Wednesday, October 29, 2014

House work of a different sort

the planned deadline for listing the house is fast approaching -- in fact, we've already told the agent that we need an additional week past that Nov 1 date, just because a couple of the projects we need to finish proved to be much more complex than we imagined
the downstairs bathroom is complete

it originally had a pink/blue/white wallpaper, but after a coat of wall board compound applied with a roller to give some texture, it is now painted a warm yellow tone

and I replaced all of the light bulbs in the fixture so they all match which is a little detail, but it would be one I would notice if I was the one looking at the house


meantime, the upstairs bathroom is one of the projects that is making me crazy

before we bought the house, the shower had been painted -- and while there is now an epoxy paint on the market that is designed for that purpose, we're not sure what was used to paint this with

and of course, in order to put on new paint (which was what I thought I was going to do), you have to have a clean surface, so I started at the places that were already peeling and scrapped

which revealed some truly beautiful ceramic tile

and let me tell you, getting paint off of ceramic tile is no easy job -- after several days of just scrapping, I headed off to the local hardware store and asked for some advice -- and came home with a bottle of citrus based paint stripper

it's making it easier, but I've still got several days of scrapping off the now "rumpled" paint before it's all clean

and as for the idea of putting on new paint -- unless I discover some reason to "hide" a tile somewhere in this, it's not happening -- I'll just finish the clean up and re caulk it

and while I've been doing the bathrooms, the DH has been working in the kitchen -- removing the doors, removing the hardware, scrubbing the walls and the cabinet frames, repainting the cabinet doors and the frames and presently we'll be repainting the walls

and we'll be removing everything from the shelves and putting in new contact paper as the old stuff is quite worn at this point

another time consuming process

in the evenings, when I'm too tired to do any more physical work, I'm still doing a little work on art projects

the bead embroidery on this piece is finished and I'm preparing to do the backing and the rest of the finishing on it

I'm pretty amazed by how well this design came together

and this piece is ready for the next step

it is the next to last of the shed doors -- one more to go!

and when I get to the very end of the day I do a bit of knitting

this is slowly becoming a Ninja Turtle for Mr Cute -- the one with the orange mask of course, since Mr Cute's favorite color is orange

all in a day's work!



2 comments:

Nancy G said...

Just reading about the work you're doing makes me tired! It amazes me that you are still making progress on the beading, quilt making, AND knitting. I would probably just collapse in a chair and veg after one of your work days.
Why in the world would anyone paint over ceramic tile? For the same reason that they wallpapered that area in the kitchen, perhaps? It boggles the mind.

AlisonH said...

What Nancy G said. Wow. On all counts.

Someone out there is going to be very lucky you guys did all the work and made the place perfect.