Day Thirty One

I hope it's a long, long time before I see another paint brush. I spent nearly every waking hour of my weekend trying to get it wrapped up before I had to go back to work. For some silly reason I figured I'd be able to have the job done by late Friday...no way. Thank God...and I seriously mean that for sending me back into our furnace/utility room early this morning. I don't know why I was back there but larger than life I happened to notice two brand new Paint Sticks leaning up against the wall. Dan recommended I buy them to use for painting the walls. I did just that but I forgot all about them when it came time to paint. Anyway, they're truly a God send. There is no way I would've gotten as far as I did today without them. A paint stick is a roller brush on a long handle. What's different about it is that the handle holds paint. It's very cool...there is a cover which sits over the paint bucked which the paint stick attaches to. Pull back on the handle of the paint stick and it sucks paint up into the handle. You apply paint to the roller by pushing in on the handle. The handle is clear so you can see how much paint is remaining. It's so much faster than continually going back to the paint tray for more paint. You can really cruise with it once you get a feel for it. They're only $16 and worth every penny and more.

Another nice gadget Dan told me about is a corner roller. I'd apply a quick bead of paint with a brush in the corners and then come along with the little roller and apply a strip 3" wide on either side. What's nice about the corner roller is that you can load a lot more paint onto it than you can a brush. It's a nice time saver which gives a better finished look than a brush. I also used it together with a straight edge along the ceiling to apply a 3" strip there. Once you've got the corners and ceiling cut in it makes quick work for the paint stick to finish the wall.

I must confess that I did lose my temper at least once tonight when for the umpteenth time I tripped over the halogen light. I can't believe that would happen as it's so bright. I think that's it...it's so bright that it actually blinds you to where it is and you just don't look toward it not realizing it's right under your feet. I'd lay in bed at night and see its light when I'd close my eyes.

Tammy came home from work and helped me out for a few hours. We jammed to the sounds of David Gilmour, Joe Satriani, Bob Segar, Frampton and a few other names from years gone by. I had to get to Fleet Farm before they closed for a gallon of paint for the bathroom. We gathered up a piece of the wall tile and our counter top sample for comparison and got over there with a few minutes to spare. We found a lighter brown/rust color which I'm hoping will be okay once we get the room together. I got home and painted the first coat leaving the final coat for morning. I'm really looking forward to getting back to my day job tomorrow. I'm very burned out but it's nice to have this job behind me.

Day Thirty

This morning came very early for me. I was hoping to make some progress before Dan and John showed up so I could get out of their way as I knew they wanted to get back to work on the bathroom floor. I'm pretty sure the last thing they wanted to see was me down there spraying. John came by first and met me downstairs. Allie came down to greet him but Toby was upstairs whining. I went up to find him stuck between the railings as he was trying to get around the barricade we set up to keep them from going down in the basement. Allie is so small she can get through but not Toby...he's a bit fat. Anyway, Toby got to see John and all was well. Dan showed up and he and John proceeded to offload tile into the garage. I stayed downstairs and sprayed. I thought maybe they'd left but a little while later they came down and told me they were going to help me paint. "Really?...great!" I didn't want to bother them with it but I also couldn't tell them no. I very much appreciated the help. Plus, Dan did a better job with the sprayer than I was doing. John and I worked behind him rolling the paint in. Rolling it is necessary to get the paint applied evenly as well as giving it a nice finished look. A couple hours later and the primer was done as well as painting the ceiling.

After they left I got busy applying paint to the walls. I knew that whatever I didn't get done tonight would have to be done tomorrow so it was in my best interest to get as much done as I could. I worked till 9:30pm before finally saying 'uncle'. I'd had enough and my eyes were giving out on me plus I was getting real tired of tripping over the halogen lamp I was toting around next to me so I could better see my work. I was able to get the first coat of paint applied to Rachel's dance room and half of the main south wall in the other room. I think the most putzy part of the job was the trim along the top of the walls next to the ceiling. I was able to load up my 4" brush with paint and run a fairly straight line. I tried using the straight edge I'd bought on Dan's recommendation but it didn't work so well for me. Tammy will come behind me and touch up any spots which need it.

Day Twenty Nine

Today was a frustrating day for Dan. The self leveling compound on the floor in the bathroom began to crack and deteriorate. Dan put the compound down over the heated coils for the floor. I first noticed it last night when I stepped in there and the floor felt spongy. I didn't make much of it as the light was out but I did notice some cracks in the cement. We're still not sure exactly what happened. It's possible the compound was mixed with too much water when it went down and it didn't set up correctly but that's just a guess. Before working on the basement I'd painted the walls and a 2 foot width of the floor along the walls with a moisture barrier paint. For whatever reason, the self leveling compound adheared fine where it was applied over ther paint. Anyway, we've decided to forego the heated floor as we're all a little concerned that the same thing might happen again and if it does the tile will be down and that would be a much bigger problem.

I went to Home Depot and rented a paint sprayer. I had high hopes for getting the rooms all prepped and the primer applied before Dan and John showed up the next morning but I didn't make it. The prep work took much longer than I planned and by the time I began spraying it was 9:00pm. I'd been up since 4:30am and was quickly running out of energy...I packed it in at 10:30. I knew this was going to be a big job.

Tammy worked at getting all the gunk and scraps off the floor. There is so much dust in our house that it's almost laughable. I don't think Tammy's finding much to laugh about though but we knew this would happen. Dan and John both commented that they'd never seen quite this much dust in any of their previous jobs. They said it was a combination of sheetrock sanding and taking up the self leveling compound in the bathroom.

Today was a long day for all of us.

Day Twenty Eight

There wasn't any activity on the project yesterday as Dick had to be at another site to hang drywall. There isn't much for Dan to do until the drywall is done. Dick arrived this afternoon to spray the 'knockdown' ceilings. He had a slow start as his gun was acting up. A friend of his came by and together they made quick work of the job. I'd never watched the knockdown process and I'm guessing it looks easier than it is.

I stopped by Home Depot and picked up some supplies for painting...respirator, rollers, brush, straight edge and other miscellaneous stuff. I'll be renting a sprayer from Home Depot to help the job along.

Dick is still here as I write this and I don't suppose he'll be out of here much before 7:00 tonight. He says that tomorrow he should be done with the entire job by late morning to early afternoon. Getting the floors cleaned up will be nice so Toby and Allie can run around downstairs without getting full of dust.

I finished cutting glass for the lamp tonight. Tammy will see how much of it she can get ground tomorrow. I'm thinking I probably won't be able to find the time to solder it for another week or so. We still haven't given much thought to what sort of design we're going to do for the stained glass in the cabinets. Eventually we'd like to have windows which we'll change out depending on the time of year. Maybe something for Christmas, Spring, Fall or whatever.

Day Twenty Seven

Work continued today on mudding the sheetrock. Dick plans for me to be able to begin painting sometime on Friday. As it looks, I'm going to need as much of Friday as I can get and all of Saturday to get it done. Tammy has to work this weekend so I'll be solo much of the time. It'll be nice to have that job behind us.

We got a good amount done on the lamp over the weekend and I'm hoping to be ready to solder it by next week. Our two wall sconces arrived at Southern Lights so now all we're waiting for is the one remaining pendant light which is on back order from Belacore. It was supposed to be in sometime in late November so I suppose I should give them a call to check its status.

Our flooring for the dance room arrived on Friday as did most of the tile for the bathroom. Dan will have plenty to keep him busy once the painting is done.