**I apologize that this is going to be a long post...make sure you have some extra time**
It all started on Friday...
I had taken the day off from work. After sleeping in a little bit, I got up and headed to the garage to start painting the crown molding. I left Justin inside to work on light fixtures. In the past, Justin has been bit a few times by electricity, so he was flipping off breakers this time to ensure that it didn't happen again. For some reason, this apparently caused our alarm system to start beeping to alert us that the A/C was off. This was driving us both crazy. (I could hear it in the garage.) Finally, Justin finished so we started flipping breakers back on and we had NO electricity. That's right...the whole house had NO power. Justin had no idea what was going on, so he called the electric company to report the outage. In the meantime, I saw the electric company truck drive past our house 3 times! We were getting ready to go flag him down because we thought that maybe he just couldn't find our house. Justin called back to the electric company to find out that the city of Hendersonville was having some problems with their equipment. It was pure coincidence that the power went out at the same time we went to flip breakers back on.
Next it was on to crown molding. We pulled out the miter saw and got to work. This became very interesting. Crown molding is of course all about angles and measurements, math skills that neither of us quite have. Of course they make this fancy little tool that you can use to find your angles, but we couldn't quite figure it out. I called dad, but he couldn't explain it to me over the phone. So I thought, why not google it? Here's what I found...General Tools Protractor and Angle Finder Review. (Click on this link and watch the video) As you can see...this wasn't much help. We continued doing the best we could. You also need to realize that we were working on the kitchen...so we had to work around the cupboards. This isn't such an easy task for someone that is 6' 3" tall working in tight, small spaces! Just a little background...there are two things in life that Justin can't stand. #1 - Loud unexpected noises and #2 - Getting hit in the head. You guessed it...#2 happened A LOT! We finished several hours later and I think it turned out pretty well!
Then it was the painting on Saturday...
Our living room has a cathedral ceiling. I think that says enough already. The walls weren't going to be a problem...it was where the wall meets the ceiling that was going to be an issue. We decided that our best option was to tape it off so we could just take a roller all the way up and hit the ceiling. So we bought the 2" thick painter's tape and extension pole. This time we bought a much more expensive extension pole...we learned our lesson from the last time (see the post from 10/12/08). We borrowed a ladder from our neighbor and we were good to go. Except for who was going to climb the ladder. Justin didn't want me to go, and I didn't want to go because I am VERY afraid of heights. I, of course, didn't want Justin to go because I knew that I probably wasn't the right person to hold the ladder for him. So, after some not great thinking on my part, I made the executive decision that I would be the one to climb up the ladder. I started up the rungs with clammy hands and my heart pounding. Justin was encouraging me the whole way up and telling me not to look down. It wasn't working. I did make it all the way up to our ceiling (close to 20' high) and got the tape started. I climbed back down and hoped that I wouldn't have to go up there again. We stretched the tape to the other end and then pushed it up with the roller on the extension pole. Justin did the tall walls and I did the others along with all of the tedious work (i.e. the places the roller couldn't get to). It was all going well until we realized that we couldn't reach that high corner again. To no avail...I climbed the ladder again with a roller to finish the corner edging. Then I realized that the roller couldn't quite fill in the corner, so I had to come back down the ladder to get a brush and go back up. What are the odds?! All I know is that I NEVER want to see that part of my house up close and personal EVER again!
We pulled off the tape from the ceiling and were really pleased with our work. Even more that we just saved ourselves the $600 that the painters wanted to charge us.
Since I was in painting mode, I decided to go ahead and paint the baseboards since the tv and couch were already pulled out. The day had overall gone so smoothly, that we knew something was going to happen. In comes Zoe. She had done so well all day. She stayed out of way and just watched us. Zoe loves to lay by the living room window and rest her chin on the window ledge. Of course I had just painted the baseboard under the window ULTRA WHITE. Yep...she laid down and put her front leg against the trim. Her BLACK fur was now covered in WHITE down her right front leg, nails, and paw. I quickly got her to the kitchen took a wet rag and washed off her fur. Luckily it all came off. I made Zoe sit on the bottom landing and didn't allow her to move for the rest of the night until all the painting stuff was picked up and put away. I went back to finish painting the trim behind the couch and dropped the paint brush (paint-side down) on the carpet. I knew the first part of the day was too good to be true. It was back to the kitchen for another wet rag. We ended the night with some much needed beverages!
The good news is that we're pretty much done painting at this point! I finished the windows and door on Sunday as well as some touch up work. (Notice the difference in the above picture between the window and baseboard) We still have a very small amount of touch up work to do in other parts of the house, and I need to finish painting the ever-so-dreaded spindles on the stairs. I'm holding on to that project for next weekend. Wish me luck!
2 comments:
It was worth it, the house looks GREAT!
Looks good! You are more of a woman than me...I would have NEVER gone up that ladder!!!! YIKES :)
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