leisure pursuits

Tattoo by Tom Taylor of Deep Six Laboratories. The hair is this fabulous shade of orange because I lost a bet on the Devils-Flyers series. This is my penance.

I took a day off from housework and work work on Thursday and hit the tattoo shop, (Sitting #2 for color). Feeling refreshed (and a little bit like I had been hit with a meat tenderizer, you should see the amazing yellow bruise that has sprouted around the edges), Friday I decided to dig in and begin work on my sewing room. This room had previously been used as an office and was covered in shades of brown and yellow striped wallpaper that might have been entertaining if the warp of the walls did not make me think I was absolutely insane every time I looked at it.



Additional features of this room include red paint on a wood floor! Between the floor and the walls I figured it would be a large project. I like to do things in a logical fashion when I'm not too busy being whimsical and flying off half-cocked, so before I ran to the HD to pick up a paper tiger (love the name) i tested out how sturdily the wallpaper was adhered. I grabbed at a corner of a strip, held my breath, and tugged. Amazingly, the entire strip came off perfectly, left to right and top to bottom. I repeated around the room, and to my great surprise, all three entire walls peeled right off. The project I had planned to spend several hours steaming, sweating, and swearing over took less than five minutes!



The walls revealed now that the wallpaper was down did not look to be quite the quick fix; rather, they looked as though someone had already done quite a few quick fixes to them. The large spots of patch were not as alarming as the spots where the walls were entirely warped to the point of moving from the pressure of a hand, and when I tapped on them with a scraper, the plaster began to crumble away.




I am a compulsive picker. Ragged nails, scabs, rough spots on a surface--if my fingers can find it, there is a pretty good chance I will fuss with it. Brian has scolded me for this on several occasions--"Don't start that unless you're going to finish it," or even a simple "stop that!" So I usually save this sort of thing for when he is not around or looking.





the texting conversation to explain this unexpected development went something like this:

Cassie: Craft room is going to be a very large undertaking...
Brian: You rip the walls down?
Cassie: That is remarkably close to the truth.
Brian: That sounds good.
Cassie: Let's just say patching did not work... aggressively.

So my house has punished me for taking a day off to have some "me time," and now instead of spending 5-10 hours steaming wallpaper then god knows how much time sanding, patching, and priming walls for their new life covered in paint I get to dive in feet first and learn the ropes of tearing down plaster and lath and hanging drywall! The only real upshot of this is that once we have the walls open, nothing is to stop us from upgrading electric and adding outlets in both the sewing room and the adjoining bathroom! I am trying to be optimistic; it chokes back the panic of having absolutely no goddamned idea what the hell I am doing.

Also, apparently the previous occupants were old school big time Phillies fans, and left us two of this lovely window sticker featuring the old team logo.



Yesterday I came home from work just in time to witness the bottling of Brian's first batch of homebrew. It has a week or two to set up in bottles now, then he will begin the process of trying it out and taking detailed notes in his beer journal. The kitchen took remarkably little damage during the whole project; I think the only casualty was his hydrometer, which fell from his hands into a bucket as he was warning me of its fragility.

Today's adventure took us to the King of Prussia mall to visit the Apple store; my iphone, the good old 2G I have been rolling with for over a year, and that my mom had for at least a year prior to that, finally seems to be giving up the ghost of functionality. It is almost as though as soon as the Iphone 4 came out, Steve Jobs sent out a covert magnetic pulse designed to put all older models into an instantaneous planned obsolescence. I now have the 4 on order, and I am hoping my phone will kick it just long enough to last me until I can get that one activated. I am utterly hopeless in my tech addiction, and being without it would be like missing a very entertaining limb.

We found an awesome orange leather arm chair and ottoman combo at Williams Sonoma that we loved until we looked at the price tag--for people who have furnished the majority of their dwellings with a hodge podge of thrift finds and cast-offs, the notion of spending four thousand dollars on one chair and its accompanying footstool was entirely beyond something we were willing to even entertain.

In general, the KOP mall is a spectacle of designer shopping, brands I do not care about, and people I can not relate to. With exception of sale bins filled with underwear and a very friendly Teavana, there is little for that mall to offer me at prices I am willing to pay. I did score some awesome designer knock off sunglasses for 10 bucks, though. It is never worthwhile for me to spend much more than that, as sunglasses are one of those things that seem to phase in and out of my existence via wormhole or complete absentmindedness.

I am going to eat some leftover chipotle black bean chicken chili and wash some laundry. For good measure, here is a glamour shot of my cat.

Orange peels, pumpkins, and eggplants

Every time I think Kate Beaton's Hark, A Vagrant can't get any better, it somehow does. AMAZING. But Benny Franks is also a personal favorite, so perhaps it just hits close to home. I want it on a t-shirt!

In other news, I finally dug out my other lens and took some pictures of the new kitchen paint! Of course, by the time I get home from work the light in that part of the house is fading so they're a mite dark, but the paint colors are fairly accurate.

Before:

I am so in love with all the built-ins it is not even funny. The glass cabinets, however, are only going to encourage my purchasing of useless clutter that glitters like so much magpie treasure.


The previous owners had slightly more sedate taste in paint and such; these photos were from our home inspection.

I have never outgrown the Crayola bold marker set. Things with names like marigold, eggplant, or in this case Orange Peel, make me squeal like a childlike joy.

When I began cutting in the room I started to get nervous over the general loudness of the yellow-orange paint, glanced out my kitchen window and beheld the construction equipment parked in my neighbor's yard. I had half a panic attack that Orange Peel was also known in more outdoorsy circles as Caterpillar yellow, and that I might very well be on my way to Bob the Builder territory.

We hit the Home Depot and picked up the eggplant color to soften the blow, and while I love the combination all my worrying was for nothing; as soon as the color was up on a full wall instead of just ragged stripes around the edges of the room, I was madly in love with it again. I do think having the darker color near the stove will help hide some of that unavoidable stove grease spatter (god knows it showed very well on the pale yellow I painted over, but thank you Behr Primer and paint in one! The nice gentleman at the HD did the cost-benefit analysis with us and it works out cheaper than buying separate primer and paint and I was well satistied with the coverage in two coats. It went on evenly over old paint, new patch, stove grease, and also our linoleum floors--they are in crappy condition anyway, so we did not bother being careful).

While I am advocating on behalf of paint, here are a few things I have learned so far that might be of assistance to people trying to remodel on a budget:

--Testers, testers, testers! The HD offers mini-jars mixed to any color you wish; you can buy a few ounces, enough to cover a fair-sized section of wall and think on it for only like $3 apiece (This also applies to many wood stains!). They do only come in a flat finish, so take that into account when evaluating your color choices.

--Ooops paint! Essentially, these are 'bad mixes' or things that someone decided they did not want. There is typically a shelf or rack in the paint section with an assortment of cans and it takes some diligence, but chances are good that if you're remodeling a house you are already making frequent trips to the store so why not stop to look? Kelly and I hit Lowes to get duct tape for a DIY tailor's dummy project and I found two small cans of oops paint; one was fifty cents and the other $3, but around the same size as HD's tester jars. The colors looked close to what I am thinking of painting my craft room so I picked them up.

My father informs me that HD 'can match just about any color, so just bring in a swatch of color and they will turn it into paint,' and while I have not tested it just yet, it seems sound in theory. Assuming this is accurate information, one could conceivably get additional paint to match for an entire room, or just use what you find for an appropriate sized room. I personally have a small bathroom I am planning to use one of my testers to redo; there is so little wall space in there that a few ounces should be just enough.

--Buy what you need. Color mixing is down to such a science that the paint guy persuaded me not to buy two gallons of paint because I could always go back and get more if I needed it, but they will not accept returns on custom-mixed colors. It turns out that a gallon would have been exactly enough if my painter's tape had not pulled a few chunks of paint off with it, so I'm going to get the smallest unit of paint just for touch-ups.


That is my learning on paint so far. I'm going to go break down cardboard recycling, putter with my gardening and listen to 80s new wave some more! My pie pumpkin seedlings are getting mutinous!


Once I figure out what room is next on the list I will take some awesome before pictures to share.

skills, surprises, and cats behaving badly

i have learned that, despite my moderate skill as a photographer, i am terrible at photographing houses. i might actually have to change out my favorite 60mm lens for something with a wider angle to it, as the house's layout makes it almost impossible to capture an entire room with my usual equipment. as such, i seem to have defaulted to utterly useless close-ups on things like wallpaper and radiators that no one but me would ever possibly care about.


some of our insane wallpaper


gorgeous dining room floor detail


But anyway.

with exception to the cashier's check for the largest sum of money we will likely ever lay hands and eyes on, our settlement was fairly painless. Our sellers were chatty about the house's little nuances, and how they left us a ladder, a vacuum, and miscellaneous other useful things to ease our transition into homeownership.

My dad came with his truck to help us move our furniture, which is mostly comprised of thrift store finds and dumpster diving treasures that seem to gain weight with each move. Being of limited use in moving scenarios and even more limited upper body strength, I stayed out of the way and instead hefted small boxes and our fat cats.

We had decided to corral them in one room for several days to keep them out from underfoot and away from open doors and precariously leaning boxes. Somehow even though neither cat minds her carrier or travel, the instant they were back together in a new place it was as though their furry little lives were ending. i have not heard so much hissing and crying from the smallest darkest corner of a room since the last time we moved. Callie gets upset more by Panda than by life, but Panda is a shelter rescue so every change of scenery is some manner of cataclysm to her. But we deafened ourselves to their pathetic mewling and kept on task.

When the hauling and grunting was finished for the night some friends came over to check out the new digs. Gerry, a good friend and the owner/brewmaster of GG Brewers (our favorite local microbrew and food spot) came over with wine glasses and a bottle of chianti we got him in Italy in 2008.



After the toast we enjoyed our first thunder storm from out beautiful front porch slider chair while I began the uphill battle of washing laundry (it is still novel after two weeks; all my clothing smells clean when i wear it now!).

Brian and I spent our first night at the house filled with a mixture of pride, exhaustion, and elation. He inflated the air mattress and quipped with alarming accuracy, "Ready for the worst night's sleep of your life?"

I was not.

We woke early the following morning to the ruckus of backhoes, trackhoes, and all manner of diesel monsters that go beepbeepbeep when they reverse; our rear neighbor's lovely construction crew apparently rose with the sun, whereas we sleep into midday whenever possible. Brian struggled futilely against waking while i made the most of an early start with coffee in a ceramic Canucks beer stein (the only mug we had so far found to unpack) and wandering around with my camera to take the aforementioned mediocre pictures. I documented some of the very cluttered "before" state of the house and tried to calm the cats.



Panda had found this spot to sulk in, while Callie was sleeping in the litterbox.

By night #2 the fridge housed half a pizza, a case of beer, and some bottled water. I had already run five loads of wash while taping the kitchen in preparation of painting. i had also broken several pieces of decorative trim held on with nothing but chewing gum and the prayers of a children's choir, but the soundtrack to my labor was Motown and i was in fantastic spirits.

When Brian got home from work i was filthy and several of our friends had arrived as though lured by the scent of beer on the wind. We gave many enthusiastic tours before settling once more on the porch to whinge about being tired and muse over how fabulous our asses and thighs would be in a house with three floors and four flights of stairs.

Painting, organizing, and unpacking were forgotten in favor of resting on shaky laurels and tackling the beer supply. When the night grew colder we moved inside to settled on the lone couch or the floor and contemplate home design until the night became morning again. Other than that brief respite, our first weekend was a havoc of packing, driving, moving, sweating, and swearing. Our kitchen was a barely contained dust storm from all the sanding, but with one exception was ready to paint.

That exception, fondly remembered as house surprise number one, was discovered when i was pulling nails from the walls prior to patching. over the doorway the previous owners had left a cute little eucalyptus wreath. Not our style, but adorable nonetheless. I pulled it off the wall and found it was more function than form, and had been concealing this awesome snarl of wires:



In my mind, no sane person would hang dried plants on live wires, but there is no guarantee that our sellers were sane OR that my mind is a reasonable gauge for normal human activity. Now we own a device that tests for current just to be sure, and upon finding them harmless we cut the wires pack, taped the exposed ends, and shoved them back into a hole. Now that it has been patched over and painted I can pretend it never even existed except in humorous anecdote.

Speaking of patch, I should buy stock in that color-changing patch compound; it is the most awesome home improvement tool i have discovered so far. We used almost half a tub on the kitchen alone. I should also buy stock in the Home Depot for the amount of visits we have made in the last two weeks and the money we have spent there, but at least that was expected. My uncle came through in awesome form with an alarmingly large stack of gift cards and coupons, so the hit to our bank account was far smaller than it could have been for all the things we have needed so far. Satisfied, we went to bed early Sunday night, eager to sleep on a mattress after three nights of sleeping on a glorified balloon.

We woke bleary and confused to the enthusiastic chime of the doorbell to our back door (why does the back door need a doorbell?). Brian donned shorts and a shirt and trudged down the creaking staircase while i swallowed my curiosity in favor of nestling deeper into my pillow. When he returned and reported that it was 6AM and there was no one at our door, I shrugged it off as ghosts.

Our first full week in the house was a mix of going to work, moving the last of our stuff, painting the kitchen, replacing door knobs and lock cores, replacing a broken 15' section of gutter, and moving as much junk from the downstairs as we could because another problem had arisen. Our turtle, Froedrick, had somehow escaped his temporary housing and was loose in the house. As he is partly maimed from cannibalistic attacks by our other turtle Vincent, we were fairly certain he had not made it to a different floor. Still, he somehow eluded us for almost a week before finally turning up behind a bread machine, trying to make a break for the back door. Don't let the tortoise and the hare confuse you into thinking all amphibians with shells are slow--aquatic turtles are fast as shit. Even gimpy ones can get a fierce scramble for freedom on when the mood suits them. But amazingly, he was alive and well despite nearly a week without water or food. Little bugger.

Now that the turtles were safe, sound, and accounted for and the kitchen paint was dry, we let the now destressed and thoroughly curious cats loose on the house to slink about in cautious wonder and try out every window and perch they could find. This included exploring the recently used tub, which led to a hilarious trail of muddy pawprints on all manner of counter tops and surfaces they know are off limits.



Callie is very small for a fullgrown spayed female cat (Panda porked up like a fatty when I adopted her and had her spayed, and I expected Callie would do likewise), so she finds her way onto small precarious spaces like railings:



Panda, while less agile, is considerably smarter and somehow figured out how to pop the bedroom door open while I was in the tub today, so I discovered this adorably naughty scene.



Brian is mildly allergic; they are not allowed in the bedroom and definitely not on the bed, so naturally it is their favorite place to be if they can manage it. Just to mock me and my inferiority, she trilled cutely and did a lot of stretching and rolling to demonstrate her ownership of our mattress before I hitched up my bath towel and ejected her from the room.

Obviously, we have achieved home internet. Happily, this has not yet distracted me from Getting Things Done, at least not as much as the joy of soaking in the tub and food preparation in my new kitchen have. I have made myself a number of lovely salads to lunch on at work, and my coworkers are having a good laugh at a 26 year old with a lunch box. I also made perhaps the best sandwich ever today--Toasted roll, avocado, red onion, roast beef, and horseradish cheddar.

To recap:
I cook a lot.
my cats are monsters.
we have made the following repairs and alterations
-fixed the toilet so we no longer need to jiggle the handle
-repainted the kitchen
-replaced locks
-started a compost barrel
-replaced gutter section and installed a rain collection barrel
-planted some plants, and started the war on our creeping ivy

adieu!

a constant craving... for sleep

Homeownership is exhausting.

We do not have internet at the house yet, so posting will be intermittent, but is forthcoming!