Sunny And Bummed

It's been a tough few days after a long holiday weekend. With this beautiful weather, I can't understand why everything around the office has just gone absolutely haywire. Spring fever, perhaps? Who knows. But after just two days of it, I'm about ready to take an ice pick to the head.

Last night was really frustrating. I was really excited to get home and get to work. I planned to do my sponging and Mike and a friend of his were going to dig the porch footings with a borrowed auger.

At first the sponging went really well. It looked good! But part way thru the second wall, a mysterious dark spot appeared and I couldn't fix it. It was frustrating, but I left it to dry and continued on. The rest of the room came out pretty good - at least until it came time to cut in. And damned if I could not remember how we did it last time to save the life of me!

I tried at first cutting a kitchen sponge and tried sponging with it near the ceiling and in the corners. It just wasn't doing it. I then tried that in combination with a moist kitchen sponge - you know, to kind of sponge on with the first sponge and blend with the second. That was working... but not very well. It was very time consuming too. Mike tried his hand at it and could do no better. I was getting super frustrated at this point, and I was out of Coronas. Not a good combo, people.

Then, I tried the first sponge with a moist paper towel - but had similarly "eh" results. Then I grabbed a brush and just started pouncing with it along the ceiling and corners. Though this wasn't matching up exactly with the sponging, it was a hell of a lot better than all the other options I had tried, so I continued with it throughout the room. It made a mess on the ceiling everywhere because I really tried to pounce with it. (By pouncing I mean just hitting the wall with the brush, straight on.) But all that will be covered with moulding - or, as a last result, I could always repaint those portions of the ceiling.

By the time I was done, that other dark spot had dried and I was able to sponge over to hide it. Phew! I think overall, it came out really well, although not as good as the first time.

Here's the main wall of it. The pattern is so subtle, you can't really tell from this pic. But in the room there's just a hint of a texture - which I really love.

(*Also, Mike bent and installed the track light for me. (This was a bday gift from my friend Becci and I just love it!) Only one problem - it didn't switch on with the other lights. So we're going to have to get back up in the crawl space and see where the wires go. That was another frustrating aspect of last night!)

Here's the side by the windows - which, by the way, I opened for the first time this morning. Exciting huh?

Here's the side by the washer drier. You can catch a little hint of a pattern in this one. Tonight I get the pleasure of putting all the switch plates back on - plus re-hanging my pictures on the wall 'n stuff.

At this point you may be asking, "Didn't you say something about an auger for the porch footings?"

Well yes I did. Another frustrating aspect. Mike's friend did get the auger. But the two of them had to rescue another friend of ours who blew his transmission near to our house. By the time they got back, they really just wanted to relax for a few. Mike told me that he and I could run the auger... now, me being Ms Tiny Arms, I wasn't too sure about that.

So we went out and dug a test hole near the mudroom door, which the porch will later cover. And I have to admit, it wasn't that hard. The auger looks big and scary, but it's really not too difficult to operate. The trick is just to pull up every 6" or so to clear the dirt out of the hole. Pretty cool how it works actually.

That's not the frustrating part.

Mike was trying to measure where exactly the holes were supposed to go. And he was getting mad confused because our house is not square and he didn't know exactly where to measure from! We both knew that this first step is soooo crucial. So we stopped everything we were doing and just decided to call The Man - TJ.

(If you're new to this blog - he's our good friend and even better carpenter.)

Mike asked him if he could come over tonight for them to measure and mark the footing locations together, and he agreed. Then, Mike and I can dig the holes ourselves.

Speaking of which, I've got to get my butt home!