Did I Say Simple Plans? Hah

So those simple plans I mentioned last post? Yeah. Well. I sewed about 2 seams.

Life happened. Namely, the time I volunteered to help Alex work on his investment house this past weekend multiplied and wore me out.

Alex was out of town this past weekend visiting his brother and nephew and I was to supervise the installation of new carpet on Saturday morning while also installing tile around the new bathroom vanity. One thing led to another ... namely, the carpet installation was pushed back a few hours, the tile saw I needed to rent from Home Depot hadn't been returned by the previous renters, etc., etc. So, I ended up just standing around the house a lot either waiting for or watching/talking with the carpet installer. Time not exactly wasted but not very productive either. And standing around on tile floors all day is tiring even if you do nothing.

Sunday was supposed to be miserable weather-wise (turned out the storm blew past quickly) so I planned to "take off" from Alex's house and hunker down in mine to work on the blouse. Before the weekend started I had really planned to spend both Sunday and Monday as sewing days but since Saturday was a bust, I had to regroup. I did get the Mimosa top cut out and interfaced but not much further. The ties are sewn (but not turned and/or pressed) if that counts. Baby steps. And it's also football playoffs time and some really good games further distracted me. Ah well.

So, while I have no sewing photos to share, I do have some from Alex's house.

First, the new carpet. Only the two bedrooms have carpeting and they are small, but it still took 3+ hours for installation.

The bathroom, after we tore out the yucky old vanity (a few weeks ago).

Alex working on the new vanity, cutting holes in the back to fit around the existing plumbing. This is in the living room — isn't that a cute little built-in in the wall? The house was built in 1952.

Finally, what I did Monday. I still need to go back and grout. The optical illusions from the missing grout make things looks a little crooked and unfinished — but it's all pretty straight IRL. The tiles go around the whole sink area and onto the little side wall to the left of the sink. The big splooosh above the tile will be covered when we do the final paint. There was a very ugly and very 1980s oak towel ring there previously.

I plan to grout the tile Friday after work so I can get back to sewing the rest of the weekend. But we've seen how my plans have been going so I'm not holding my breath.

Painting Cheat

First, thank you everyone for all of the wonderful compliments. It was a lot of work and in less than 2 weeks (whew!), but it's all worth it, now. I love my new dining room, I love having that room open and accessible again with light shining in from the window, and I can't wait until we sit down to our first dinner in there. Of course, I may never get up …

Next, while it's still fresh in my mind, I thought I'd share a little tip for "painting" around existing crown and chair rail. The gist of the hint is … don't. ;-)

Until the dining room, all of the crown we've done in the house has been new and installed *after* we painted the walls. But in the dining room, the house came with the crown and chair rail and we were not planning on removing it all before painting, although we did remove some before the new wall was built and in the end on this project removed almost 3 walls' worth of crown because it really needed a good sanding and cleaning up. But for what was left, that meant that the "line" of red paint butting up next to the white trim was going to have to be perfect because of the high contrast. I'm a really, really straight painter but the job was proving to be a major headache because 34-year old caulk is bumpy and thus very hard to paint so that it turns out looking straight. I mean, technically, the painting *was* straight but it didn't look like it. Ick.

So, I stared at the source of my headache for a while and came up with another plan. We'd add a row of narrow trim just under the crown and just above the chair rail. We would paint the new trim white while it was off the wall and then paint the wall with red very close to the existing trim line but not all the way up to it. The new trim would then cover up those bumpy old caulk imperfections and the transition from red to white.

This photo shows the new, fluted trim under the crown molding:



This photo shows the original chair rail, before we started painting:



And this photo shows the same wall now finished and with that same narrow fluted trim just above the old trim:



It all looks like it's always been there, doesn't it? It was wonderful to relieve myself of that headache! I love it when a plan works, especially since we've had quite a few "learning experiences" in this house. Anything to make this job easier is good in my book.

Yesterday I got my hair cut and did the grocery shopping. Two more things crossed off the pre-guest list. Today I'm going to spend the morning cleaning and then after lunch I'm going to cut out the dress. I have to get to the airport by 6 PM, so that gives me a few hours to do the cutting and maybe even start sewing. Hopefully my next post will be truly sewinig-related.

Project Dining Room: 99.99% Done

Just a quick update while I stop for lunch during my days of 3,427 Things To Do.

The dining room is mostly done. I still have to (1) finish painting one set of doors, (2) recover the chair seats, (3) hang more pictures, (4) buy a rug. Those things will come, but not until after graduation and after our company leaves. And a long rest. ;-)

The trim work went pretty well, except DH turned into the s-l-o-w-e-s-t painter in the world so we lost more time waiting on that than I was planning. And then unpacking the china and crystal, washing it and putting it away took a good chunk of time. But it's done now and looks great (if I say so myself!). Once again, I unpacked some things I had completely forgotten we owned. The yard sale pile is growing by leaps and bounds.

I'm hoping I still have enough energy tonight to start my dress. Around that, I have to get my hair cut, buy groceries, and clean the house — which is still in semi-disaster state from the dining room project. So that means unpacking a few more boxes and stashing stuff. (If you look at the kitchen counters in one of the pics below, you can see the stacks waiting to be dealt with.) It's going to be an interesting next couple of days. I'm looking forward to just sitting still during the graduation ceremony. ;-)

I think I can, I think I can

I'm beginning to think we might just make the self-imposed deadline of having the work in the dining room done by tomorrow (Sunday) night, especially since we're ignoring Mother's Day until next weekend when my mom is here.

Here's the progress from a couple of hours ago. The last sheet of the underlayment (is that a word?) is down and I've now got about 1/4 of the floor left to go.





DH has been putting the finishing paint touches on the trim while I do the floor and I think we'll be able to start on it after dinner (take-out again). We took the trim around the window back down because we decided it made more sense to put it up *after* the floor was in place instead of trying to guess dimensions. After the window trim is up, we'll do the chair rail, then the crown, and then the little extra trim we bought. Everything is cut and ready to go except for a couple of pieces of chair rail that had to be replaced so it should go a bit quicker than the family room. Oh, and the baseboards have to go up too. Lots of trim work, but I really do think we can get it done. I hope so, because my sewing room is gathering dust.

And in completely unrelated news, last night DS#1 won the Best Supporting Actor award at his school Drama Troupe's version of the Tony's. That's two acting awards he's won in the last few weeks. I hope he continues with community theater after graduation since he seems to love it so much. Me? You couldn't pay me enough to get on a stage. The performance gene comes from DH, who is an accomplished singer and has done his share of amateur acting.



Back to work!

A Snail's Pace

Is May over yet? I feel like it's zipping by and we're not moving as fast as I'd hoped. We lost a bit of time yesterday trying to track down and special order a replacement curve for the wainscot trim. We took down each piece last year, numbered them and thought we had them all. Except now we're missing one. And then Chili decided the little curvy pieces should be dog treats and kept stealing them and chewing on the ends. It was both cute and annoying at the same time. But how can you stay mad at this adorable little face??



I did finally start the floor tonight. Two whole rows — woo hoo! ;-) But I'll start in again in the morning and work until I have to leave at 1:00 PM to do the Team Mom football meal thing. And there's the game tomorrow night.

DH has all the various trim painted and waiting in the garage, and he's working on framing the window as I type. Over the next couple of days, he'll work on the chair rails and crown while I do the floor. I'm still hoping to be done with the dining room by the end of the weekend, but I know that will be really pushing it.

Here's what it looked like about 10 minutes ago:



I promise, this blog will return to sewing next week. It has to. I have a graduation dress to make.

Another Busy (and non-sewing) Day

Continuing on from yesterday, Home Depot refunded my money for the bad red paint. At first, the manager on duty was only going to refund for the full can. But I politely let him know that DH and I spend thousands in that store every year and he really should reconsider unless he wanted us to take that money across the street to the brand new Lowe's. He was very nice and reasonable and didn't have to think twice on that. ;-)

We got our money and then went back to the lumber department to look for some trim to add under the crown and over the chair rail so I don't have to paint perfectly straight lines in that high contrast between red and white. Ironically, Home Depot didn't have what I wanted and we found it at that Lowe's across the street. Oh well. We'll be back to Home Depot before the weekend is over, I'm sure.

So the red painting is done and looks great. The white below is also done. Today, after I run DS to/from a doctor's appointment, we'll start in on putting the wainscot trim back on. I'm hoping that will go quickly (hah!) and that I'll be starting in on the floor by late-afternoon. Our guests will be here in SIX DAYS so the clock is definitely running and we're trying to catch up.

Meanwhile, more of my non-sewing time shopping arrived yesterday. I finally broke down and ordered some of the knits on the Fabric Mart site.






The first 3 are poly ITY jerseys. I have no idea what ITY means (anyone??). They're very nice, even if they're polyester. Drapey and thin, but not too thin. The last is a rayon/spandex knit and it's wonderful. The pattern looks bold in the photo swatch but in real life, it's much more understated. It's available in 4 colorways and if you've been contemplating buying some, I say go for it! Seeing the fabric made up in this review on PR is what put me over the edge for finally ordering it. I'm even contemplating making the graduation outfit from it instead of what I'd originally picked. Except I can't prewash right now as my washer is flashing a repair code. ARgh. But the repairman will be here tomorrow morning so hopefully the laundry room will be up and running again soon. Love those extended warranties on major appliances!

Painting Primer

I read the comments about red vs. gray primer when the final color is red. I really don't know the definitive answer, but I can tell you what we've learned over the last couple of days and last year.

The biggest lesson is: All red paint is not created equal.

We usually buy Behr paint from Home Depot. It's always performed flawlessly for us. It goes on smoothly, covers well, and wears great. Until this week.

Backtracking … Last year we painted DS#2's walls half red and half black.



We had absolutely no problems with either the red or the black. Two coats of each over a gray primer and we were done. This was Sherwin Williams paint, though, and I really can't remember why we bought SW instead of our usual Behr. I must've had a reason.

As you saw in Sunday's post, we used a pink-tinted primer for the dining room. Then we started painting using Behr "Ripe Currant." OMG. It was like we were using a glaze and not a paint. It was thin and runny and streaked like you wouldn't believe, and it wouldn't dry. I wish I had taken pictures, but I was too mad to even think about it. We thought there was something wrong with the paint so we made a mad-dash run to Home Depot Sunday night before they closed to trade what we thought was defective paint for a different can, same color.

While we were waiting for the new paint to be mixed, the lady at the paint counter starting telling us that we would probably need to paint up to EIGHT coats, waiting 24 hours between each coat. Huh?? We had painted DS's room last year in a very similar color and had zero problems. Even though we heard her, we still thought it was just a bad batch because we have been painting for years with no problems, including DS's red and black last year. But when we got back home and started in again and there was no improvement with this "new" paint, we started questioning everything.

Because we had no time or desire for painting over an 8-day spread, and after 2 days, 3 coats, and the primer, you could still see the primer and every roller stroke, we decided to throw in that towel and move on to Plan B.

Another mad-dash trip to Sherwin Williams yesterday before they closed at 6 PM. There, the salesman gave us a mini lesson in paint and bases. I had noticed that the paint we used for DS's room used a Red Base and the Behr paint for the dining room starts with a "deep base." Mr. Sherwin Williams explained that the dark colors which use a deep base (or Ultradeep in SW terms) do usually take more coats for coverage but he was as shocked as we were upon hearing the recommendation of EIGHT coats from Home Depot. It's got to do with the lack of white pigment (titanium dioxide) in the base for those deep colors. Titanium dioxide is what gives a paint hide and coverage. (He also explained that the color of the primer doesn't really matter for red, as long as it's either gray or tinted (pink). It's the primer itself which should be decent quality (ours is) so that it creates a favorable surface on the wall for the paint to adhere to it.)

So, here's the dining room now, after the SW paint. Any shading you see is from actual light/shade in the room, not paint streaks. Finally!



I'll be making another run to Home Depot later — to demand a refund or credit for that horrible paint. At over $27/gallon (we bought 2) plus the new paint from SW, it's too much money to just let go.

Shocking

The dining room is coming along. Beautiful, isn't it? Hahahahaha!! Don't worry, that's only the primer, which is the most hideous shade of Hot Pink. The final color will be a deep red, which we'll start painting after dinner. DH is quite eager to cover up that pink. Speaking of dinner, DH and DS#2 (the one with the newly acquired learner's permit) are picking up pizzas, which is why I'm here with a few minutes to kill.

In sewing-related news … I picked these up from my mailbox today, which means they arrived yesterday. When I can't sew, I buy. Vogue had an online sale so I was on it. Of course they'll be added to the To-Do-Hopefully-Before-I-Die-Along-With-1,000-Others list, as I have to work on the graduation dress before starting anything new. A couple of them I would like to make for summer so maybe I'll get to them before November. ;-) The others I bought just to look at, like the Betzina jeans.


My May issue of Burda WOF also arrived so between that and the patterns I've got some good bedtime reading material for later.

I'm also expecting a couple of other splurge items in the mail this week, but right this minute I forget exactly what. Uh oh. Time to hide the debit card until the dining room is done. ;-)

Dining Room First, Cutting Fabric Later

Let's backtrack for readers who haven't been there for the beginning of the Money Pit saga. And also because I selfishly love to see actual progress documented in one place. ;-)

This is the way the dining room looked when the previous owners lived here. (The pool table came with the house and is now set up in the attic.)



Then we bought the house and started working on it before we moved in. One of the things we did was to strip the 1980s wallpaper off the walls. (Hey, this paper was an "upgrade" — everything else was vintage 1974.) So then it looked like this:



Not too bad, but with the wallpaper gone we noticed some wall oddities in one corner of the room. Those oddities were termite "trails" and we knew we'd have to deal with the problem. The termites were long gone since, as part of the sale, the whole house was treated for termites & we were being compensated for the damage we already knew about. But until we started working on the house, we didn't know how much more damage was still lurking. It was depressing and the whole project went downhill and then stalled completely because of a horrible contractor. We pretty much ignored the dining room and most of the rest of the house for a couple of years, until we moved in during November 2005. (The original plan was to move into the house approximately 6 months after we bought it. That 6 months turned into 3 years and the work is still ongoing. Remember us if you ever think about buying a fixer-upper!)

Last April, DH tore off the original drywall to expose this bit of loveliness.



And then he replaced the wall studs and part of the joists, and re-drywalled. The job was actually easier than we had first anticipated, but by then DH had had plenty of practice from repairing the termite damage in DS#2's room.





This is the storage pit dining room as it's been for over a year.



But now its time has finally come (again). DH has been moving some stuff out and rearranging the big items to one side of the room while I work on finishing up the "new" wall.



This is what it looked like this morning, after the first coat of tape & mud. Tomorrow morning, I'll sand and then apply the second coat of mud while DH paints the ceiling.



I can't wait until the wainscot trim is back up and we take down that u-g-l-y chandelier. But that won't be happening until at least next week and working with that trim is going to be one big jigsaw puzzle, even with the "map" we made while removing it.

Tonight, though, I'm going to be cutting out the dress muslin and maybe sewing it together during Grey's Anatomy commercial breaks. I know I've "earned" some sewing time.

Actual Sewing Going On (and other stuff)

I really, really want to wear the new capris to a school function on Thursday and other projects (see below) have kept me out of the sewing room more than in it. So, I've declared today a PSD (personal sewing day). And because I want to make a new top to wear with them, I'm probably declaring another PSD for tomorrow. After that, though, it's back to installing floors so I have a functioning dining room for the houseguests descending upon us in three short weeks for DS#1's graduation. Although I will be popping into the sewing room on and off during the floor install so I can make the outfit I want to wear for the graduation. Whew! I'm tired already. ;-)

So, the capris are cut and halfway sewn. Then while making pockets, I decided to get out the camera because this little pressing tool has gotten such bad press (har har) on Pattern Review and it really is a handy notion for me. Sure, you can burn the dickens out of your fingers if you're not careful, but if you handle it from the opposite edge of the iron, it stays cool enough that burns are not concern, and it's aluminum so the heat dissipates quickly. I use it for pockets mostly, but I do sometimes use it to start a measured hem or to press a crease in stubborn fabric. I actually like that it's metal and gets extremely hot because pressing denim pockets into shape goes a lot faster with the extra heat and moisture (when the steam hits the metal).







I finished the fly the other day, but not without some mild cussing at myself. See the striped fabric? That's what I cut for the waistband facing and for the pocket bags. And then I promptly tossed the scraps, and DH even more promptly emptied trashcans and took the trash to the end of the driveway for the next day's pick-up. Except that I forgot to cut a fly shield! So, now you all know that these capris don't have a coordinating fly shield. (Will the horrors never end?)



Here's where I am now — with the leg marked for the embroidery I'll be doing as soon as I upload this post. I had to topstitch some of the hem area first so that the embroidery is on top and not vice versa, which means that I have to turn up the rest of the hem later with parts of it already topstitched. That will be fun fiddly.



In other sewing room "news," while I was taking pics of the capris, Chili fished out the empty stabilizer tube from the trash as his new toy of the hour. (Why couldn't he have fished out a scrap of that striped fabric when I needed it??) This dog loves to shred paper/cardboard. He doesn't eat it, just shreds until it can't be shredded any more and then walks away, leaving his pile of shreds. It's actually kind of funny (even if I'm usually the one picking up the shreds) and on this floor what difference is some shreds blended in with the threads?







And, lest you think I'm letting you get away without yet another remodeling update … hah!

The living room and family room are pretty much done. I still have some stuff to put away and some desk organizing to do, but most of the big stuff is unpacked, out, and/or otherwise put where it's going to be. DH hung the new light fixtures in the laundry room, and made & hung the photo ledges for the family room. It's finally starting to feel cozy in this house (well, some parts of it). Various photos below.

My office area looking from the TV end of the room:



Looking at the TV end of things from the kitchen door:



The HGTV-inspired photo ledges DH made:



The new sofa in the living room:



The new overhead laundry room fixture:



And the wall sconce (why does anyone need a wall sconce in a laundry room? And yes, something that is needed is curtains! Shoemaker's barefoot children and all that …):

Just passing by

It's Tuesday and I've still got nuthin' in the sewing department and the outlook is bleak until Thursday at the earliest.

We switched computers around on Sunday so I'm now typing at you from my new/old desk in the family room. Surrounded by a bunch of knick-knacks and wall art that I've been unpacking from the boxes we've been dragging out of the storage bin dining room. So many things I forgot I even had, and now decisions to be made as to exactly where to put some of this stuff and what to just toss. It feels like we've just moved in all over again. But at least this time, I'm clearing things instead of stashing them for later. I can actually see the dining room floor again.

We also moved the new sofa into the living room, although once we put the door & frame back on that doorway, it ain't never coming out again — at least not in one piece. Whew! That was a tight fit getting it in. But it looks pretty good, even if it is clashly wildly at the moment with the area rug. But until we get all the floors done downstairs, new area rugs are on hold since I don't want to be grinding drywall dust and who-knows-what into any new ones. I'll take some pics of the "new" rooms in a few days, after more of the junk decorative items are in place.

We did manage to drop nearly $200 at Lowe's last night. Supplies for this weekend's project of some photo ledges a la HGTV's Room By Room to go in the family room, new light fixtures for the laundry room since the bare bulbs are not quite the look we're going for, and a bunch of other little stuff (tape, paintbrushes, light bulbs, etc.) which adds up quickly.

The fabric for my to-do capris has been laid out on my cutting table for close to two weeks now. I'm sure I'll need to dust it off before I start cutting. But I'm really, really hoping to do that and get them sewn by the end of the weekend and then move on to the outfit I want to make for DS#1's graduation, which I'll also wear for Mother's Day. And somewhere between now and then we also need to get the dining room floor installed. Anyone have any spare hours for sale?

DS#2's 15th birthday is tomorrow, which means some shopping today. I know what I/he wants, so it's just a matter of hitting the stores. DH wants to join me, so I'll be taking off as soon as he's back from some client meetings and I'm back from walking the dogs. It also means he'll be getting his learner's permit tomorrow. Uh oh.

Thursday This 'N That

Still no sewing as "real" work has taken over for the week. But I promised myself I'd get up to the sewing room later today or this evening and cut out those capris that have been ever so patiently biding their time. With luck, I may get them sewn up in bits and pieces over the next few days.

Meanwhile, I bought a sofa last night. My mom and her POSSLQ (pronounced pozzl-cue and meaning Person of the Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters) will be here for DS#1's graduation in mid-May. We have no real guest room — yet. My mom suggested that instead of them paying for a hotel that she give me some money toward a futon that could be put in our living room as a guest bed. Hmmm. Good idea, Mom! So I agreed. Then I started looking on Craig's List for futons that were acceptably used (IOW, not gross!) and cheap, and found a great sofabed instead. (I'd rather have a sofa in the living room than a more casual futon, but I was trying to be budget-conscious.)

The only problem with the sofabed so far was that it was in St. Petersburg (about an hour from me) so if it was a dud, it would be a wasted long drive. (Have you seen gas prices this week??) The seller and I emailed back and forth and she offered Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday evenings as choices for the pick-up. I'm so glad we went with Wednesday since it rained all day both Monday and Tuesday (desperately needed in these parts, but not good for sofas in the back of pick-up trucks). We loaded up both strong boys into the back of the cab and off we went.

We met the seller at her (retired and very sweet) parents' house. The back story is the parents were the actual sellers but she's the one who put up the Craig's List ad and volunteered to be the contact person. The sofa belonged to a friend of her parents. He had died shortly after it was delivered to his home and this couple is in charge of selling off his belongings since the man's family is all out-of-state. Or something like that.

As soon as I saw the sofa in person, I knew it was good quality (La-Z-Boy) and in brand-new condition. The mattress for the pull-out bed was/is still in the original plastic covering. Sold! So we (and by "we," I mean the guys) covered it in plastic, loaded it on truck, paid for it, and off we went. Definitely a steal at $300, I think. You can't even buy a crappy new sofabed for less than $600.



It's paisley, which I love (and not quite as red/purple as it looks in this pic), and it's temporarily sitting in the family room awaiting the transfer of computers and office furniture which should happen this weekend. So, before the family room gets better (and truly done), it gets even more crowded. But we'll manage. We've already decided that we like the big U of sofas in there so I see us looking for new stuff for that arrangment at some point in the next year. Uh oh!

I mentioned the rain, right? This is Florida and we're about to head into summer. The dry weather has been great comfort-wise even if it meant drought conditions throughout the state. But with the recent rain came the dreaded humidity we had been escaping until now. Where is this leading? Well, yesterday was also a dog park day and because it was hot and humid, I didn't see myself in long jeans, and my favorite capris are in the laundry room. So, I pulled out this recently sewn outfit to wear:



And I have to say it is going to be some of my favorite summer duds. So comfortable, and still casual enough with my brown flip-flops that I didn't feel overdressed for a dog park! The skirt (Kwik Sew 3287) is just wonderful made up in the cotton. I'm definitely going to be making at least two more before summer is over. (After those waiting capris, of course!) Yesterday was busy and I forgot to take pics of me in it before we left. And then I spilled Coke down my front in the truck so a photo will have to wait until the cami is clean again. Yeah, I'm a klutz.

Oh, to finish up the vacuum saga, my replacement PowerMate vacuum head arrived yesterday, and it's the correct one this time. Which means I can finally do a decent vacuuming. Sears credited me for the first wrong one, including the shipping, and also waived the shipping charges on the replacement. So I suppose I feel better. But, still, what a pain! And I'll reserve final judgment until I actually try the thing. Between dogs and floor-laying, we have plenty of "test material."