kitchen — Page 4

Three Days and Counting

October 16, 2017 at 10:32 am by Claudia

Another insanely busy day yesterday. I don’t know if you’ve gathered this about me – you should have by now – but when I get an itch to accomplish something, I am not to be messed with! I was very, very tired when I got up Sunday morning and I didn’t see how I was going to pull it together enough to finish the painting. Coffee helped. And a little cry. It was an “I’m exhausted” cry.

But then I got all the painting supplies out again and spread the drop cloths and opened the paint and began to tackle the window trim and the baseboards. In between coats, I mowed the entire front lawn and the grass in front of the corral. Then the second coat. Then cleanup. Then, after an hour, I peeled the painter’s tape off the walls and windows. (I love doing that.) Then after some more time had passed, I started to put things back. Oh, and I ran to the grocery store to get some food.

Yikes.

But I’m so aware that I’m leaving in three days and I had to finish this phase of painting and the grass was quite long. And leaves will have to be raked. And I have to go into the city tomorrow night to watch the first preview of Shadowlands. There’s a lot to be done before I can leave for 8 days. Of course, I didn’t help matters by deciding to paint!

It’s a darkish morning and I tried to get some photos in natural light but they were horrible. So I took a couple with the overhead lights on. We’ll call this a sneak preview until I can take some respectable photos.

This is how the yellow looks under overhead lights. It’s not this bright normally.

Lighting makes all the difference in photos and the lighting available today (both natural and artificial) is dreadful. Sigh. And yellow, I’ve found, changes throughout the day.

Better photos to come. I’m happy with it. I’m not the best painter – I tend to get impatient – but I’m proud of the way it turned out. Of course I’m itching to start the fourth wall, but no can do at the moment. The biggest pain will be the cupboards. I will need to take a deep breath and work slowly, a section at a time.

And now for some pretty photos. Here, one of the zinnias.

And another.

I highly recommend taking on a project of some sort during this time of stress and insanity. Though I wasn’t completely in the dark as to what was going on in our world, I had something to focus on and that helped enormously. I was so tired at the end of the day that all I wanted to do was sit on the sofa and watch The Great British Baking Show. I’ve become addicted. I love to bake, but I look like a rank amateur compared to the British bakers! Amazing.

Happy Monday.

Painting & Garden Decisions

October 15, 2017 at 8:59 am by Claudia

There are two coats of yellow paint now on the walls – yesterday’s painting adventure took a while but the latex went on much more smoothly than the primer and once I got my rhythm going, I was on a ‘roll.’ I even went outside and raked some leaves while waiting for the first coat to dry. No more ladder climbing required today, thank goodness.

One thing leads to another, of course. I scrubbed the outside of the refrigerator. I cleaned all the pottery that lives on top of the cupboards.

Astonishingly, I saw buds on one of the rose bushes in the memorial garden. It’s been so unseasonably warm around here that they’re budding again.

Here’s the rub: we may have frost tomorrow night. Why is it that every October there is one cold night that screws everything up? The temps after that one night will be warm. I’m unsure what to do – do I try to save the morning glories and roses or do I just let nature take it’s course? I’m of two minds. I’m going away for 8 days on Thursday – then I’ll be home for about a week and half before I head off to Chicago. I won’t be here all that much.

The zinnias and the morning glories keep blooming and I’d sure like them to hang around a bit longer.

What to do?

My friends Rick and Doug are leaving today to drive across the country to their new home here. They’ll arrive when I’m gone, but you can be sure I’ll be heading to their house as soon as I get back! They’ll soon be our neighbors.

Today: paint the trim around the windows and the baseboards. Then I’m done! (At least for now – there’s still one wall to be painted.)

I also have to mow the lawn.

Happy Sunday.

The Dreaded ‘P’ Word

October 14, 2017 at 9:19 am by Claudia

I owe you at least one pretty picture. I took this a few days ago as I was trying to find the perfect place for this piece of Roseville Cherry Blossom. I think this is it. It’s in the pink cabinet in my office. I’m so thrilled to have this piece. I’ve searched for Cherry Blossom on eBay many, many times, and every time the piece has been priced way above my comfort zone. It’s rarer and older than some other pieces and I think this particular combination of blue and pink is highly desirable. It’s the most I’ve ever paid for a piece of Roseville, but I still got a great deal. And it’s in flawless condition.

And now – the reality of my life:

I’m painting.

Why now, you ask, when you’re leaving for New Orleans in less than a week?

Because I got the fool idea in my head and I am stubborn that way. I was just going to do one wall at a time, but I thought to myself – why not two?

I’ll tell you why not, Claudia, it’s more work!

So yesterday morning, I cleaned all the walls with TSP. That took forever. Then I taped everything with Frog Tape. Keep in mind that this is not like the wall we painted before, which is a normal height. No, this is the wall that gradually gets taller and taller until it meets the wall that borders the living room. That wall is really, really tall. So I had to stand on counters, a stepstool, and eventually, I had to bring the ladder in from the shed to do anything in those areas. I had to contort my body every which way. It wasn’t fun.

After about four hours of cleaning and taping, I cut in the primer. Then I finally got one coat – and that’s all it’s going to be, one coat – of primer on the walls and the window trim and baseboards. Paint had somehow managed to land on every inch of my exposed skin, so I took a shower and scrubbed and scrubbed at that stuff. I was still picking it off my fingernails when I finally sat down in the den.

Don’s comment: “It sounds like something we should have done together.”

Yes, it does, Don. But you won’t be home long enough to do it, sweetheart. And therein lies the problem.

The kitchen will be a huge saga. The cupboards, which are chipped and need major painting, will be a winter thing, I think. A couple of cupboard doors at a time, with sanding and priming and painting, so that they match the trim color. As it is now, they just look cruddy. But I’ll have to paint the fourth wall first (the wall where the door is) and that won’t be for a while, given my trip to New Orleans and my even longer trip to Chicago.

So today I’ll put on two coats of yellow and then hobble to my chair in the den – oh yes, my muscles ache. Tomorrow, I’ll paint the trim and the baseboards.

I still have to mow the lawn. I guess that will be on Monday. I’ll be so exhausted when I get to New Orleans, I’ll need a day or so to recover!

Happy Saturday.

Three Days and Counting

Painting & Garden Decisions

The Dreaded ‘P’ Word

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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