Oh say can you see...

New floor! New paint (no smurf blue)! Warm colours! It's madness!







And now, let the showing begin!
Since Himself is home, I can finally put out those pesky photos.
I will take better ones once the batteries for the camera is charged (my iPhone isn't so good in low light).
So here we are!

And now, the hallway

Well everyone, it's been a productive day. Huzzah!

I managed to get a bunch of items on my list accomplished, including the second coat on cabinet doors etc., sanding and painting other objects, and putting a final coat on the island. I even managed to do it outside, since melamine paint stinks like the devil but sticks well.

In addition to this painting, I managed to finish some other interior work, including painting the fiddly cutout thing in the living room to blend with the wall. I then took on the task of the Ugliest Hallway in the Universe, seen here. As you can see, the sage green that permeated the house (with the exception of the steps, which were ship's grey) is used here too, but not on certain patches, for some inexplicable reason. I can't even blame my husband, as he purchased the house like this. However, that is not to say that if he loved me at all, he would have fixed this eyesore. Oh well. Such is my lot in life. I m showing you the nasty hallway before, as it looks really good now. I don't know why the previous owners didn't bother to split a fin and buy some masking tape to keep the edges clean, but there it is. I really like tape, and I tape the crap out of everything before I paint, as I like to start work and just go. As Mr.Jim, my mentor and former neighbour once pointed out to me, "Efficient people are lazy people. They think about the best way to do something once, prepare beforehand, and work smart." And that is very true. I don't like to repeat someting, or get bogged down halfway through; I like to GIVE 'ER. Hence the tape. Once everything's taped off and cut in, you can paint EVERYTHING, because the bulk of the job has been done already (which is a little trick I've done since I was small: I do the suckiest part of any task first, leaving the easy part for last. Psychologically I find it helpful to work this way.)

At any rate, even more stuff is painted. It's beginning to look like a real house. I am actually getting a bit excited at Himself's return, as I can't wait to see his reaction to the painting and myriad changes. So now there's only a few more days left to the revealing of the work; it's like a cut-rate Extreme Makeover.

Tomorrow's job: upstairs bedroom. This should be relatively easy, due to its small size. I will also put the cabinetry back on, with the new hardware. I will also be setting up a poll, with two choices for the kitchen cabinetry under the sink in particular. Himself purports to know what is most esthetically pleasing, however; I believe that his choice is not necessarily a win. I shall let the people speak.

More tomorrow!

In which our heroine paints the crap out of everything

Greetings from the Land of Reno.

I have been as busy as a little beaver, finishing up the magnificence which is the kitchen here, namely painting cabinet doors, installing trim, painting islands and refashioning ugliness into grace and beauty. And it looks damn good, if I do say so myself.

The rub here (and there always is one, isn't there?) is that I can't actually post photographic proof of my incontestable awesomeness lest He Who Shan't Be Named sneak in and peek before he gets home from abroad. I want him to be stunned and a little afraid of the terrific changes in the house in his absence, which, as I've said previously, he believes to have been largely occupied by my eating bonbons while watching soap operas on TV. Ha! Joke's on him, because I have turned this sow's ear into a veritable silk purse, using only my cunning and about eleventy cans of paint. Oh, and some power tools. And the internet. But that's all!

Let it suffice to say that today's brilliance included re-purposing a piece of wood found in the basement into an under-cupboard baseboard trim, figuring out how to overcome the seemingly insurmountable obstacle of removing and hiding those craptacular stick-on balsa wood cabinet ornaments (which apparently some people make themselves), painting, painting, and more painting, and use of power tools, which I can't go into here as it would give the game away.

I'm actually thinking of putting this blog on "super secret" and inviting the rest of the universe to see what I've done, as I'm inordinately proud of myself (though that could just be a combination of melamine paint fumes and it being 2 a.m.).

But right now, I should probably go to bed, as I have to get up early tomorrow to tackle the problem of the oven not working, which I suppose is 'karmic balance'. And I had made myself an epic lasagna, inspired by this terrific blog Ian turned me on to, which I can't eat because MY OVEN CRAPPED OUT. Super weak.

However, given the generally positive way the day went otherwise, I'm not willing to let this little setback get me down.

One week til I can post all the pictures!