Progress Again
I’ve reached a point in the renovation project where I’m tired of the entire thing. Consequently, although I’ve unpacked a few things (I now have a sofa along with the computer, desk and chair), I’ve been finding a number of excuses to put off the rest of painting. About all I’ve accomplished along those lines the past couple weeks is the prep work for the master bedroom.
That’s changed. Today I made a point of finishing the prep work for the bedroom and it is now officially painted. For Sunday, I hope to get the upstairs hallway painted. Then all that will remain is painting half the kitchen and getting things out of the basement again. (And there’s a bit of deadline too, Shore Leave is in two weeks and I’d like to have the project done before then.)
The only catch is, my bedroom now smells like paint. What’s worse though is that the drop cloth was blocking the air vent. Consequently, it’s also about 20 degrees warmer than the rest of the house. So tonight I’m going to sleep on the sofa. Happily, it’s not just a sofa, it a very comfy sofa!
Have Paint Brush, No Time to Travel
After about three weeks of prep work and two days of washing walls and emptying closets, I’ve officially started painting. There’s blue tape everywhere!!!! (Look for photos in a week or so.) This evening I got two-thirds of the living room painted. With luck those walls will dry before any dogs or parrots make contact with them.
The floors are scheduled to be installed later this week and I already have this unfortunate mental image of Wylie sliding across the living room and putting his head through the drywall…
Spacing Out
My house has about 900 square feet of floor space. (And an undoubtedly similar amount of ceiling.)
The living room, dining room and upstairs hallway have about 880 square feet of wall space.
Likewise, the three bedrooms have a combined wall space of approximately 896 square feet.
By comparison, the kitchen has a relatively paltry 168 square feet of wall space (not counting the space occupied by cabinetry).
This gives me a combined total of nearly 2000 square feet of wall space versus only 900 of floor space.
Those of you who use numerology for things such as predicting baseball playoffs may find some significance to these numbers. For myself, what’s clear is that even though they’re all approximations, if I could somehow figure out a way to walk on the walls, I’d have a lot more room to move around.