Texture

Welcome to What Did Surely Take Apart Now?  

It would be the living room.  Yes, again.  Well, almost twice now since the first time.

After the new furniture adventure, I realized/decided that having just an accent wall in the living room looked strange.  It just made the room look somehow unfinished.

Finally, last week I painted the wall that was bothering me.  We were watching television and I paused it, to Kevin's dismay. "I figured it out!" I exclaim. Kevin is skeptical about what is next.  "I have to paint that wall because the same issue we had when I painted the accent wall STILL EXISTS.  Initially I didn't paint around the visible walls by china cupboard and it looked unfinished.  Then we moved the china cupboard from one corner to the next,  and the problem repeated itself."  He was not as excited about my discovery as I was.  *shrug*

Now, it looks so much better.  The OCD can calm down.  Yeah, like that's a thing.

Next Up:

The entryway is a little alcove thing, with a pony wall.  If I had my druthers, that pony wall would be removed but there's an outlet in it and I'm scared of electricity.  Oh, and Kevin says "No."  I left the entryway the cream color last week but I've found that it looks unfinished too.   The corner looks dingy now; even though that paint is about two years old.  It's difficult to see in the above photo but you get the general idea.

 No worries though, it won't take me long to paint, I thought last week. I swear this mindset will be my downfall.  Also, no, the bedroom is still unfinished.  Shush. I have a new idea.

Meanwhile...

This is where we realize the failed trim experiment that Kevin's dad installed needs to come down. What had happened was I had asked for accent trim instead of plain trim around the doors.  Kevin's dad did it while I was immobile in a cast and I wasn't paying close attention.  He made the mistake of not removing the original trim but tacking the accent trim around it, and then not making it match the baseboard trim.  No amount of paint is going to fix that.

I was so frustrated and disappointed but couldn't say "Oh, look, you made a mistake."  So I ignored it for ...gosh...almost nine years. (yikes) AND this is not the only doorway he did.  The pantry and the kitchen/mud room door also has this weird configuration of trim that somehow made sense in his head.  I should have fixed it when we had the floors done but having all my belongings outside in the Fall in the PNW had me distracted.

Because of who I am as a person, I did not take a before photo of the door with the wonky, double-trim.  But this is what it looked like this morning:

Believe it or not, this looks better than the wrong trim

So yesterday the wrong trim was finally taken down.  Mostly he only stapled it so it popped right off.  But it three random places, he glued it.  I'm guessing it didn't lay flat and he glued it.  Well, when it was pulled off, it took the texture off of the wall.  Because of course it did.

Off we go to the hardware store to buy stuff to fix it.  While neither of us are able to leave a project visibly unfinished, surprisingly, Kevin said "I want no part of it.  Just don't mess up the house."  I am not sure what happened but I'll take it.  I think the accident has him at TILT for accepting any new issues.  Now is my chance.  I'm learning how to use spray-on texture!

I believe that I've mentioned we've bought two wheelbarrows and three rakes and at least one shovel over the years.  They keep traveling next door and Never Return.  Kevin has threatened a padlock on our new garden shed and I think it might come true.  Because: guess where our ladders are?  NEXT DOOR.  Wait, there's more: Guess whose ladder was broken!?!  OURS.  Sigh.

Kevin might have lost his mind a little bit on his dad (50% of the problem, his brother the other 50%) about the ladder and our new wheelbarrow which was ALSO next door AND in the rain.  Next thing we knew, the f-i-l left for town.  He returned later with TWO ladders: one for us and one for next door.  Meanwhile, Kevin had repaired our ladder.  It can stay outside as the community ladder and ours can stay in the cozy garden shed.

Which brings me to: I have a new ladder!! Not only the one mentioned above but a whole different ladder.  I don't generally need an 8-foot ladder in the house and I had complained about Why Are All of Our Ladders Biology Experiments? (they have been stored/left outside in the beautiful PNW)  I now have my Very Own Ladder that will never leave this house.  I am officially grown.

It's taller than it appears.

Anyway.  That's a lot about ladders.  And the family.  

I am in an insomnia cycle so I worked for three hours this morning, well before any of my coworkers were even awake I am certain. Then I did some chores so the A.D.D. will keep it to a minimum and broke out the painting and repair supplies.  

My downfall, other than a short attention span, is that I don't have the patience for prep work. I've gotten much better but I resent it the entire time I'm doing it. It can, at best, be described as "haphazard".  Today though the instructions on the spray-on texture was Very Specific about being careful.  But it also said "Cleans easily with warm water" so *shrug*.  (this is not foreshadowing, for once)

So I begrudgingly prepped the floor, taped the door frame and edges.  I also brought out my new ladder and wrapped the tray in plastic so it is kept brand-new. Yes, I have issues.  

Once I got the hang of it, the texture spray is kind of fun.  I will (hopefully) never need to use it again but I can add it to my resume.  The worse part was waiting for it to dry.  It's not that it took a long time, it's that I wanted to be done. To be fair, I did have to spray one area twice so that slowed the process down even more.

 Next was painting, which has become a mixture of boring and soothing. I tried frogtape this time and discovered that the edging issue I have is Not the Tape, But Me.  Also, I can't get with tape that is precious about being stored in wasteful plastic packaging.  At least I tried.

 I'm writing this as I wait for the paint to dry.  Then I can touch-up what I've missed.  I had hoped to have painted the door trim and the door by now but can't because of the texture taking longer than assumed.  

Also, it started the conversation whether to paint the door the cream color or another color.  This earned Kevin a raised eyebrow.  

Yes, it does bother me that the door isn't centered