Painting Party!

Tags

diy, home, professional designers

Friends of ours recently moved into a new apartment and recruited another couple, who are actually professional designers, to help choose colors and paint. My husband and I were able to help paint once colors were chosen and in an afternoon with two rollers and two people cutting in we knocked out one dining room, one living room and one accent hallway wall.

All we needed were some sweet jams, some snacks and the strength to push through the pain of painting which diminishes somehow when you just keep going.

The last time I did any painting of walls was about a year ago when I repainted our bathroom for probably the third or fourth time. I forgot how much easier it is to do big rooms than small rooms with lots of cutting in!

That’s my husband in black in the corner. Sigh.

You like that ugly dining room light fixture? We’re going to replace it (yes, I don’t live there but I say “we”) with something. We tried already but I may or may not have broken the fixture by shortening the wires.

Next time my husband and I have lots of painting to do we may have to have a painting party like our friends did for their new place. Everything went smoothly and with a little prep work — taping and laying out drop cloths– the work went quickly and it felt like we were done in no time. Have you ever had a painting party or do you prefer to do it yourself? Or have you avoided painting all together?

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Make it New with White Spray Paint: DIY!

Early last month I discovered my new best DIY friend: white spray paint. I took on a “Pinterest Challenge” and gave some old wood frames a face lift with some new paint and it was so simple (and didn’t break the bank). I had another project in mind that I gave a sneak peek of here that involves white spray paint and is one of the finishing touches on the re-remodeled bathroom.

This should look familiar from last week and there were a few guesses, some legitimate– “frame”– and some not so much– “toilet seat?” What it actually happens to be is the remaining piece of a nautical-ish sun-shaped-ish wood thing with a mirror in the middle. I got it for $7 at the Humane Society Thrift Store in hopes of fixing it up and putting it up somewhere but instead it sat in our garage for a while, got dustier and looked sadder than when I had purchased it. Eventually I removed and threw away an outer piece of it and was left with this and the mirror. Well, it’s high time this broken thing get’s fixed!

Before I was obsessed with white spray paint, there was tacky glue. We go way, way back. Back before I was old enough to use a hot glue gun on my own. In this application, it works perfectly to glue together the broken crack in the wood.

I just squeezed some glue in there and wiped off the excess. Bam. Fixed.

For good measure I also used some spackle since the front of the frame still had the crack showing. And because I really like spackle. I think it’s because it reminds me of Play-doh?

After I let the spackle dry a good long time, or as long as I could wait– approximately 60 seconds?– I set about sanding the frame lightly with fine grit sandpaper. Then I took a slightly damp cloth and wiped the whole thing down. Sanding slightly will help the spray paint adhere, but honestly, I skip this step for painting picture frames. It was needed here more to even out the spackle.

The first coat of spray paint goes on lightly and nice and smooth. I’ve learned not to try and go too fast or heavy with coats of spray paint. It dries so quickly on a warm sunny day it makes it easier to wait 10 or so minutes– or, you know, five– between coats. This was the first coat and I probably did three or four total plus the back lightly.

While I was at it and the door I use for spray painting was in the middle of the lawn (thanks, husband!) I figured I might as well spray paint a few other things. I got some coats on some white picture frames for around the house.

While the final spray paint is drying on the frame I set to work cleaning the mirror. Why did the thrift store put a sticker on the middle of the mirror? No idea. Why do I not have Goo Be Gone in the garage? Also no idea. I wasn’t able to get off all the residue so I’ll have to get some and come back to it.

I whipped out the glue gun for this (yes, it is sitting on top of my Restoration Hardware gigantor catalog) and after realizing that the mirror just barely over lapped the frame, I decided I couldn’t glue under the mirror.

Instead of gluing under, I glued around. This picture isn’t the best example but I basically made sure to get the glue around the edge and slightly overlapping. Hot glue dries like plastic so I figured that would be enough to hold it in place. But the mirror still had the original paper backing that used to hold it in place.

First I considered trying to glue the paper backing back to the  mirror. I quickly realized that it wasn’t in great shape and barely covered the mirror so there wouldn’t be much point. While I couldn’t save the original backing, I did have neon blue card stock leftover from my wedding to use…

I simply laid the original paper on the car stock (which wouldn’t be visible on the final product) and cut around the circle with a little extra on each side that would allow it.

Next I simply used more hot glue to affix my new backing to my frame and made sure that the parts with lots of extra space went above and below the mirror. In a worse case scenario where the mirror doesn’t stay stuck to the wood, hopefully the paper prevents it from crashing to the ground.

Ready for the final resting place reveal? There’s something else in this picture that I’ve mentioned before but never shown on the blog…

What’s that peeking in the mirror!? Yup, it’s the towel fish. Just ignore the door that will one day be replaced.

Yup, towel fish. He lives behind the door. My aunt got him at an art show and he now lives with us. I used to use him as a coat hook when we lived in an apartment but now he’s just perfect in the bathroom and adds much needed– and pleasantly unexpected– color to the otherwise serene bathroom. What an attention hog. Back to my new framed mirror!

There you have it! A little white spray paint can go a long way to refreshing something that previously looked pretty sad. The crack is still slightly visible but not distracting from the final product and having an extra mirror in the tiny bathroom will make mornings much easier around here.

Could it be time to return to the thrift store for more soon-to-be-white treasures!?

This dog is an angel

The painters finally finished painting today which means it was the dog’s sixth and final day locked up inside. When we first got Boo, she was confined to our apartment except for her morning and evening walks. That lasted for almost six months before we moved into the house and she started being able to stay outside during the day. While she didn’t seem to ever mind the apartment– and used to be able to jump on the couch– she now doesn’t like staying in the house instead of her grassy backyard with a nice breeze, warm dirt and squirrels to watch. Usually she only has inside days when I know it’s going to rain or we have people working on the house, so the six days of painting were the most she’s been in the house for a long, long time.

She was fine for the first five days. But today when I got home I realized something was wrong. She wasn’t as eager to meet me at the door, and after letting her outside, I noticed some wet paw prints. Uh-oh. I followed them into our back room and was looking around for puddles, finally I saw a big one. Luckily we have hardwood floors, and I know this wasn’t her fault. We have a dog with Cushing’s Syndrome and we’ve been lucky that poor bladder control has not been an issue thus far, but it probably didn’t help her hold it when she drank her whole bowl of water today. Poor thing.

In order to let her know she wasn’t in trouble, I decided to take her for a walk (which I know I should have done the other days but I’m a terrible owner) to the Bay Trail which is maybe five short blocks from our house. As soon as we got to the trail, I noticed her limping. Bad. There’s something wrong with one of her back legs and I didn’t notice it until we got all the way to the trail. We immediately turned back instead of doing our normal walk and she was slow all the way back to the house.

I hate to say it, but the first thing that popped into my head, since she was home alone all day, was that the painter who had access to the house did something to her. Though she could have slipped and hurt herself, very likely since her muscles are compromised by the Cushing’s. Either way, the pee and the limp remind me that our Boo girl is somewhere around 13 years old now and she’s not a puppy. She’s so important to us, I want to make sure she is happy in her twilight years and so I hope she is back up and doing our Bay Trail walks soon.

Lull in real estate activity = good

The past two days have had not much house news. I suppose I should note that Prince Charming and I are fine, especially once he got some golf range time in.

We should find out this week (today or tomorrow) when the appraisal will be to tell us if we get our loan, and hopefully it will be next week sometime. I think that once I know we’re going to be approved for the loan I will start calling folks to get quotes on all the work that needs to be done to the house.

I had an interesting discussion with a friend who designs bathrooms/kitchens for a living about a general contractor he highly recommends, but the guy isn’t licensed because he’s not a citizen. It basically came down to wondering about the merits of permits for work done on a house. I’m leaning towards getting them if we can afford it because you basically have to go all or nothing. You need them for kitchen remodels, bathroom remodels, foundation fixes, re-piping, re-doing electrical, basically everything we need done. I would feel better, most notably about electrical, if we had things permitted for insurance/legal reasons. If we have the house rewired and don’t have it permitted, I’m pretty sure we’d be at fault.

That’s pretty much it for now. I have a fun weekend of cleaning the apartment because our pooch sheds a lot. Maybe I’ll try and purge the crap I keep for no good reason because hopefully we’ll be moving in the near future. Hooray!

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Daily, an email from my real estate agent lands in my email inbox with the updated listings in the area. Every time I look at it I feel a little depressed.

Trust me, I hate squirrels, but this was kind of cool

Don’t think I’m crazy for making this, it took me about five minutes. And yes, I hate squirrels, they creep me out. On my university campus they were everywhere and that scary chirpy thing they do is like nails on a chalkboard.

When I saw this guy on my patio, I figured he’d see me and run. Then I realized he was just chillin’ and not moving. “Oh great, he’s dead,” I thought. Nope, he was breathing. “Great I’m going to have to watch a squirrel die on the patio.” I had time to run, get my cell phone for a picture, then text about it, then run for my camera, and he still didn’t notice me through the huge window. Weeeirdd. Eventually he woke up, but I compiled the pictures with captions, just click on it to open it to see it larger.

Milk is supposed to be cold. Yogurt too.

Is Your Refrigerator Running?
Originally uploaded by dmguz.

Good golly, it’s unbelievable how good cold food is when it’s supposed to be cold! Think: dairy products. If you are privy to Prince Charming and my complaints in the last three or so months, you would know that we have a lame fridge (in the apartment-from-hell). Go figure. Though the freezer seems okay, the refrigerator’s seal doesn’t—well—seal, and so in the humid Northeast quite a bit of moisture gets in. Then it freezes and drips (yes, water and ice at the SAME TIME) onto the food causing it to spoil, mold, never cool properly. It’s like a death trap.

On recommendation from my coworkers, I brought this week’s yogurt to work to keep in our gigantic working refrigerators. Yesterday I had a lukewarm yogurt from my fridge, today a perfectly chilled yogurt from the fridge at work and HOLY SMOKES it was amazing. In about a month and a half if all goes to plan I will be enjoying perfectly chilled food once again. Good riddance apartment-from-hell.

Off Season’s Greetings

IMG_8796.JPG
Originally uploaded by alannaface.

Dear All:
In light of neglecting to send holiday cards with a fun but not necessarily required update I’m composing an email to keep everyone on the same page. It’s long– I get that from my dad– but if you ask me, distractions from what you should actually be doing are sometimes needed.

It’s a balmy 41 degrees outside here in Waltham, MA and we expect it to get up to 57 degrees later this week. Last week it dipped down below zero but I couldn’t tell you how low because my digital outdoor thermometer only can go to 14 degrees and then just tells me the temperature is “lo,” and that’s good enough for me. Folks around here tell me that eventually it will snow more and get colder and crappier eventually, but while the record snowfall we’ve received melts I maintain a over optimistic hope that spring is coming early this year.

Despite my pain in experiencing my first real winter weather, I know I’m avoiding the pounding rain of a fire scarred California. After just over a month of snow and freezing weather, though, I figured out why Californians are always called wimps. It’s one thing to be soggy and wet, it’s another to have cold burning your face while you’re soggy, wet and cold!

Seems like weather has been preoccupying much of the difference I’ve noticed out here on the east coast, but there are other things to be missed as well. Like fish tacos and Mexican food! There’s no greasy Mexican place around the corner that will satisfy your craving for a burrito with authentic salsa and meat that’s been cooking for days. However, there are loads of Italian places and even a broad smattering of Indian places– where curry has turned everything into Indian food (ie. curry stir fry?). Cuisine out here usually seems so Americanized or blended together. I tell you the truth when I say that nearly every Asian restaurant of any type is a “fusion” food place. Forget just going out for Japanese sushi, you get Japanese, Thai, Chinese and Indonesian food all under one roof and coming from one kitchen. There’s one “fusion” place down the street with “Japanese and Mexican Fusion.” They’ve made Japanese food spicy and raise the price.

When you move to a new place it’s funny what you end up missing. The food, culture and friendliness of California all escape New England but I hope I’ve brought some of it with me. This weekend’s project for my boyfriend, Carlos, and me was putting up shelves in my kitchen for a make shift bar/serving area. My apartment is a bright seafoamy teal, beige and was supposed to also be mint green. The more I look at my happily colored kitchen and living room and soak in the warm beige of my bedroom and bathroom, the more I realize these are famously Californian colors. I’m excited to entertain friends– particularly when the weather gets warm and I can use my patio!– and enjoy the sunshine in my funky apartment in true California style. Poor Carlos (well, he may not get that much sympathy for this) is subjected to me cooking food that reminds me of home from fish tacos to healthy sandwiches and more. I embrace having lobster multiple times a month, but every now and then I would trade that lobster in for a authentic Mexican meal.

Some brief updates on other things: the realty company of my first Boston (Brighton, MA) apartment that I lived in for two months conceded and sent my deposit check back– I don’t know what happened to the two male roommates if they’re still there or not.

Work is okay. I won’t be a recruiter forever and I’m doing all right where I am, but I’m already considering the next career move into something that I can stay in and climb a ladder. Perhaps it’s time to start considering grad school as my boyfriend is studying for his GMAT to get into an MBA program.

The new apartment is great although my stove/oven needs to be replaced and there are a few things to be fixed. I love living alone and having my own place– it was about time!

My boyfriend is still around after being so kind and brave as to come to Christmas dinner at my aunt and uncles’ to meet my grandparents in addition to the aunts, uncles and cousins he’s already met. He made my birthday wonderful this year and I brought in the New Year with his family. If you didn’t know this strange fact already, he’s a fraternal twin (and my dad is an identical twin).

And the last fun fact for now is that I changed my cell phone plan over to Verizon, so if you have Verizon we can text, talk and send picture messages for FREE!

Enough of the distraction, hope everyone is well and in good health.