The Fumes Have Definately Gone to My Head

I think I have paint particles embedded in my brain at this point. My lungs have been repainted several times now. I could probably take them out, turn them inside out, and sell them as modern art. But that would be disgusting and weird. You probably think I'm disgusting and weird for even suggesting it.... and you'd be right. But that's beside the point.

As you've probably already guessed - I spent Saturday and Sunday painting my butt off.... Hmmm, actually I wish. Friday was another waste. Mike got a call from his friend JP who said, "I got a free 30 pack, wanna help me drink it?" And like any self respecting male - that was an offer he just could not refuse. But Saturday and Sunday were all paint.

AND NOW FOR SOME REALLY IMPORTANT INFORMATION!!

I purchased a gallon of Glidden PVC white drywall primer at the home depot. (You guys already know this - see previous post a few posts down.) Well, Friday night I decided to take it upon myself to finish priming.

Turns out, all primers are not created equal. And this junk, this sh*t I bought at the deepHo was probably the worst of 'em all. To put it nicely, it was like painting with milk. No coverage whatsoever.

The walls were previously painted pink, plus there were areas that were newly sanded and mudded, and areas that were single or double coat primed with BunkerHill brand. So the whole room was a giant mixed bag. And let me tell you, this stupid stuff failed on every surface.

It did not cover over pink,
Just barely made it lighter.
It did not cover over mud,
And did not make white brighter.

I tried to paint it really thick,
Across the longest wall,
Hoping it would really stick
But it did not help at all.

And though I thought a gallon can
Would definitely do
I discovered man oh man!
It barely lasted halfway through!

After that and much complaint
I'd finally had my fill.
We decided on the better paint
And bought some BunkerHill.

The End

(Didn't I tell you the fumes went to my head?) So let that be a lesson to you all - don't cheap out on primer.

A coat of BunkerHill later near the end of the day on Saturday:

The office was all primed! The stairway/hallway was all primed! (That's my kitty The Fidge at the bottom of the steps.) Sunday I spend the day painting while Mike was out riding. Although he was nice enough to paint the sketchy slant over the stairs for me when he got home.

In this pic the color looks way pinker than it actually is. I think that's just the morning sun and my laziness in not adjusting the camera white balance.The actual color is more of a warm beige/vanilla latte with milk.

And the other wall is a muted pink called "Princess Stephanie." Very appropriate, no?

One More Snag

I um.... have a confession. There was no painting or any other work done last night. And this time, it's me messing up my own schedule.

We had a little Thirsty Thirsday party at work yesterday... and all us girls started drinking at around 3.... started dancing around 4.... were on the floor around 6.... and chugging water by 8 so we could get home. Crazy office madness.

So forget everything I said yesterday - forget all schedules. I'm not even going to try and set a goal for this weekend... we'll just have to see what develops.

Paint and Never Ending Supplies

Our neighbors were over on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. For primer, touch ups, and more touch ups to the upstairs officina, which severely changed my upstairs schedule. Monday, I purchased paint thinking that all the priming would be done.... nope. The guys made their touch ups and we were plumb outta primer. So when they finished sanding the touch ups on Tuesday, they couldn't prime them.

I was so frustrated yesterday about my fast rising deepho bill that I just sat on the couch like a frumpy lump all night, mad cause I couldn't get any work done.

Of course, it doesn't make it any easier that my neighbors prefer Bunker Hill primer. Which I can only get at the local Town Paint. Which is only open 9-5, which is when I work. And it's too far to go to on my lunch break.

So today, I could only purchase a gallon of deepho brand primer on lunch break (because of course there's a deepho 5secs from work) and not the usual cost effective 5 gallon bucket. Oh well, I have to tell myself, I've wasted $9 on worse.

I'm hoping that Mike will get home on time tonight so we can paint. (I have issues working the pole, but he's great at it.... and stop thinking that, you sickos!) Once we slap another coat of primer all the way around the office, we can get to painting the colors.

If we can manage to get alllll the painting done tonight and tomorrow, we can rent the nailer on Saturday and get that floor down. And then we have to buy all the trim boards. Ahhhh! Money money money. I need to pay my deepho card off again before I buy a sh*t load of wood. Sunday is Mike's riding day, anyway.... so we'll see how money flows next week.

Laaaaannnd!

Now that my horrific freak out of terror is over, I can get back to business. Can't believe it's been nearly a week since I updated you guys. Ok, here we go.

Friday Nick Mitchell was over to grade, loam, and hydroseed. That night, Mike and I had a bday party in Providence to go to, so I didn't even get to see the yard until Saturday. But when I did, boy was I impressed! It looks beautiful! I can already tell that once the grass comes up, it'll be like living in one of those Cape Cod Life "Most Gorgeous Lawns" articles. How novel!

Here is the front lawn. And It looks pretty much the same, since we had it graded when we did the house lifting.

Of course, to keep the whole thing watered, we've got el crazy sprinkler chain going on. Lucky for us, our neighbor let us borrow a couple of sprinkler heads and some hose. We already had two 50 footers, but bought 2 more plus 4 sprinkler heads. Our other neighbor even contributed an additional head because we were short just one.

You would think that all those would keep every inch of the lawn moist and happy - no way. There's still a couple missed areas that we have to hit with a hose & sprayer. I hate to go around purchasing a million dollars worth of watering equipment, but you know - I would hate even more for my $2400 grass not to grow.

The back yard is the most spectacular transformation. On the right side is Trogdor, the Oil Burninator. (aka, our old oil tank that we turned into an enclosed burn pit for brush and branches - see the handle on the front? It opens upward.)

Anyway, behind Trogdor used to be a hugeoungous pile of stumps. And I'm not exaggerating here - we had probably 10 REALLY big knarly stumps piled there.

Thursday night, when we knew Nick was coming, we loaded all the stumps into Mike's truck. I should have gotten a picture because it looked so weird - the dodge bed, overflowing with knarly snarly stumps. Saturday we took 'em to the dump - and finally got a dump sticker... geez, only been three freakin' years. (In our town, since we have trash pickup, we can take stuff like stumps to the dump for free with a sticker - too cool! We were previously paying to get rid of stuff like that.)

I have never - ever - seen that corner of the backyard look so nice and flat and nice.... That's been the worst looking part of the entire yard! That and the way back section next to the camper - that's normally where we park our trailer, skid steere, lawn tractor, and racing lawn tractor - yes yes, I know. Racing lawn tractor. That's another story. I'm so glad I told Mike to move all that junk. I figured - as long as the guys are here, we should have them do as much as they can. And I am soooo happy with the result.

Here's the other side of the backyard. Looking good. Now I'm all antsy to get the privacy fence that I want to separate the gravel driveway (seen here just a little in the lower left) from the backyard. I can't wait.

Here's the side of the garage, newly primed. And there's the gravel.

Heart ATTACK

I nearly died yesterday. Blogger finally switched me over to the new version - but lo and behold - this blog was missing from the Dashboard!!! Not only that, but I couldn't access it via the URL.

I freaked out, posted a frantic message to the Blogger Help Group and searched the internet in vain for answers to no avail.

All I have to say now is "PHEW!!!"

Lawn's Away!

Great news!

Mike talked to Nick Mitchell yesterday after work. Turns out he'd been to our house yesterday. And boy did he give us a super price. Super Duper. And I don't normally use that phrase.

This is what they're gonna do:

* Grade the entire yard so it's silky (er... sandy) smooth. This means taking off 3inches of soil off the backyard.

* Put down 3 inches of loam over the entire yard. (No more fear of walking on broken glass/nails/garbage in the yard!)

* Spread out said loam all nicely - just like the rich people's lawns!

* Hydro-Seed the entire yard with a special "Guaranteed-to-Grow" formula.

All this for the low low price of $2400. That includes materials AND labor. And that's a super duper deal. We're basically getting the labor for free. Of course, Mike would always be on hand if they needed any mechanical work in the future. These guys always trade off in labor, which is too cool in my opinion.

Nick said they'd come and do the job either tomorrow, Monday, or Tuesday. Wouldn't that be awesome? I am so excited. Grass... lawn... what a concept. It's worth every penny.

Down & Lazy

It has been raining for days. Stupid Nor'Easter. It's really got me feeling down... and lazy! Saturday was the last good day I had.

But let me start back on Friday. I had the pleasure of getting out of work early, so went home and primed one entire exterior wall of the garage. It looks really good, although it took an entire gallon of cover-all primer for two coats. (The formerly blue painted garage really needed two coats to cover that old smelly color.) I could have painted more on Saturday, but I didn't want to spend any more money. Not even on a little 'ol gallon of paint.

I figure if I buy a gallon every week and keep doing one wall at a time, the whole thing will be primed in no time. And then comes the actual paint part. It's going to be an off white with green shutters. That's my color scheme goal on the house too. So for a little while it's going to look pretty unmatched - a blue house and a white garage with green shutters. But oh well. It'll look a heck of a lot better than a blue house with a really run down gross ew disgusting garage.

Back to Saturday. We called early to see if we could burn and spent the remainder of the day by the fire, putting in all the branches we could pull out from the yard and the hole. (Yes, our far backyard is a hole - not just a Sh*t hole, an actual hole.) It was a little frustrating because I really wanted to get more accomplished inside the house. But with our neighbors still working on the drywall and us low on cash, there was nothing we could do.

Near the end of the day we pulled out a few stumps - making our stump pile officially huge and eyesoric. I think in the coming weeks we'll just throw all the stumps in the truck and take 'em away. Because we've got at least 10 and they take forever to burn - if they burn at all!

After the stumps, I made Mike call our friend Nick Mitchell - landscaping/excavating/etc extraordinaire - to get an estimate on loam/spreading loam/hydroseed for the entire yard - front, back, side EVERYTHING. I don't know if we'll be able to afford the whole thing, but I don't want to miss my spring window of opportunity to get grass. Especially with all this rain we've been having. It's probably the perfect time right now.

Hopefully, Nick will be able to come take a look at the yard soon. He was supposed to come on Sunday and then Monday - but he didn't, so Mike will probably stop by his house to see what's up today or tomorrow.

I know it seems like we got a lot accomplished, but I was still feeling a little gray at the end of Saturday. Sunday was a waste. Monday I didn't get any work done, but the neighbors were back to work on the drywall in the evening. They said they could come back on Thursday for the last coat and sand... or maybe it's just sanding, which would be awesome because I'd love to paint all weekend and then spend next week on the wood floor/getting the upstairs back to normal.

Ah normal. What a foreign concept!

And Now For The Office

I've been on blog-hiatus whilst going nuts at work. But never fear, work at home never stops... Well, I should say stuff to do never stops.

But we have been making major progress once again. After finishing the bedroom, it took us a week to move all the furniture out of the office and into the bedroom and put down the subfloor plywood in the office. This picture shows us at our halfway point in the plywood.

Tuesday and today, our neighbors have come to work on the drywall. This room is much easier than the bedroom - fewer problems. But I'm still going to repaint the whole thing anyway.

You see, I really thought I'd love a pink office - but when it comes right down to it - it's too girly for me! Plus, I want something warmer than the ice pink. Something feminine but not so girly if you know what I mean. And since I have to paint anyway - may as well repaint like I want. Also - I want to bring down the ceiling like I did in the bedroom by painting the upper slant white.

So if you look sideways (sorry, forgot to flip the pic) You can see the current paint and the closet. I don't think I'm going to do the color blocks again either - just because I found that it limits me in where I can hang pictures. And again, I thought I'd like that - but I like to have the flexibility to change my mind at will.

Have ya noticed? HA!

Anyway, hopefully the guys will be done with the drywall early next week and at that point we'll prime and paint.

Now, you'd think the next step after that would be the floor - but actually we have to put in our stair railing and all that because it attaches to the floor joists - not just the floor. Which is just as well, because the stairway (which opens up into the office) really needs to get railed. hee hee.

Anyways - So

100% refund for the bad nailer. YAY!

A Case of Mis-Stapler Identity

Ok - first you'll see on your left, a pic of my truck after a night of awesome mud-action. Beautiful, isn't it? Couldn't resist showing you all.

Second - I'd like to thank everyone for their help and suggestions on where the heck to purchase a nailer - which were Awesome by the way. Some stuff I would have never thought of... like pawn shop.

But, there's a twist to this story that Mike and I did not expect. And now I'm going to tell all 'yalls about it.

Thursday night, Mike laid down the first few rows - face nailing, then pre-drilling through the tongue and hand hammering with finish nails. Then, he did a couple with the nailer. (As you guys know from previous posts.) Well - the nailer wasn't doing a great job. It seemed to be set up for 3/4 hardwood instead of 3/8.

Friday, Mike and I got together, talked to TJ, our carpenter, and asked for his advice on it. He told us that a stapler would probably do a better job for us than the nailer. So, we decided to check out Home Stupid DeepHo and see what they had for staplers. And lucky for us there was a guy in the rental dept. who actually had 1/2 a brain. (Annoying as hell because he thought he had a full brain...I was thinking the whole time, just shut up dude - stop talking.)

Anyway, 3/8 hardwood actually requires a specialty stapler. The nailer we had been using was only designed for 3/4. (So at that point I'm psyched I didn't buy a nailer anywhere.) We asked if we could purchase the specialty stapler, but the dude said no - it was too much of a specialty item for the store to carry and very expensive. He may have just been trying to lure us into renting the thing - but whatever.

So we gritted our teeth and rented the thing for a day. (At least I could put it on my DeepHo card - it was about 30 something bucks.) And we figured we'd bring the other nailer back to United Rentals on Sat and bitch them out until they gave us a full refund - or at least a refund of 6 days. Because we barely used the thing.

So - I say "so" too much. Have you noticed? "So" and "Anyways"

Anyways, so we get back home from the DeepHo with the stapler & some staples. And boy what a difference! That thing worked awesome! I laid out and cut the planks and Mike did the stapling. We might have finished Friday night, but I was pooped. We were more then halfway done by 9:30/10:00 though.

Saturday morning we got up early and drove 20 min to return the bad nailer in Hyannis. Well - guess who's not open on Saturdays anymore? United Rentals! Those bastards still had the Saturday hours posted on their door too. We were so pissed. Hopefully this morning Mike went there and gave them a little bit of hell - because we definitely shouldn't have to pay the weekend rental. I'll let you know tomorrow.

Upon returning home (see, I didn't say "so") we got right back to work. And the floor was done by early afternoon. It took us some time to do the cutouts by the closet and end the room - but all in all - it was an easy and straightforward install that turned out beautifully. Oh - the color I chose by the by was Aztec cherry I believe, from Lumber Liquidators Casa De Colour series. (By Durawood - 25 year warranty, 3/8 of course as you know.)

As soon as we finished the floor we were in the truck headed back to the DeepHo to return the gun. And, while we were there, we decided to purchase all the floor moulding (while the room's cleared out) and also crown moulding for our loft storage space. (We still need window moulding, but that can come later.)

So, here's the Sunday pics when everything was done. (Sunday we didn't work - it's Mike's ATV-riding-with-the-guys-Day and my day to do girly things.) Take a look at how the painting turned out - I put on the final coat while Mike was measuring and cutting the moulding. (Which is still drying in our basement from staining by the way - that we'll put on this week at some point.)

Ok - so here's the Before Pic - all in primer.













And Here's the after pic. It's a little hard to tell just how awesome it looks just from these pics. But you'll have to trust me on that. You see, previously, I had painted the upper slant red too and just left the flat part where the recessed lights are white. I think this way though looks much better.
And here you can see the closet loft storage area moulding - we stained that right on the wall, hens the blue tape. It needs one more coat, but you get the idea. And also, you can see my beautiful closet organizer, in once again. That red thing on the top shelf is Dracu-Bear. He rocks and sucks... your blood that is.