Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Painting Our Craft Room, Part Six

The call we've been waiting for finally came while I was fixing dinner.  Our carpet has arrived!  Unfortunately, we have to wait an entire week for it to be installed. 

It's just as well.  I had my knee injected last Thursday (Synvisc) and I'm not recovering as fast as I would like, so moving all that stuff back into the room would not be a good idea. 

Maybe Sarah and I can start going through some of our supplies ahead of time.  That is, if we can get through the mess and find them!

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Painting Our Craft Room, Part Five

I spend a lot of time watching the DIY Network.  I have to admit that this painting project reminds me of the show Renovation Realities.  Maybe not as bad, but similar.  We started with a simple paint job, which has morphed into not only painting the walls, but also replacing the carpet and painting the window casings and baseboards. 

While I was out on Thursday night, Phil and Sarah took down the crafting counter that my dad built for us, and emptied the room of everything except supplies, tools, my desk, and the computer. 
Grace helped my dad install the counter on February 13, 2005.
When I got home, Sarah told me she'd been injured; somehow, she cut her foot - perhaps from wearing flip flops while working? - but fortunately, it wasn't deep enough to need stitches.  (By morning, though, it was bruised and very sore.)  And she's not the only one.  Here's what I did early in the project.

That's my arm you see.  It still hurts.  I have numerous other bruises on my arms, too.

Earlier this week, Phil and I went to pay for our new carpet.  We had questions about the price because it was about $100 higher than what we had calculated in the store, and we wanted to know why.  The salesman started by saying there was a $97 charge for installation . . . whoa!  It was supposed to be $39 because we chose a StainMaster carpet.  We stood there and discussed that with the salesman who helped us initially.  Well, it turns out we did NOT choose StainMaster.  In the end, we chose a different carpet, this time a StainMaster.  It's a better quality carpet, and we ended up paying $4.00 more than the price for the other one.  We're still mystified about the original mix up, though.

The good news is that Sarah and I finished painting the walls on Friday night.  I have taped off the windows and hope to paint those tomorrow, as well as taking the old carpet out so I can easily paint the baseboards.  Sometimes it seems this project will never end.


Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Painting Our Craft Room, Part Four

We didn't get much done in the craft room today.  It was one of those days when we were dealing with other difficult issues that demanded all our attention.  I was able to take some of the boxes from the great room out to the garage in an attempt to make more room for items like sewing machines which shouldn't be stored in the cold.  (We have our first frost warning tonight.)  I still can't believe all the supplies we have in the room that need to be packed up and relocated!  We need to move the 7' high bookcase out to the garage so we can access the rest of the items underneath the table, so we will try to do that this afternoon. 

Lowe's came to measure for the new carpet on Tuesday afternoon.  It will be another seven to ten days before it comes in, or so they say.  You never know about these things.

I had said that the room was 10' square.  Turns out it is 12' x 12'.  Now, of course, you understand how we could put so much stuff in it, right?

Stay tuned . . .

Check It Out!

Check out the cool project my daughter completed!  The Picture Effect

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Painting Our Craft Room, Part Three

When we got home from church on Sunday night, Sarah had pizza ready for us, so I poured a glass of Pepsi One and grabbed a couple of slices of 'za.  When I headed back to the kitchen for just one more slice, I got into a conversation with my son-in-law, so painting was delayed until 9:00 or so.  Then I realized I still had more painter's tape to put up, and I spotted a nail pop and a ding in the wall that needed spackling.  Needless to say, it was about 9:45 before Sarah and I started to put paint on the wall.  Why is it that the first coat takes so much longer than the second?  It doesn't help that we don't think our walls were properly primed by the builder and they soak up paint like crazy.  In fact, we used probably 3/4 of a gallon for the first coat on those first two walls I showed you in this post.  The good news is that we managed to put two coats on the first two walls, putting us well ahead of schedule.  The next step is to clear out the rest of the room.  We have to determine what can safely remain in the garage for a couple of weeks, and what needs to stay in the house.  Just thinking about packing everything else up makes me very, very tired. 

Monday, October 11, 2010

Painting Our Craft Room, Part Two

Saturday's plan never came to fruition.  I couldn't go to sleep on Friday night, and that meant I overslept on Saturday, which set the tone for the entire day. 

This painting job is going from tolerable to intolerable.  Here's the next installment in the story.

We got our dog, Kelly, four or five months after we moved into our home.  Shortly thereafter, she scared Callie, one of our cats, who ran into the craft room.  The poor kitty was so frightened that she - how do I say this delicately? - used the carpet as a litter box.  We thought we cleaned it up well, although at certain times of the year, some of the smell would resurface.  So, now that the time to paint has come, we knew we had to deal with the situation once and for all.  We discovered that the bottom of the bookcase has a residual smell, so we will handle that, but more importantly, we started working on removing the rest of the odor from the carpet.  But it didn't work.  On to Plan B.  Pry off one of the baseboards so we can pull back the carpet and check the pad.  Oops.  The pad smells, too.  And it's stapled to the subfloor.  (Is that common?)  I start pulling staples . . . and the verdict is that the stain goes through to the subfloor.  So into the car we go, heading off to Lowe's.  On the way, Phil and I are discussing the pros and cons of wood laminate and carpet.  Can you guess which one we settled on?

---> Insert Jeopardy Theme Song here. <---   

Yup, the carpet.  It made more sense for the craft room, mainly to deaden the sound, since we often work late into the night, and sewing machines and sergers can make a lot of noise.  Because Lowe's is running a special on installation of Stainmaster carpet - $39 for the entire house (not that we need the whole house carpeted!) - we went with that brand, and chose a warm medium brown color.  I will miss the lovely burgundy carpet that we have now, but it made sense to choose something that is more neutral.  I keep resale in mind these days; we're not thinking of moving any time soon, but one never knows.

The salesman at the store was very helpful; I had spoken with him earlier in the week about wood laminate, which we would like to put in our powder room, back entry, kitchen, and dining area.  He is going to try to get someone out to the house to measure on Monday or Tuesday, and then order the carpet.  He is thinking installation could take place around October 21, which, unfortunately, is the day I'm having my knee injected again, so that's not an option.  Sarah and I will talk and try to figure out the best time frame, but I'm thinking the following week would be good.  We are going to end up putting a lot of things in the garage, since the entire room has to be emptied.  That was not in the original plan!

The good news is that I don't have to worry about getting paint on the carpet when I paint the baseboards, or the walls for that matter.  That's always a good thing. 

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Painting Our Craft Room

Our craft room is probably 10' x 10' or something like that.  It is stuffed full of books, sewing machines, crafting supplies, and my computer desk.  For that reason, and the fact I couldn't decide on a color, it has remained unpainted for the 5.75 years we've been in our house.  But the time has come to take the plunge.  The paint is purchased - a lovely light sage green - and we started clearing out the room.  Here's what we took out -

These pictures are of one side of our great room.  In the last picture, you can see we had to put some things in front of the coffee table, and to the right of the couch.  To put this in perspective, here's what we cleaned out:
 Yup - two small pathways.  And here's some of what is left in the room:
 I wasn't kidding when I said the room is stuffed!

Most of the painter's tape is up (still have to do the baseboards), and nearly all of the holes on the two walls we'll paint first have been spackled and sanded.  My plan is to sand the rest of the spots, then prime them, and hopefully start painting.  Since I'm writing this in the wee hours of Saturday morning, it remains to be seen whether my plan worked for Saturday, or had to be put off until Monday.

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Pizza!

It's no secret that I love pizza.  I think I could eat it a couple times a week.  But what I can no longer love about pizza is the fat in the cheese and the meat.  (I am making an effort to cut back on fat and cholesterol in what I eat since my LDL is too high and I am trying to avoid going on medication.)  What I have been doing lately is combining my love of this book
with my love of 'za.  This is the result:


I start with a delicious crust made without oil, using whatever dough I have in the 'frig.  Once the dough is shaped, I put just a smidgen of olive oil on the rolled-out crust, followed by whatever I can find for toppings.  On this pizza I used thinly sliced tomatoes, some black olives (yes, I know they contain fat, but no cholesterol), some thinly sliced fresh mozzarella, and lots of fresh herbs such as thyme, basil, oregano, and parsley.  Bake it on a pizza stone in a 550 degrees F oven for 10 minutes, and you have the most delicious pizza on earth.  I especially like tomatoes and basil as toppings.

If you haven't been bitten by the artisan bread craze, I urge you to check out Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day and/or its sequel, Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day.  You can also visit the website at artisanbreadinfive.com.

Monday, October 4, 2010

My Favorite Price

What is my favorite price?  A good clearance one, of course!

Sarah stopped at JoAnn's on her way home from church on Sunday and spotted these
on the clearance shelf.  When I asked her if she had purchased them, she said no, she wanted to check with me first.  So I sent her back to the store (good thing it's just 10 minutes down the road) with a gift card I recently found.  I don't know if you can read the price sticker, but these retail for $49.99.  Our price?  $9.99 each.  That's a savings of 80%!  We own two other Cuttlebug alphabet sets, and both those were also purchased for $9.99 each.


It's been crazy busy here, with way too many appointments, and too much fatigue.  I've barely been able to get out of bed, much less stay awake during the day.  I am playing with my medications to hopefully reduce the sleepiness; Saturday night was good, so I am repeating that experiment to see if it will continue to work.  Anyway, one more week of appointments, then I get a week's break, then an oncology appointment for my husband and hopefully the next day or so another injection in my knee.  That will get me off my feet and relaxing for at least 48 hours.

Happy crafting!