Tuesday, November 25, 2008

With care, any paint challenge can be overcome

So, last weekend I thought I had met my match when it comes to painting and that all the challenges I faced while priming would resurface when actually painting. It was looking especially grim after my pep talk with the fellow in the paint department at OSH.

I think allowing a good drying interval after priming may have helped. I moved very slowly with the paint and kept a super light pressure and had nary a peeling paint issue. I saw a couple areas bubble up after the first coat, so I turned a fan on in front of them and let them dry for a good long while before starting the second coat.

I was using paint leftover from the condo and it was dated prior to my purchase of the house, but they had never been opened, so other than a really extensive stirring, it worked out fine (and free).

Strangely enough, what was a really blah non-color in the condo (with it's soaring ceilings and bright southern exposure), is a lovely warm, creamy beige in this room. I rolled out the oriental rug on the hardwood floors and it looks quite nice...as long as you don't look closely at the windows where there are cracked panes of glass and some others that are popping out of the sashes. Oh well.

I'm still wrangling with finding some suitable insulated window coverings to try to trap some heat in the room, but I've already moved half of my storage unit into it (hence, no photos). I'm on track to be out of storage by the end of this month, and let me tell you, that's $202 I'll be glad to have back every month, even if it does mean a mountain of boxes in the guest bedroom/office/craft room.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Roasty toasty

My fireplace insert was installed yesterday. I love it already.


I played with programming it last night, and sure enough, it went on at 6am today. I opened my bedroom door to a balmy 68° and did not have to race to the bathroom to turn on that heater and the hot water to take the chill off the air. Ahhh.... the simple pleasures of life.

I should have a similar experience when I get home tonight and can't wait to sit on the couch in front of it.

I need to get a little doorway fan to push the warm air through the kitchen to the rest of the house, but that's a minor issue at this stage.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

A paint job is only as good as the paint beneath it

Such was the sage wisdom I received from the kind fellow in the paint department at OSH this afternoon. This weekend's project was painting the back bedroom in preparation for moving the rest of my stuff out of storage this month. It will be the guest bedroom via an air mattress whenever the need arises.

In any event, I had not tackled this room for a very good reason--it was the dumpiest aspect of The Dump. Peeling paint, cracked glass in the windows, popped up floor boards, etc. It was also the first interior item on the list when it came to big remodel plans, so I just kept the door closed all the time.

Anyway, after a ton of paint scraping, spackling and sanding, I deemed it as good as it gets for a fresh coat of paint. I could tell the last paint job painted over chipped/peeling paint, so this is not a new problem for this tragic room, but I was determined to make the best of it and move along at a good clip.

Wrong.

Apparently when paint that doesn't want to stick to the layer beneath it gets wet with a fresh coat (primer in this case), it bubbles away from the wall and peels off on the wet paint roller. Yuk!

After scraping away of some wet bubbles of peeling paint and rollering very slowly and carefully, I decided it was finished and was hopeful that the primer would form some sort of flexible "glue" that would hold it all together when the real paint does on. I had to run to OSH for a few other items, so I decided to have a chat with Mr. Paint. I told him the situation and he grimaced and actually said, "Yuk," before dropping his bomb of a pearl of wisdom. No matter how well I prime that mess, it's still going to peel off.

I decided I will wait until next weekend to deal with the real paint. I'll keep an eye on it during the week and will remove any other bubbles or cracks/peels that develop. Ceiling and trim are all painted and ready to go. The wall color is leftover from the condo (two gallons never even opened), and is ultra-boring cream. Whatever--I'm using it up instead of sending it to hazardous waste, and I didn't have to buy paint (the mis-mix bin was not going to help in this case since the room is big enough to require more than one gallon).

In a more successful turn of events, Arturo came out to run the gas line to the fireplace and also removed the nasty old wall heater in the living room. He patched the wall, so I primed and painted it and am amazed at how much space I just reclaimed in my living room:

I can actually use that corner now! There is a little gap in the floor and baseboard, but I'm not going to bother fixing it at this juncture since that is where I plan to put my wine cabinet. I'm thrilled since that is one less piece of furniture being stashed in the "guest bedroom."

Looking back, I don't seem to have posted a good photo that includes the heater, so here you go:

Oh, you can also see the major improvement in the soot-covered bricks. Simple Green, a scrub brush and a bucket of warm water were highly effective in removing the soot buildup in preparation for the fireplace insert coming next week. After that is installed, I'll finally get around to painting the mantle.

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Super Cute - Version 2.0

Almost exactly a year ago, I posted the first major transformation of The Dump--my super cute pink bedroom, which was the cheery retreat when the rest of the dumpiness got to be too much. I eventually had to give the twin bed back to the Blancos and hauled my queen sized mattress out of storage, and boy, was it ever nice to have it back.

This weekend I hauled the rest of the bed out of storage and set up my bed with it's true vintage-inspired bedding.

So, here I give you my super cute bedroom version 2.0:



The bed is much too big for the room , but it will have to do until I get the back bedroom painted and the windows repaired (found a great how-to article in This Old House that has fully empowered me to tackle that project).

the other major improvement of the weekend is that I scrubbed the heck out of the brick facade of the fireplace to prepare for the gas insert I ordered on Saturday. It's an amazing change. If I had known that Simple Green and some elbow grease would remove the soot so easily, I would have tacked it a long time ago!

Anyway, back to that insert...The wall heater in the wall between the kitchen and living room does not work, and a ton of heat escapes through my damper-less chimney. I was planning to cover the opening to seal in the warm air, but then decided I would take the plunge and get the fireplace insert now, which will act as the primary heat source for the living room and kitchen for as long as I live in the is house (eliminating the need for a forced air furnace). It comes with a programmable thermostat no less!

I need to book a chimney sweep ASAP and a plumber to run the gas line through the masonry and expect to be sitting in front of my fireplace all toasty warm by Thanksgiving. Now, THAT is what I call progress.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Semi-after photo

Well, I was not as productive last night as I had hoped I would be. I needed to run a few errands after work, and as such, only got the front curtain hung. So, I'm calling this the "semi-after" photo. Or maybe it's the "mostly-after" photo.

As I mentioned in my last post, I still need to work on the mantle this weekend. I used the power sander, but it has many layers of peeling paint that are resisting removal/smoothing.

I will swap out the switches and outlets, but that will require waiting until there is some daylight since I plan to turn off every switch at my electric panel. They are not labeled, and outlets seem to be linked in the darnedst fashion (as evidenced by what goes off when I trip one).

I'm also planning on painting the front door and closet door white, but will wait until a dry day to do that. Possibly this weekend.

Miss Kitty seems to be out of sorts since I removed her favorite chair (it was in front of the window thinking she might like to look outside like a normal cat). She'd stopped sitting on it several weeks ago and had resumed her bad habit of sitting on the back of the couch (it took me MONTHS to convince her that the chair is a better place for her). Soooo, I decided to reconfigure the TV placement to make it feel less cramped and didn't move the second white chair back into the living room. Anyway, when I left for work this morning, she was curled up on the floor even though there is a kitty pi (that she has similarly ignored, adored and eventually rejected) on the couch and another cat bed on the white chair. She's weird.

Monday, November 3, 2008

Painting is the new quad workout

I am sore. I am so sore that I groan every time I have to stand up. Apparently going up and down a ladder a gazillion times to spackle, sand, paint the ceiling (2 coats), cut in wall color at the ceiling line and then also roller on the upper portions of the wall (two coats for that too) is a mean workout for the quads to take for two days straight. I also have a sore right shoulder from the Painting Workout.

I know you were really hoping for some "after" photos today, but it's not 100% ready for the reveal. I need to get new curtain rods so I can hang them outside the window casing instead of on the window casing, and I'm also going to swap out the nasty, grimy light switches, outlets and related covers with some freshy-fresh white ones. Furthermore, the mantle was a bigger mess than I expected and needs a lot more sanding before it will be ready for paint. I will post a photo sometime this week, but you'll have to close your eyes to the incomplete mantle since I won't get to that until next weekend.

However, as a reminder, here is the "before" and the "way before." And for grins and giggles, here is what it has looked like for the past year (minus the holiday cheer--I'm just talking about the condition, furnishings and etc).

Oh yeah, I made cookies this weekend too. They offset the paint smell and also provided a good snack along the way. yum!