Flapper's Folly

The above picture is the start of the dining room project. Yes, it will be red, but first this nasty shade of Pepto Bismol primer goes up. Hopefully it will allow two coats of the red to cover and be true. So why is the room not finished? Let me start by saying that home improvement television is a LIE! You know, where a couple of people paint, sew, and build, not to mention create art, totally transforming a room, in only two days. There is no way. Think of the phrase "Watching paint dry," because caulk, primer, and sizing all have to dry and it takes time. This is not even taking into account the snafus. The crown molding had to be cleaned and recaulked in places. Twenty-four hours to dry. The repair to cracks and such on walls and ceiling require another twenty-four. Then sizing and primer are several more hours. In between steps time is required for tears and ibuprophen. Sunday what really ground us to a halt was the ceiling paper. It's a heavy textured paper, looking like tin tiles, that was prepasted. I've hung lots of paper on walls, but never on a ceiling, and after this, never again. We're all set to go, cuts all lined up, me on the scaffold and John on a ladder, water dripping, and we rolled and we brushed and we pushed, and the damned stuff would not stick!!! It just fell down on our heads. So while I sat and cried like a baby, John went back to the store, and after a call to the manufacturer, he returned with an adhesive that will hopefully do the job. By then it was too late to start again, but we did a test piece on foam core and it looks like it will work. It's a two person job and too much to do at night, so we are stuck until the weekend. After which, it must cure for 36 hours before painting and glazing. Only then, will I be able to paint the walls. I'm tempted, but if I get the paint up now, I know it will be ruined by work on the ceiling. The deadline on this job is Easter. Last night, as I recounted our difficulties on the phone, my daughter told me not to sweat it, it doesn't have to be done by then. But it does, and who knows how many other things will go wrong. So it's one step at a time, even when each step is a day. Hopefully I will soon have a pic of the finished, or at least semi-finished room to post.

Posted by Rockelle at 8:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Sometimes the simplest chores grow into huge projects. We plan to redo the dining room. We have purchased anaglypta wallpaper for the ceiling, which hopefully, will give us the look of tin ceiling tiles without the trouble and expense. The walls will be red. Which red is still being debated and there is even dissension on the part of the Puter Ho as to the wisdom of using red at all. The plan is to have this all done by Easter.

But enough about the particulars. The dining room is full. It is a small room and it is packed. Before my time here, it functioned as a playroom for a toddler. I brought a large table, six chairs, a buffet and lots of stuff. Although it was easily transformed into a dining room, one large white cabinet remained because something had to hold all the stuff. Now there is a spiffy new corner china cabinet destined to replace the huge white monstrosity.

Simple. We'll move the white monster into the garage. But wait. The garage is full. So we start on the garage and realize we can't really make way there until we have a large item pickup from the city. The city of Fort Worth last year went to once a week small cart pick up. We have a cart for garbage and a cart for recycling. We are always behind. These carts must be hidden from the street except on pickup day, so where do you suppose they reside? In the garage, of course. Adding to my frustration, I learn that a "Big Trash & Brush" pickup does not include picking up bags of garbage, of which I now have many, but only large items. What's more they cannot tell you when they will come, so one must place the mess on the curb and wait for pickup. Something I'm certain the neighborhood association will frown heavily upon.

Can you see where this is going? The dining room project should be doable in a weekend, maybe a bit more. But:

For want of a nail
the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe
the horse was lost.
For want of a horse
the rider was lost.
For want of a rider
the battle was lost.
For want of a battle
the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want
of a horseshoe nail.

Posted by Rockelle at 9:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)