tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44476000297462649262024-03-13T17:02:09.227-04:00The Sow's EarUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger401125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447600029746264926.post-81266583201765775382017-09-23T18:08:00.001-04:002017-09-23T18:51:10.465-04:00On the Other Hand, It WasHere it is over a year later, and I haven't updated on my progress with my front room.<br />
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No, I didn't fall off the ladder and concuss myself.<br />
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No, I'm not done with the room yet.<br />
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Yes, I did strip the inside of the front door yet another time and redo it. This time I skipped tinting the shellac altogether. Instead, I ordered some dark Bysakhi buttons and brushed on the usual five or six coats. I think it looks pretty nice now.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV9G73FP7dEFk-abQ8775R9c-ubrQkh1dHF3N8WpCFEBr0eM6TQQDlMfO1Riv6i3jxBPSz9Pv5h-DP4qFVsiTB20COvyI72V7oDqfM_I6fG36vE8tbeKzBMdS0jglpfKMTMH22n18BTw0/s1600/P1010469.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV9G73FP7dEFk-abQ8775R9c-ubrQkh1dHF3N8WpCFEBr0eM6TQQDlMfO1Riv6i3jxBPSz9Pv5h-DP4qFVsiTB20COvyI72V7oDqfM_I6fG36vE8tbeKzBMdS0jglpfKMTMH22n18BTw0/s320/P1010469.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
This picture was taken, of course, last year before the wallpaper was removed, the rest of the woodwork was stripped and sanded, the ceiling repaired and painted, and before the walls went through not one, not two, but three faux-finish paint jobs.<br />
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Here's version No. 1, with a frieze in Valspar "Brilliant Metals" gold (two shades) and the field in the Brilliant Metals over Olympic One semigloss tinted Valspar color "Hazy Dawn." That was last March.<br />
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Way too intense. See my Instagram feed at kate_horstman to see how incredibly yellow it was.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhNuclWh3cU_jN-0qP_1CsYs2x6iwSYGcK9aP4QdM5_pJWRQz9dQAQtQd6XhkgQ7q1sbBiOZnfnq2RPw-KCYpSom7azSmW_HM9i4Rm_J7eJ2-83oiX3uxBs-JYxHGxj5E7QC3tp_M4Hic/s1600/P1010894.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhNuclWh3cU_jN-0qP_1CsYs2x6iwSYGcK9aP4QdM5_pJWRQz9dQAQtQd6XhkgQ7q1sbBiOZnfnq2RPw-KCYpSom7azSmW_HM9i4Rm_J7eJ2-83oiX3uxBs-JYxHGxj5E7QC3tp_M4Hic/s400/P1010894.JPG" width="400" /></a><br />
People liked it. I got nice comments from designers in Italy and other cool places. But it didn't work for me.<br />
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So, version No. 2. Painted it over with the Valspar "Honeymilk" color I was going to use for the trim, thinned down the gold glaze a little, and tried again.<br />
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This was popular on Instagram, too. I painted the trim, and even got my stencil cut and started my acanthus leaf border.<br />
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That took me to late April. I tried to like it, and it would have been really cool in a bigger space in a different house. But the bright yellow-gold made the red William Morris wallpaper in the living room look muddy. It just didn't play nicely with the rest of the downstairs. Aaaaghhh!!! <br />
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What-to-do, what-to-do? Well, back before that fateful night in 2013 when I snagged that mistinted gallon of Brilliant Metals Gold for $4.50 from the paint desk at Lowe's, I had always thought I'd paint my front room a pale green. I'd dropped that idea because I thought the dining room wallpaper had a greenish tint and two light green rooms would be too much. But on the wall the DR wallpaper doesn't look green in the least. So for the front room, maybe that color was back in the running.<br />
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Brought chips home and thought and compared and thought some more. Memorial Day, I picked up a gallon of Olympic One in Valspar "Lunar Tide." But I did nothing with it till the end of June. That's when I slapped a coat of primer on the yellow-gold and started over. The Lunar Tide went on in mid-July. <br />
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It looks a lot grayer in photos than it really is.<br />
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Lived with that for a month or so. It got along better than the yellow gold had done, but it lacked something. Depth, maybe. And just in time, I discovered that our Lowe's was selling off the quart jars of Rustoleum "Metallic Accents" glaze in Sea Shell for around $5.50. I'd looked at it when it was marked down to $22.97, but that was still too much. $5.50 I could manage, and I snagged a jar (should have grabbed both of them, but hindsight and all that).<br />
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And after experimenting a bit and three or four applications, this is what I came up with:<br />
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Didn't like the way I'd positioned the acanthus leaf border on the long section of wall, so I primed it over and did it again. It's a lot more balanced now.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkPHWO3AlzVRj0f9sIEwBHVXSZyo6KrvUpf9zPwbLEQonBz_TDP5cibp95sz7kj-hFJZWXSjLkq9rdxER1PovqTqt1ZeGa_ihNu66zLkcgN2hA69W-gNWcufnOK6eVbkTNoUB83LvCNlU/s1600/20170904_001437.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkPHWO3AlzVRj0f9sIEwBHVXSZyo6KrvUpf9zPwbLEQonBz_TDP5cibp95sz7kj-hFJZWXSjLkq9rdxER1PovqTqt1ZeGa_ihNu66zLkcgN2hA69W-gNWcufnOK6eVbkTNoUB83LvCNlU/s400/20170904_001437.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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And here's more or less what the room looks like today. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFILcVDd-9ySKTIW-X8sTChQWNenQkVwv32MM5VhHdigDbVdMwi5_l7gI-CCz6ERB5e5B9b8pw68hW4IkAg55Szh79yf0SW1zvt7oCfA5Qk_oFkeFVijFIQf924Li5QlR6HGnQAklIkjU/s1600/20170923_173152_Burst01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFILcVDd-9ySKTIW-X8sTChQWNenQkVwv32MM5VhHdigDbVdMwi5_l7gI-CCz6ERB5e5B9b8pw68hW4IkAg55Szh79yf0SW1zvt7oCfA5Qk_oFkeFVijFIQf924Li5QlR6HGnQAklIkjU/s400/20170923_173152_Burst01.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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It looks a lot better on the phone . . . <br />
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Anyway, that's the update. The reason I'm blogging about this now is a) guilt, and b) the fact that I was about to post a gripe about this project on a non-house-reno-related forum, and I thought, "Blast, girl, if you're going to spend time doing that, why not do it on the houseblog where someone might actually care?"<br />
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And here's my gripe: That the major, sexy parts of this job are done, and the tasks that are left are fiddling and tedious and inglorious and altogether necessary. Meaning I have to replace some little pieces of busted baseboard and shoe moulding. And install a floor outlet behind the piano. And clean the paint drips off the laminate floor.<br />
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And before any of that, I have ten windows to make new stop moulding for, which means twenty copes. And I hate cutting copes!<br />
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But using quarter round for window stops, coping and all, will be easier and safer than ripping 1-1/4" stop mould down to 5/8" wide. And it'll look cool. I'll paint it the same color as the cornice so it'll stand out, and once I get the old shutters stripped, I'll paint them the same color and hang 'em up in the front windows. Something like this:<br />
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But oh, heavens, I wish this project was done! Maybe now I've gotten this rant out of my system I'll go down and cut some 45-degree angles for the jambs. I got the head mouldings, all ten of them, measured out and cut the other day.<br />
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Begging your pardon if this post is a mess. I haven't the time to make it beautiful.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447600029746264926.post-54086554046987915732016-09-03T23:52:00.000-04:002016-09-04T21:21:29.163-04:00Starting Over Is Not an Option<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQVW-28G27ASnxUf3zZcrM2a7NG28tM7S2p373fY9MNqnva25_zD7A9oNrOf1nTQ5Og6z0ho0Pn_KkWmxO8Kby7GDmrB44bG1GozX6S8WvPTwYDPC2ixuBlQtj_af3WtPp2NdMgAhP-_E/s1600/P1010323.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQVW-28G27ASnxUf3zZcrM2a7NG28tM7S2p373fY9MNqnva25_zD7A9oNrOf1nTQ5Og6z0ho0Pn_KkWmxO8Kby7GDmrB44bG1GozX6S8WvPTwYDPC2ixuBlQtj_af3WtPp2NdMgAhP-_E/s400/P1010323.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">With one sealer coat only</td></tr>
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So today I'm tackling the shellac job on the inside face of my front door.<br />
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I hoped to be able to do it with the door hanging and not risk scratching the new finish on the exterior as I heave it on and off the sawhorses. But I couldn't keep the sealer coat from dripping as I brushed it on, no matter how careful I tried to be. About the fastest way to ruin a tinted shellac job is to let it get dripped on at any stage, and I had to give in and demount the door again.<br />
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And wasn't that the way I did the back door four years ago? Of course, that meant I <i>had</i> to sit down for a half hour or more reading 2012 entries in this blog to see if that was so. And if it was, how did I manage not to do any damage to the shellac job on the exterior? I distinctly remember having the door laid out on the sawhorses on the back porch, sanding the first coat of wine-red paint off the interior face because it didn't flow out. I'm pretty sure I had the outside done before that . . . or did I? Never found a post that told me what I wanted to know. But I sure managed to eat up a good chunk of time I could have been working on this project now.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggP4-QzuuoGe6j4SRBzThsw6ZPl1owPOGlDk4TreJTAgJ64UzhNKrZsq99GTx-ThoBIAhSi6RpGjxltUVSPQANm-u2Zadl0A6b7Rpy5WU4JxHU3iCvjFNZab-em8L1E6yngdCLFE8E5e0/s1600/P1010324.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggP4-QzuuoGe6j4SRBzThsw6ZPl1owPOGlDk4TreJTAgJ64UzhNKrZsq99GTx-ThoBIAhSi6RpGjxltUVSPQANm-u2Zadl0A6b7Rpy5WU4JxHU3iCvjFNZab-em8L1E6yngdCLFE8E5e0/s320/P1010324.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Old towels and painter's tape</td></tr>
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A little after 6:00 I faced the inevitable and gave the sawhorses some extra padding. I <i>think </i>I managed to manoeuvre the door onto them without destroying my previous work; I'll have to check in the daylight. But finally, I was getting something done.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-YEjI2QRnZGfZi5FVQot_za12XiJdIWe5nViq1Mrm1doXcNkOOLS9jVd9lbwsw1otlPCkwAJVUlBqJR4-t5HdFqKHyyfUPBpSbPDVQxV8ycegdfSLOM_4kDSL-en7pvy9OK0FAM7-J7w/s1600/P1010329.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-YEjI2QRnZGfZi5FVQot_za12XiJdIWe5nViq1Mrm1doXcNkOOLS9jVd9lbwsw1otlPCkwAJVUlBqJR4-t5HdFqKHyyfUPBpSbPDVQxV8ycegdfSLOM_4kDSL-en7pvy9OK0FAM7-J7w/s320/P1010329.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
. . . The nice thing about shellac is that for the first coats at least, you only have to wait fifteen minutes to a half hour for it to dry. But here it is nearly midnight, and I'm nowhere near the six or seven coats I hoped to lay down today. No, I'm sitting writing this entry while waiting for the fourth coat of shellac to harden up, and the cold night air (59ĚŠ F) is wafting in through the open windows and the screen door and freezing me out. It would have been really nice if I'd gotten this door face done for good and all, but I'm falling asleep over the laptop and I don't see it happening.<br />
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I should probably wait for daylight to continue, anyway. I put way too much mahogany dye in too-thin a mixture of the Kusmi #1 button lac I dissolved yesterday, and this fresh batch of dye is stronger than what I used on the outside of the door. So with only two coats of tinted shellac and two of clear, the inside of the door is already darker than I planned it to be. (It took nine coats on the exterior to get the same tone.)<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7tKNivPmHo5Iy6_gCAsrE3ZWml55nIPvXZlNiE20Kzmu3ncyTTLx4d4RSlO_3Zh65t4fCxJStYqgSYy96BCp74-l7U_JtyBgq0cnNRY1QkmhURPVd4wUxeD50Y8lDmOAjQBNkjbkMlNo/s1600/P1010328.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7tKNivPmHo5Iy6_gCAsrE3ZWml55nIPvXZlNiE20Kzmu3ncyTTLx4d4RSlO_3Zh65t4fCxJStYqgSYy96BCp74-l7U_JtyBgq0cnNRY1QkmhURPVd4wUxeD50Y8lDmOAjQBNkjbkMlNo/s320/P1010328.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is what happens when<br />
your shellac is too dark<br />
and too thin</td></tr>
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And the topmost panel is all blotchy, and I can't depend on more coats of tinted shellac to even it out. Carp, carp, carp.<br />
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Not sure what I'm going to do to solve it. Starting over is not an option.<br />
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ADDENDUM: Around 12:30 AM I gave in to reality and rehung the door and called it a night. I'll look at it tomorrow after church and if that panel is still as ugly as I think it is now, I may have at it with the orbital sander and try again. But that panel only. I don't have the shellac on hand for a complete redo.<br />
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But I'm wondering what it would have looked like had I not tinted the shellac at all. Too late now.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447600029746264926.post-73495005532005714502016-08-09T12:40:00.000-04:002016-08-10T13:01:58.859-04:00Eating the ElephantLast January when I generated my "To Do in 2016" list I broke each project down by task, however small. (What is it they say about eating the elephant bite by bite?)<br />
<br />
But now that I'm in the throes of redoing my front room, I find I left some obvious steps out. Other steps that I had rejected I've put back in, and there are tasks to complete that I had no idea about seven months ago.<br />
<br />
Beginning with something that <i>was </i>always on the list:<br />
<ul>
<li>As much as it goes against my conscience, I'm going to paint the woodwork in the front room. </li>
</ul>
Yes, even after I've stripped it. In that room the old dark woodwork is depressingly heavy, not elegant. It's a sun room, really, with ten windows plus the glass in the door. It should be fresh and full of light. I'd thought of reshellacking the trim a paler shade, but it'd be too similar to the gold-toned wall paint I have in mind. And now that I've worked at it for awhile, I know it'd take way more time and effort and wood refinisher to clean up that woodwork than I physically have. So despite the inner voice whispering that it's immoral to paint over old woodwork, that's what I will do.<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>I ended up stripping the paint off the exterior door frame.</li>
</ul>
Why on earth didn't I realize I was going to have to do that? That's what happened four years ago when I redid the back entry door, only that time it was from the outdoors in. I mean, just try aiming the heatgun at the inner woodwork only, and not have the outer trim paint start to bubble and swell.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The great thing is that it came off beautifully. Seven or eight hours straight I put into that, totally on a roll. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And joy of joys, while doing the exterior I found the possible answer to a question that's been nagging me for years. In some future, dreamlike time when I have the money, I'd like to replace the 1980s-vintage aluminum windows. But, I wondered, did the Previous Owners Minus One leave the original brickmould hiding under the metal trim, or did they pry it off and throw it away? Brickmould is scary expensive. I found that out when I had to buy new to go around the renovated back door.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But there above my front door, until now overlooked, I discovered the original brickmould. And it continues under the metal cladding on each side; they didn't cut it off. If it still exists there, isn't that a good sign it's still there everywhere else?<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>I told myself I wasn't going to demount any of the front room woodwork to strip it. </li>
</ul>
I changed my mind on that when I saw how difficult it was going to be to clean up the lintel above the front door and sidelights. And realized how much easier it will be to strip the muntin casings to the left and right of the door while they're down.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I may pull down the muntin casings on the front and west sides as well. Since I'm painting the woodwork the cracks don't have to be as clean as if I were shellacking. But if it's too gross in there, they'll likely come down, too.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I can't demount the side casings--- the POs-1 covered the plaster with 1/2" drywall and the wall surface is nearly flush with the trim. Try getting those casings off without destroying the wall!<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>As I noticed when I took down the door lintel, I've got a job ahead of me with drywall tape and spackle before I can paint. </li>
</ul>
As in the kitchen, it looks like they used wallpaper in lieu of drywall tape. Fortunately I've got tape and joint compound. Or I do, if the latter hasn't gone moldy.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>I'm also going to have to retape the joints in the ceiling, and paint over the repair.</li>
</ul>
I don't know what the ceiling was like after they converted the porch back in 1932 or so. Beadboard, maybe? But my POs-1 put up sheetrock, and the joints are a mess. (Funny how for years you don't notice things . . . ) I have to take care of it before I paint.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I'll try to pull off a sample of the old ceiling paint and match it on our laser scanner at the store. I'd rather get a quart to match instead of having to repaint the whole darn thing.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>I'm going to wait to prime until I have the wallpaper stripped and any holes in the drywall patched.</li>
</ul>
I mean, why not? It'll be the same primer for everything, so why not do it all at once?</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447600029746264926.post-80233826174772579832016-08-08T15:04:00.000-04:002016-08-10T11:37:54.545-04:00Getting into GearSee this? <br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkcteu24slxkQsSqNQ7c2huKrqnigMg0698sYwAo8zSC1dPR4T6Xmfm5id-3MYO-AvMvqdmtOK4UyJ4jra6fveGpWRKNm4Y8bw7WZiSK8ZrTx7FyQxP2ScBxpxQlnN8oIOREv1LGlPe8c/s1600/P1030011.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkcteu24slxkQsSqNQ7c2huKrqnigMg0698sYwAo8zSC1dPR4T6Xmfm5id-3MYO-AvMvqdmtOK4UyJ4jra6fveGpWRKNm4Y8bw7WZiSK8ZrTx7FyQxP2ScBxpxQlnN8oIOREv1LGlPe8c/s400/P1030011.JPG" width="300" /></a></div>
That's my pretty Christmas tree from last December. That's also the ugly front room it's standing in. That room's been ugly for years, and in a flurry of planning and resolution-making in January I determined that by this coming Yuletide it will be redone.<br />
<br />
But with twelve or twenty other projects to pursue and with my limited spare time during the school year, nothing was going to get done on the front room until summer.<br />
<br />
Summer came, and other projects still took priority. Nagging, guilt-inducing-if-I-didn't-do-them projects. Besides, I had three long, lazy, open months ahead of me. There was plenty of time for the front room.<br />
<br />
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But early in the morning the 24th of June I got bored of doing accounts and sorting paperwork. I rebelled. I fetched the heatgun, the scrapers, and my leather gloves up from the basement and had at the stubborn, stuck paint on the sidelight to the left of the front door. The light was bad and I only scraped a little, but it was something.<br />
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The next afternoon I carried on with something even more rewarding--- stripping the paint off the outside of the front door. <br />
<br />
I guess that puts me past the point of no return, since I can't have a bare door once the fall rains come.<br />
<br />
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The 4th of July, I had at it again, and made good progress before time to go to work that evening. <br />
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Lovely, the way the old paint came off in ribbons under the 1200 watt heat.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Still, I had a boatload of other, crucial, non-house projects to finish. And I intend to self-publish my first novel by the end of this month, and had to get busy starting my little publishing company to do it properly. Then the linkage on the gear shift on my car went out and I had to replace the bushings (yeah, did it myself, with a neighbor's help). And the garden needed worked on. And the yard kept needing mowed, which takes forever with a corded mower. And I lost a day reporting for jury duty. Then came the scare with the refrigerator freezer. And now one or more of my cats has decided they'd rather pee on plastic bags, shoes, rags, or even the bare floor more than in the litter box, meaning I'm playing constant catch-up trying to get rid of the stink. And so forth and so on.</div>
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As I said in my last point, the end of July I got fed up with not being able to get the refrigerator cabinet down and marched in and stripped the rest of the outside of the front door. Got a little more done on the inside trim the next day.<br />
<br />
And there the project sat . . . until I dropped by the Walmart one night after my shift at the Big Blue Box Store. I ran into a gaggle of my students--- that is, some kids I sub teach for--- and they greeted me enthusiastically.<br />
<br />
I didn't recall any of their names (Sadly, I never can. There are too many of them). To get past the awkwardness I asked:<br />
<br />
"So, when does school start?"<br />
<br />
"In three weeks."<br />
<br />
Three weeks!!!??? Where did the summer go!? Panic! Hurry! Run and get myself in gear! Quick, get things done!<br />
<br />
Which I have. It's a "good" time to do it, as my hours at the store have been cut to three nights a week. I truly took advantage of that last Wednesday, and I plan to tell you All About It. But if I spend any more time today working on this blog I <i>won't </i>get any house renovation done.<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447600029746264926.post-51677696961401968722016-08-07T22:46:00.000-04:002016-08-08T14:26:30.264-04:00Stuck<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1Beue4JY4LgQOkFY4rCrOiARZei-f74uuurae-MYa2U8Bz5396OxnvLiO8PTmzqQR4R53jeTE5TYy5X8HBN2xtosz4zknMC5WUhs0ZYzoUfEwn__s2Lkx0vmxZmeoTDLvveLLfS2u0BE/s1600/P1010090.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1Beue4JY4LgQOkFY4rCrOiARZei-f74uuurae-MYa2U8Bz5396OxnvLiO8PTmzqQR4R53jeTE5TYy5X8HBN2xtosz4zknMC5WUhs0ZYzoUfEwn__s2Lkx0vmxZmeoTDLvveLLfS2u0BE/s200/P1010090.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not a rummage sale</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
So what <i>are</i> all my platters, teapots, vases, and so on doing piled on my dining room table?<br />
<br />
Not sitting in the cabinet over the refrigerator, that's what.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkKWbb-KMSVrjEY7xziQXd-oCvoXBAQTyW7zXoc-G4Z_6RHiVP3gkvi1nwcUtVRxiZqR4uiJIL-Z1Fi52pxxb82r2J5cbHkFkGOTLwZqAswkdV5AKMVcVnJLKj0v22BHXSMDx8TIWaVWk/s1600/20151009_094721-001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkKWbb-KMSVrjEY7xziQXd-oCvoXBAQTyW7zXoc-G4Z_6RHiVP3gkvi1nwcUtVRxiZqR4uiJIL-Z1Fi52pxxb82r2J5cbHkFkGOTLwZqAswkdV5AKMVcVnJLKj0v22BHXSMDx8TIWaVWk/s400/20151009_094721-001.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Just one problem . . .</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Last September I acquired a new Frigidaire french door refrigerator. Well, not "new," exactly: it was a returned-and-refurbished model from the Big Blue Box Store, marked down to where I could consider it, then further marked down for me, as an employee, to a figure where I could actually buy it. Yay. <br />
<br />
But in my enthusiasm at finally finding an affordable white french door refrigerator, in my rapture at getting rid of the inefficient 1997 side-by-side model that was in the house when I moved in, I never thought to measure how tall the thing was in relation to the existing over-fridge cabinet.<br />
<br />
It fits in the space, yeah. With maybe a half inch at the top to spare. But the doors and so on at the top front of that new Frigidaire are 1-1/2 to 2 inches higher than those on the old one. And it wasn't until the installers were gone that I noticed that I couldn't get the platter, teapot, vase, etc., cabinet open. And try as I might, I couldn't roll the refrigerator out to do anything about it.<br />
<br />
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Well. There was a leak in my old icemaker supply line that prevented the BBBS installers from hooking up the water when they were here in early October.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtXCI3inI7BHGNF959g2LsLizNsezRChqqE5xg7CPwcRrEqeSRlnV3q0V3xkJ3a_-Z8H_U0PvDIbAP1pGdVqXORc-Xj8GeEsOiNSDeQk_jWbK9JQ8owfI9XFbPg9fHmCpT_7e5TdpvFBU/s1600/20151021_000053.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="120" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtXCI3inI7BHGNF959g2LsLizNsezRChqqE5xg7CPwcRrEqeSRlnV3q0V3xkJ3a_-Z8H_U0PvDIbAP1pGdVqXORc-Xj8GeEsOiNSDeQk_jWbK9JQ8owfI9XFbPg9fHmCpT_7e5TdpvFBU/s200/20151021_000053.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Push fitting to the rescue,<br />
because I can't solder pipes,<br />
and saddle valves leak</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I fixed that myself later that month, thanks to a push fitting (and I guess I could have blogged about that, right?). But it wasn't till mid-December, after one of the store assistant managers put his foot down, that the installers came back to attach the new icemaker supply line. I still had to hook it up to the<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6rmSXRCcDTaXJXTiEOqoOS8h_vBu_2AdEkUgjiVMZ1H6oJLc9EkMTjxLS2j2IYA-0Uemjn3yPvyLY0_UzJoOWI9e9i6xQJr2lrJjlKEdQ-VXhyphenhyphenWDQkFEJwaoe8fxZ6eKtZTdIsdmZWX8/s1600/1450544360017.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6rmSXRCcDTaXJXTiEOqoOS8h_vBu_2AdEkUgjiVMZ1H6oJLc9EkMTjxLS2j2IYA-0Uemjn3yPvyLY0_UzJoOWI9e9i6xQJr2lrJjlKEdQ-VXhyphenhyphenWDQkFEJwaoe8fxZ6eKtZTdIsdmZWX8/s200/1450544360017.jpg" width="120" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bad photo,<br />
good connection</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
pipe in the basement myself, but at least I was able to catch the guys before they left so I could take the doors off the cabinet and get access to my crockery.<br />
<br />
And thus it remained till a couple weeks ago.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaR7t4U91VStK1Ez69SzK8OGVQ3Vdjb-BNAxLTPvVf_nsQU0_MQrh40-v71Ivp1uOrQ6fLNyR5v64a9hWvcqLfBBilcLYV6A0hEBYELbjA6MArS6-_Si8qVtRnaeEVHXZPlkaRdATR4uY/s1600/P1010086.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaR7t4U91VStK1Ez69SzK8OGVQ3Vdjb-BNAxLTPvVf_nsQU0_MQrh40-v71Ivp1uOrQ6fLNyR5v64a9hWvcqLfBBilcLYV6A0hEBYELbjA6MArS6-_Si8qVtRnaeEVHXZPlkaRdATR4uY/s320/P1010086.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
No, that's not exactly true. Once I saw the problem I began to think of ways to solve it. Buy a new, taller fridge cabinet? Too expensive, and it wouldn't match the existing. Shorten the doors on the one I have? They're plastic-clad, and they wouldn't cut off neatly at all. Piece on something at the bottom of the existing cabinet to raise it higher? How is that going to be structurally sound?<br />
<br />
Best solution: Buy new plywood panels for the sides, cut them to fit to make the whole cabinet a couple-three inches taller, and attach the existing over-fridge cabinet to them. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGEOhPOygWi70kLQhCl8DeN7AV6JNzuDDTdWoVCHKkBqHePPs4WergEihH6OFF1jrXtNiat9Cfr-4kzDMt57uWDhEA3n0ikTJ-veM2rLpRx8jpfUJUO0d3uwrTI956BNdOCeCzqy8JDdE/s1600/P1010087.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGEOhPOygWi70kLQhCl8DeN7AV6JNzuDDTdWoVCHKkBqHePPs4WergEihH6OFF1jrXtNiat9Cfr-4kzDMt57uWDhEA3n0ikTJ-veM2rLpRx8jpfUJUO0d3uwrTI956BNdOCeCzqy8JDdE/s320/P1010087.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ne'er more shall they meet</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Only weakness in this plan is that there'll be a gap in the cornice where the fridge cabinet now meets the pantry, but I can deal with that later.<br />
<br />
I have the plywood, 1/2" pre-primed finish grade birch. Got it half price last December, when we BBBS employees have our holiday double discount. But I've done nothing with it, because I Still Couldn't Roll the Refrigerator Out! And I was convinced I had to have it out before I could start this project at all.<br />
<br />
Fast forward to last month. I was having trouble with the freezer. Such bad trouble I had to take all my freezer food to my friend *Frieda's to keep for me. Repair guy came out (on warranty, thank God), and discovered the wire basket in the freezer was sitting crooked and was keeping the drawer from closing entirely. Basket realigned properly, ice build-up cleaned out, all is well.<br />
<br />
But before he came, I'm thinking, maybe he'll have to get behind the unit to fix it. Maybe it'd make easier access in my narrow kitchen if the fridge cabinet were down, at least on the lefthand side. It also dawned on me that it would actually be <i>easier </i>to get that upper platter, teapot, vase, etc., cabinet off the wall if I could set it down on the top of the refrigerator once the wall screws were out. [In fact, it hits me just now, why shouldn't I just leave it there on top of the fridge until time to reattach it to the new tall cabinet sides?]<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRQNKfO9kl7diut01RbU_WdKYjP7kojzdMnI6hjNPqiNnOJ7a9tZhGtPmBDZZQ682cOVYVxl1j0b1niwdslBbv16cloUGMQRANXii-lBj6TBs8zLUNo5s-IjZh-gidmTvqHWGeozLzxLk/s1600/P1010098.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRQNKfO9kl7diut01RbU_WdKYjP7kojzdMnI6hjNPqiNnOJ7a9tZhGtPmBDZZQ682cOVYVxl1j0b1niwdslBbv16cloUGMQRANXii-lBj6TBs8zLUNo5s-IjZh-gidmTvqHWGeozLzxLk/s320/P1010098.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ghost of wallpaper past</td></tr>
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So I cleared out the crockery. Moved out the pie safe. Knocked the cornice moulding off and set it aside. Brought the filthy bowls and things down off the top of the cabinet. And dusted and brought down the even filthier pieces of shelving I keep up there so the bowls and things don't get lost behind the cornice moulding.<br />
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The repair guy didn't need to get to the back of the refrigerator. Never mind. I had received the impetus I needed to start this project and was now ready to demount the upper cabinet. I undid the screw that ran through some blocking into the lefthand side of the tall cabinet. I readied my trusty ratchet screwdriver to do the old lefty-loosy to the two big screws that attach the upper cabinet to the wall. Annnnnnnd . . .<br />
<br />
Nothing. Stuck. Next day, I tried it with my power drill on reverse setting. Still nothing. Bit just popped out. Drenched those screws with PB B'laster until the kitchen stank. Still nothing. Stuck, stuck, stuckity-stuck.<br />
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I said to heck with it and went and focussed on the front door woodwork instead.<br />
<br />
I need either A Strong(er) Person or a more powerful drill/driver. Or else some way to drill those screws out. But right now my ladder is in the front room, and it's staying there until the work in there is done. I have plastic over the doorway to the hall to keep paint stripper off my stairhall woodwork, the living room is full of furniture from the front room, so I can't bring the ladder back into the kitchen and try anything right now.<br />
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Oh, I could fetch the wooden ladder up from the basement . . .<br />
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Hush. I'll live with the crockery on the dining room table awhile longer.<br />
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EDIT: This morning (8/8/16) I recalled something about the icemaker line business that I guess I'd been happy to forget. And that's that last fall, between the first week in October, when the delivery guys installed the new refrigerator, to mid-December, when they returned to hook up the new icemaker line, I had no--- I repeat--- no cold water to my upstairs bathroom.<br />
<br />
Yeah. The existing saddle valve apparently had been stuck open for years. I had no idea. Since the icemaker stopped working in 2008 or 2009, I assumed the water supply was off. But as soon as they disconnected the vinyl hose from the old fridge, boy, did the water spurt! The older installer handed me the line to put my thumb over the end, and tried to turn off the saddle valve in the basement. But it failed at the first good turn. Only solution: to close the branch valve in the pipe that feeds the icemaker. Immediate crisis halted, but it also halted the flow of cold water to my main bathroom.<br />
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So, for two and a half months, for my morning drink I had to snatch the coolish water from the hot side before it warmed up, or bring up a glass of water the night before and have it waiting. Washing my face was a delicately-timed process, as I got the washcloth under the tap just enough so it wouldn't get too scalding. I went farmhouse style flushing the toilet, keeping a bucket in the bathtub and dumping a couple gallons of lukewarm water in the potty every three or four uses. <br />
<br />
The installers could have come back any time after I got the push fitting in and bought the new copper line, and several times they were supposed to . . . on a "they'll stop by when they're in the neighborhood" basis. But manpower is limited at the BBBS, and as an employee I was pushed repeatedly to the back of the line. It wasn't till the ASM actually put me on the installation schedule that I got results.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447600029746264926.post-4391067511589995812016-08-07T04:21:00.002-04:002016-08-07T20:32:08.217-04:00Obliging My FanbaseThere has been a Great Clamour from teh Interwebz that I should update the houseblog. OK, it was one friend on Facebook. But yes, I am hip-deep in a project or two that warrants recording.<br />
<br />
But I'm viewing that last post from November 2014 and thinking how pathetic that wallpaper photo looks, with the final piece not trimmed at the cornice, and it's only right I should post something showing how the dining room came out once the trim was back up.<br />
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This isn't such a great photo, either. It was taken with my cellphone camera, which doesn't have a wide angle setting. But it should give some idea.<br />
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This is from this past January, and shows the new curtain rod that will hold the sheers--- once I get them sewn together and hemmed. I bought them on clearance from the Big Blue Box Store maybe two years ago, and it turned out that the pattern on the lace panels doesn't align. Never mind: it wasn't that far off and they needed shortened anyway.<br />
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Here's a better view of the curtain rod:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaZPf8SUBty2h6kqkjc6JDW0Fzy8xy1gCqmyLq9POqQjU9Ek4AfgBHfAAtD558VbQc95VtUC3bZdUDGZrDyaHKsMXB23Gg5Z3tRe0ufYbJSiHqPagfg10g7Azew_qYGDeSWlD0KiL16AA/s1600/P1030059-001.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaZPf8SUBty2h6kqkjc6JDW0Fzy8xy1gCqmyLq9POqQjU9Ek4AfgBHfAAtD558VbQc95VtUC3bZdUDGZrDyaHKsMXB23Gg5Z3tRe0ufYbJSiHqPagfg10g7Azew_qYGDeSWlD0KiL16AA/s320/P1030059-001.JPG" width="216" /></a></div>
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It's actually a piece of copper tubing I spray-painted bronze and capped. The brackets I appropriated from the actual drapery rod, since it needs ones with a greater projection to clear the lintel and its cornice. <br />
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I'd hoped to get the sheers altered and up by now, but stuff happens.<br />
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But that's not what you're here for, is it? Bigger things are going on, but that will have to wait. There is such a thing as sleep, after all.<br />
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EDIT: Here's a recent photo of the dining room, with the trim up, in the daytime.<br />
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On the table you see the evidence of the "or two" project I referred to above. But I'm saving that for later.<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447600029746264926.post-64391943821879217902014-11-28T14:54:00.000-05:002014-12-19T21:59:13.531-05:00Believe It or NotI've been neglecting the blog, but not the house.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Last strip, up but not trimmed</td></tr>
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The William Morris wallpaper in the dining room is up. Can you believe it? As of last Sunday night, after a good-- how many? seven? weeks of working on it.<br />
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It wasn't procrastination that made me take so long, it was waiting until I had an extra pair of hands available. I did a lot of it myself, but some places I simply needed a helper.<br />
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Especially for the corners. I didn't like the way my previous method for turning them was eating up so much pattern. I found this method on <i>YouTube</i> and decided to try it.<br />
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I succeeded at the first one, in the northeast corner-- eventually. But not after having the piece going onto the adjacent wall (all 5" of it) flop down on my head, onto the steps of the ladder, get stepped on, dirty, cat-haired . . . miracle it wasn't trashed. I cleaned it up, repasted it, and got it on the wall, but after that experiment I decided no more corners until I had help.<br />
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That came in the form of my friend Lizzie*. Between my work schedule and hers it would run two or three weeks between the times she could come and help. And as the video says, the method takes time. Lizzie and I were lucky if we could pull a corner turn off in an hour. <br />
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My walls are screamingly old and out of square and going around corners there was often a goodish amount I had to trim out of the piece going onto the adjacent wall. At the top, especially. That wasn't fun. I was afraid to use the X-Acto knife to trim it (as the paperhanger in the vid does at 11:00 min.) because I was afraid I'd cut through both layers. Instead I'd crease it with my thumbnail to give me a guideline for my scissors. The worklight doesn't cooperate at such times. It washes out the shadows and with my lousy eyesight the cutting was often hit-or-miss. Still, at eye level the pattern looks pretty darn continuous and matched.<br />
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The scissors method doesn't work in the dead corner (southeast, in this room). There I sucked up my courage and used the craft knife to trim the last piece in the corner. Gently, gently . . . <i>almost </i>managed to do the whole cut without piercing through the bottom layer. Almost. Of course it had to be about six feet up, where the bookcase won't cover it. Trimmed an eensy piece of wallpaper and shoved it into the inch-long slot, to bring the top piece out and eliminate the shadow. It worked; at least, I have to be looking for it to find it.<br />
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It was a toss up as to whether a given whole strip would go up peaceably or fight me all the way. The one after the turn around the northwest corner took Lizzie and me a good hour, just to get it matched. Not sure why. We blamed the settling of the house and let it go at that.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dead corner, done and trimmed</td></tr>
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Time and again the hanging got precarious. Too bad: trashing a strip and starting over with a new one was not an option. But this Britpulp is thick and pretty forgiving; you can even smooth down minor tears (not that I had more than one) so they're not obvious. In the end, I came out with a whole full strip to spare. Would have had a full, unopened roll had I given more thought to the cutting at the start, but them's the breaks.<br />
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Since it takes me so blinking long to hang a strip I've had to cope with popped seams here and there. That's where an artist's detail brush comes in handy. I gently lift the loose edge, poke in some wheat paste, wait five minutes, poke in some more, wait another five minutes (normal relaxing and booking time for a Britpulp paper like mine), then gently smooth it down with a clean, just-damp sponge.<br />
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All in all I think the installation looks good. I'm no pro but I'm getting better. Full strips matched up nicely with partial strips above and below windows, and in the dead corner the pattern's only off by a half inch (compare that to nearly an inch and a half in the living room). Except for a couple of unobtrusive places I don't have any overlaps, and there they face away from the light so you have to run your fingers over them to detect them.<br />
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So now, at last, it's finished. I wish I could post better pictures. The "Savernake" pattern's so subtle it's impossible to catch on camera. But the color turns out to be fine. It changes depending on the time of day and the light, from cream, to yellowish, to off-white, to palest green, but never does it bellow "<i>Celery green!!!" </i>And the pattern makes the room look bigger.<br />
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I've been shellacking and remounting the dining room window trim as the pertinent walls get papered, but that's another post. <br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447600029746264926.post-86347829581039660202014-10-08T15:30:00.000-04:002014-10-09T15:59:57.538-04:00Precipitous<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Early this morning I got to thinking, maybe I <i>can</i> do this wallpaper hanging by myself. I got the long strips of horizontal blankstock on the wall successfully, why not the vertical wallpaper? And if I wait till next week when my friend Hannah* might be able to assist, the latest batch of wheat paste will probably go bad, even if I do have it in Tupperware in the refrigerator. I’ve wasted too much money already letting wheat paste go bad; I can’t afford to squander any more.<br />
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So after a long day of teaching and working at the Big Blue Box Store (and after only slightly more sleep than I’ve been making time for the past week or so), I launched in and tried it.<br />
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I think it came out fairly well. Not professional grade yet, but aligned, on the wall, with no tears or rips or bubbles to poke. I hung three sheets in all; well, two full-length ones and one split in two above and below the righthand north window.<br />
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Some of the seams are excellent, if I say so myself. You really have to look for them to find them. Others I tented a little too much, and though the strips don’t actually overlap, today you can still see the line between them and feel the protrusion. The most worrisome is the one at the bottom of the wall where I have a slight gap. It couldn’t be helped, not by me at my present level of ability: It’s a function of the curve of the brick and plaster wall. A pro would be able to stretch the paper just the right way to close that up. Me, I’m hoping the baseboard covers most or all of it.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinxno_CJDP77F00lAG1Zv1yJlxvV76qU8hXc_996S-NnngvJ46gYUIlBzlOPweNXZDaCAPJMn0NF55JqxcjJNWNHSUjn5YPMh0acCsMbx3_aWjSy9KhnOWhYC9MrxILcUpv_wFGdLrQqE/s1600/P1010138.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinxno_CJDP77F00lAG1Zv1yJlxvV76qU8hXc_996S-NnngvJ46gYUIlBzlOPweNXZDaCAPJMn0NF55JqxcjJNWNHSUjn5YPMh0acCsMbx3_aWjSy9KhnOWhYC9MrxILcUpv_wFGdLrQqE/s1600/P1010138.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
The biggest problem is keeping the edges of the strips wet enough with paste so the seams get stuck down. Or maybe I’m waiting too long to roll them? I looked up Robert Kelly’s <a href="http://www.paper-hangings.com/blankstock_301.html" target="_blank">report on seam cycles</a> and he says 11 to 12 minutes for a Britpulp machine print like my “Savernake.” But is that from the time you begin to apply the paste or from the time you get the abutting strip on the wall?<br />
<br />
I could email him and ask, I suppose . . .<br />
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I’m glad I recut to adjust the pattern. Now the heaviest elements will be balanced, top to bottom. The way I had it at first would have spelled aesthetic disaster.<br />
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As for the color, I think it will be all right. I really do. Lying on the table or juxtaposed next to the pinky-manila-toned blankstock, the strips look very green. But together, as a field on the wall, it eases out and goes more brown and neutral.<br />
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Beige? Heaven forbid!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447600029746264926.post-69834363664853730302014-10-05T23:30:00.000-04:002014-10-06T20:40:39.150-04:00Still Waiting<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQEUvk5Vk3MP9aEvJIq9nkHTTl3SvGMIGi0mPK8VwwCPdjFubmojttskXr8rtOLUNo4FtTT4zArByoZ80Uh4Xw-X48HNzwqL-WxZqboF07jBnxWnoj7OCcnSzjS1BEuNmsgv1zYLtM2Dg/s1600/P1010131.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQEUvk5Vk3MP9aEvJIq9nkHTTl3SvGMIGi0mPK8VwwCPdjFubmojttskXr8rtOLUNo4FtTT4zArByoZ80Uh4Xw-X48HNzwqL-WxZqboF07jBnxWnoj7OCcnSzjS1BEuNmsgv1zYLtM2Dg/s1600/P1010131.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
It’s Sunday night, and no dining room wallpaper is up. <br />
<br />
Yes, Lizzie* came over yesterday. But I didn’t get around to sizing the blankstock will mid-afternoon. And whether it’s because I overthinned the paste or because it’s supposed to do that, the size bubbled the liner off the wall in several places. Watch Kate run around with a paste pot poking paste up behind loose seams! See her slit long bubbles with an X-Acto knife and dab paste into them!<br />
<br />
In the end, after we’d had pizza and talked and she’d gone home, the liner dried and the bubbles went down smooth of their own accord. Of course then I was spending hours on the Internet trying to find out if they re-adhere as they dry. And trying to find photos of wallpaper literally falling off of walls, to determine what caused it.<br />
<br />
It will be all right, won’t it? I mean, that blankstock is definitely Up, isn’t it?<br />
<br />
Before supper Lizzie helped me find the center point between the two north windows and mark the vertical line I’ll butt the first strip of “Savernake” up against. Of course when I went back to check it later I found one or the other of us had let the straightedge slip and the cross point was marked 3/16" too far to the left. Either that, or the windows are so far out of square it throws everything off.<br />
<br />
Will I notice it if that’s the case? I want that strip to be centered as possible, since I usually sit at the end of the table opposite that wall. The way my previous-owners-two-back papered the room, starting at the southeast corner and working around so the seams fell where they might, the pattern sat five or six inches off center for ages.<br />
<br />
No more. Not if I can help it.<br />
<br />
I considered flying solo with the Morris paper this evening. But a distant cousin is letting me log in to Ancestry.com on his password so I can contribute to our mutual family tree, and well, when you’re breaking down long-standing brick walls, it’s easy to avoid papering the plaster-on-brick walls you stare at every day.<br />
<br />
Especially when you’re still a little scared.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447600029746264926.post-84700989123832572112014-10-04T03:30:00.000-04:002014-10-08T23:46:49.584-04:00Precarious<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSyeFhGuKdB1a9Eva31nMrKshE5XowSA0_-xaEB5_8jFdMfU4mukj2eQhXIxRCqTuqa7fqjJX-s4sn3oc1iNkYyPVP77uMU0e8u4GCpKAQ3EXOSzhuL4RAgHgMuJ7yRWoY7L4UGSaqyQA/s1600/P1010114.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSyeFhGuKdB1a9Eva31nMrKshE5XowSA0_-xaEB5_8jFdMfU4mukj2eQhXIxRCqTuqa7fqjJX-s4sn3oc1iNkYyPVP77uMU0e8u4GCpKAQ3EXOSzhuL4RAgHgMuJ7yRWoY7L4UGSaqyQA/s1600/P1010114.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
Please consider the usual apology for long silence made. Let me announce rather the wallpapering of the dining room is moving forward. (Pause for trumpets, or at least a kazoo). After literal years of contemplation, hesitation, and self-doubt; of picking at the old stuff and planning for the new; of stripping and scrubbing, prepping and priming, the walls as of early this (Friday) morning are finally lined with blankstock, sized, and ready for paper.<br />
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A big part of the hold-up has been getting extra pairs of hands to help. My friend Janet* from England aided me with hanging the stairhall paper (the Morris “Blackthorn” green) in the spring of 2012. My local friend Frieda* contributed mightily to my getting the living room paper (the Morris “Owen Jones” red) up the subsequent fall. But Janet's far away in Essex and Frieda's current work schedule sucks away nearly all her time, and there's something that shrivels up in me when I think of asking just anybody to help me with the house.<br />
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But a couple weeks ago a church friend I'm calling Lizzie* expressed herself willing to lend a hand. Or two. We were planning for her to come help put up blankstock the third Saturday in September-- until I got an emergency call to come work that day at the Big Blue Box Store. <br />
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We tried again last Monday the 29th. Together got five strips of blankstock up. Railroaded. Yaaaayyyy for us!<br />
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I won’t go into the convolutions that put us through; suffice it that I learned or was reminded of enough hanging technique that I was able over the next three days to hang the rest of it myself– even the 12' strips at the tops of the west and south walls. Without bubbles, wrinkles, or disasters. Unbelievable, but true.<br />
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Lizzie is coming again tomorrow afternnon (later today?) to help me hang the actual paper, the very William Morris & Co. “Savernake” No. WR8480/5, and you know what? I’m scared. <br />
<br />
Not scared of any part she might play in it, but of all the things that could go wrong, now I know that the stakes are so high. Didn’t I title one of my previous blog posts on the subject “On the Verge”? Yeah. On the verge, and hoping to God I don’t fall off.<br />
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What’s all this trepidation about? <br />
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Well, first, I dread I’ll get it all done and I won’t like it. I’m still kicking, kicking, kicking myself for not buying the paper back in 2004 when it was a) a lot cheaper, and b) produced in the creamy tone I really wanted. Having looked and looked it’s this Morris pattern or nothing, and the pale celery tone with the brownish figure isn’t bad for a dining room, and as greens go it’s the sort I like, but for a whole room it’s not really me.<br />
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I’m telling myself it will be all right once the drapes are up and the chairs reupholstered. I hope I’m right, but my gut tells me No.<br />
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And I’m scared I’ll run out of full strips of paper before I’m through. I was an idiot when I started cutting the strips for tomorrow and a) didn’t look hard enough at the pattern and correctly choose the cornice line, and b) when I wrote down the correct measurement of 8'-7" (including margin top and bottom) but for four whole strips I assiduously made the cut at 8'-5". Maybe the all-nighters I pulled hanging blankstock are catching up on me? Aaaggghhh!<br />
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The measuring error was a blessing of a perverse kind. It forced me to start over and recut. If I hadn’t, the pattern imbalance would have been noticeable, very. But by the time I discovered it I had only six and two-thirds whole double rolls left. Eyeballing the walls I conclude I need twenty full strips to cover them without horizontal seams. Twenty is exactly what I can get out of what I have left.<br />
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So what if I muck one of those full strips up? What if due to corner cuts I need one more?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4UQbRYAR1L-cYV1aWjgyZrazB0_c-P4TZTCT5EY6K9xqp2pX_4TqT-vqVKA0yhzvx4VqKs8BnAJRmEeoC2kjgqIr94K9lyeaRKVaTxrpaQKKr8xV7neAfsMcaosnxQicNmgCqar4GZgk/s1600/P1010123.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4UQbRYAR1L-cYV1aWjgyZrazB0_c-P4TZTCT5EY6K9xqp2pX_4TqT-vqVKA0yhzvx4VqKs8BnAJRmEeoC2kjgqIr94K9lyeaRKVaTxrpaQKKr8xV7neAfsMcaosnxQicNmgCqar4GZgk/s1600/P1010123.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a>Yeah, I know. Do a horizontal double-cut and splice in a piece at the bottom of the wall in a corner and stick the bookcase in front of it. But my pride suffers agonies at the thought.<br />
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<br />
And then I’m spooked by the paper itself. That stuff was running 18 quid a double roll back in 2003, around $33 at the time. I got it for £27; about $45 each, in 2009. You know what it’s going for now? Before shipping? A bleeding $98 a double roll! Mon Dieu, at that price it’s practically sacred! At that price I should have auctioned it off on eBay and paid my mortgage the next month and a half!<br />
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But I didn’t. Almost half of it is cut, and the rest will have to follow. And for better or worse, scared as I am of mucking up the job, it has to be hung.<br />
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I still need to size the blankstock. But that can wait till daylight. I stay up any later I’ll just add to my mistakes.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447600029746264926.post-37623844885809474622014-03-30T22:02:00.001-04:002014-03-30T22:02:38.294-04:00This Is What Is Known as "Existing Conditions"My big goal after prepping the dining room last month for wallpaper was simply to get all the bills and receipts and tax documents entered and sorted out so I could have a clean Study for the first time in months.<br />
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Have I achieved this?<br />
<br />
No.<br />
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I've been Writing, and obviously not on this blog.<br />
<br />
I've had the fiction writing bug for a few years, but not very seriously: ideas rattled around in my head but I seldom got around to writing any of it down. Kind of like a renovation project that always in the planning stages and never gets built.<br />
<br />
And then one day you finally get out the shovel and start digging, and who knows what you'll find. In my case I found writing obsession, broken by periods like the present one when I'm a little stuck and I'll mess around on the Internet for hours rather than do the work to push on through.<br />
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Last November I started a writer's blog where I could post my productions and moan and groan about the turmoils of an amateur fiction writer's life (what there is of it). I put it on <a href="http://thewritersits.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">WordPress</a> because for various reasons I didn't want my Google/Blogger name(s) St. Blogwen/Kate H. attached to it. But I have mixed feelings about WeirdPretzel (<a href="http://thewritersitsdown.blogspot.com/2014/03/blogger-vs-wordpress-duelling-blog.html" target="_blank">which I describe here</a>), so a week or so ago I started a doppelganger <a href="http://thewritersitsdown.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Blogger blog</a>, under a separate Google name and account.<br />
<br />
All right, now I've revealed all that here, my cover is blown. Obviously. Never mind, there's a method to my madness.<br />
<br />
Both blogs are named <i>The Writer Sits Down, </i>and you're invited to pop on over to your choice of platforms and see what my mind has been building while my power tools have been idle. The novel I'm presently revising is about two architects, so that's renovation related, correct??<br />
<br />
But speaking of DIYers and existing conditions, may I present this:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://live.huffingtonpost.com/r/archive/segment/human-remains-found-behind-home/5335a955fe344454c900002a?cn=tbla" target="_blank">"Human Remains Found Behind Home."</a><br />
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<i>That</i> is why contractors demand more money for Contingencies.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447600029746264926.post-79704206089665553512014-02-25T23:51:00.000-05:002014-02-25T23:56:53.373-05:00On the VergeBarring a ceiling I do <i>not </i>want to repaint, my dining room is ready for wallpaper.<br />
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<i>Yaaaayyyyyyy!!!! </i>from the peanut gallery.<br />
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This means in the past month I got the rest of the old paste off the walls.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUysmMHGl9_jbZPm7ulqFmKOVedcTE2emnjNZjiTir-nE8NmZWJo9NC1aAuXcu7gxtqY6PhRG5lI18tLarI1e5gUZkHZg3CBAb08CYuup5qm6yUwwVpFvQ0RSti1TII6osi36cbI8Ul5w/s1600/P1010954.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUysmMHGl9_jbZPm7ulqFmKOVedcTE2emnjNZjiTir-nE8NmZWJo9NC1aAuXcu7gxtqY6PhRG5lI18tLarI1e5gUZkHZg3CBAb08CYuup5qm6yUwwVpFvQ0RSti1TII6osi36cbI8Ul5w/s1600/P1010954.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Handy scraping tool</td></tr>
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<br />
And finished washing the yucky mill dirt off from behind the trim.<br />
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<br />
And used Gardz to stabilize the surface of the drywall on the wall between the dining room and the kitchen.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihSGk3MAi4qsp-8ViICE-dHh_jEHdBWzB6shIxNTf_SK4OO0pQ-ZR0vgn-qXtHJhIb8NFPaeSxFIR1DKeEJT0IksK4J6E1Amhss9yFXK9Oo-IxAvBTX8ZdOJgYj7ikFX8KjW8gCU_miSY/s1600/P1010996.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihSGk3MAi4qsp-8ViICE-dHh_jEHdBWzB6shIxNTf_SK4OO0pQ-ZR0vgn-qXtHJhIb8NFPaeSxFIR1DKeEJT0IksK4J6E1Amhss9yFXK9Oo-IxAvBTX8ZdOJgYj7ikFX8KjW8gCU_miSY/s1600/P1010996.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gardz = shiny</td></tr>
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<br />
And used the Big Wally's to close up a plaster crack over the "archway' to the living room. And to stabilize the plaster at the bottom of the left side of the north wall, and at the bottom edge of the west windows.<br />
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And spackled and sanded all the dents and holes and all that sort of thing. (Used joint compound, actually, it being what I had on hand.)<br />
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And took down the register cover and spray-painted it hammered bronze.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBR8CGUb3h_tuh0gfNwostMI03LVBg1SYyBOe1YFTsx0o-tcCyUlN99XEEYRayrdNpkucQjim1C1J9qoJ0MbrjtIn64VXhs2TqGVwd5RnLob9IdTBoDFqvu9TVnl38FSpUasV9_X5PTe8/s1600/P1020034.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBR8CGUb3h_tuh0gfNwostMI03LVBg1SYyBOe1YFTsx0o-tcCyUlN99XEEYRayrdNpkucQjim1C1J9qoJ0MbrjtIn64VXhs2TqGVwd5RnLob9IdTBoDFqvu9TVnl38FSpUasV9_X5PTe8/s1600/P1020034.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Before</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzgHsnNBq91gb9nO0Zlf8YzlKixCG5mPwT18hH-Bvo8BMBfislso1jJePOES43qA8ZkXKX2tVfJyxEHfnvG29jj4MsXOmIMil7WAOcRzK1LXp6rmk72SV_NtGh8swkM5pBB41jHJeGf0M/s1600/P1020036.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzgHsnNBq91gb9nO0Zlf8YzlKixCG5mPwT18hH-Bvo8BMBfislso1jJePOES43qA8ZkXKX2tVfJyxEHfnvG29jj4MsXOmIMil7WAOcRzK1LXp6rmk72SV_NtGh8swkM5pBB41jHJeGf0M/s1600/P1020036.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Screen wire cover, to keep the kittehs out of the ductwork</td></tr>
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<br />
And used paint and walnut-tinted shellac to fake a natural finish on the silly undersized cornice molding.<br />
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And shellacked the window jambs and heads where they'll be exposed once the trim is back up.<br />
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And primed the whole room (and was glad I had enough left to finish the job).<br />
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And touched up the perimeter of the ceiling with primer where the shellac got out of hand.<br />
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And did the Big Wally's on a couple of corners of the ceiling where I discovered it was sagging a litle when I was touching up the perimeter.<br />
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And spackled and sanded the holes left from that, and hope no one notices, since a big enough chip of the ceiling paint didn't stick to the Big Wally washers such that I can get a computer match at the Big Blue Box Store, and I do <i>not </i>want to paint the ceiling!!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbYWl4gzJvzXaJsjVmtSnTGv4T6glCSF0L_BP1SA921ZU5oB4f_mN5sQMotBvScLbHalVwEqLw3B41jpftCJ4E4s5Yg7RuQRJMyWQ2tvdbu43ZGqN-WVHds-RbtTHzI3dFQ0ZKNlfhvPM/s1600/P1020097.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbYWl4gzJvzXaJsjVmtSnTGv4T6glCSF0L_BP1SA921ZU5oB4f_mN5sQMotBvScLbHalVwEqLw3B41jpftCJ4E4s5Yg7RuQRJMyWQ2tvdbu43ZGqN-WVHds-RbtTHzI3dFQ0ZKNlfhvPM/s1600/P1020097.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Before sanding. Definitely.</td></tr>
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Of course it helps to have an excellent Inspector of Works.<br />
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Wallpapering, which will entail railroading blankstock under and hanging the good stuff on top, will have to wait until I can be sure of a second pair of hands. It's not a job I can do alone.<br />
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And yes, I'm pretty well reconciled to using the celery-green-tinged William Morris "Savernake" paper I have eight rolls of. Not like I can return it after five years. Or sell it on Ebay and replace it with another dye lot, the price has gone up so high. I'll deal with it. It should be fine.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447600029746264926.post-65115519023127112962014-01-23T14:45:00.000-05:002014-01-23T16:00:38.767-05:00Scraping Along<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy-9cqS0VNUxscDSyRD7c08CDkuD8Eho3WFmkRYKTW84lAlQykqyRLCYa4C7OGKn3y266c14mUt5vfFeuI8MfeXgl-S1YeWIXhB9dbMbgcgdsgi3_dn-923n6GGJ_NMfwE58ZgrfqCY5NH/s320/roman-strigil.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy-9cqS0VNUxscDSyRD7c08CDkuD8Eho3WFmkRYKTW84lAlQykqyRLCYa4C7OGKn3y266c14mUt5vfFeuI8MfeXgl-S1YeWIXhB9dbMbgcgdsgi3_dn-923n6GGJ_NMfwE58ZgrfqCY5NH/s320/roman-strigil.jpg.jpg" height="148" width="200" /></a></div>
What was the name of that instrument the Romans used to use to scrape the sweat and dirt off their bodies?<br />
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Oh, yeah, a strigil. Pretty effective tool, a strigil. If you didn't have soap and water, or if soap and water wouldn't do the job, a strigil was the tool for you.<br />
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But what's that got to do with preparing my dining room for repapering?<br />
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A lot.<br />
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Remember I said Monday that removing the old paste was a long, wet, messy, tedious job? Well, it is. And using only spray cleaner, a scrub brush, and an abrasive coated sponge, apparently an ineffective job, too.<br />
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I started on the east wall on Tuesday evening. That's the wall that's clad in drywall. Now, it's not like I've been working on this steadily since Sunday night. I have other things to take care of, like work and gearing up a new used laptop computer. I do what I can on the walls, and leave what I must for later.<br />
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Anyway, either I was deceiving myself on how well the old paste came off the plastered north wall, or it was thicker on the drywall or the drywall holds it more. I know I was scrubbing and scrubbing and it was still sticky and gooey. The Simple Green was not working. The brush and sponge just spread the goop around.<br />
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So, back to first principles. What is the time-honored way to loosen and dissolve old wallpaper paste? A 50-50 mix of vinegar and warm water, of course. And if the sponge is leaving the wet residue on the wall, well, time to start scraping.<br />
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Like with a strigil. Or in this case, a plastic wallpaper smoother.<br />
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Spray, spray, spray. Scrub, scrub, scrub. Scrape, scrape, scrape. Rinse, rinse, rinse. Wipe, wipe, wipe.<br />
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Oh, my. It's scary how much pasty glop accumulates on the edge of that scraper. Once, twice, three times I have to repeat the procedure on each yard-square area of the wall, before I can even begin to fool myself into thinking it's no longer sticky and the paste is gone.<br />
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I'm still working on that one east wall with the drywall. I'm barely half done with the room, if that. And if I have to go back and redo (scrape) the walls I already have done, I'll wish I had a few of those sweaty Romans around to help me out, strigils and all. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447600029746264926.post-20011177558783046132014-01-20T22:08:00.000-05:002014-01-20T22:08:21.645-05:00Well, That's DoneBy which I mean the dining room wallpaper stripping, as of around 11:30 last night.
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisC_Y9ykoe7o3XQoh708tizrMbH2c-OUMTbEWRmlT7_CTdU-rbzzuN3KP4oEI12OY65BgUgMYSUP_lV4n_MqcokVmWRQRgAs2ChGQAZR3ZuN_SXN-UYbpD_2Om2rXfRpGfMIQ9LNt3evw/s1600/P1010893.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisC_Y9ykoe7o3XQoh708tizrMbH2c-OUMTbEWRmlT7_CTdU-rbzzuN3KP4oEI12OY65BgUgMYSUP_lV4n_MqcokVmWRQRgAs2ChGQAZR3ZuN_SXN-UYbpD_2Om2rXfRpGfMIQ9LNt3evw/s1600/P1010893.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
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Went on and scrubbed the mill dirt off the plaster around some of the windows, too. That and general cleaning to remove the old paste and any remaining bits of wallpaper backing will go on for a bit, as it's a long, wet, filthy, tedious job. If one <i>could </i>enchant a broom into bringing endless buckets of clean water (Ă la <i>The Sorcerer's Apprentice</i>), it'd be tempting to consider making it happen.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSzHM3mYkm94UfrLIaXB-rpXOlXrMXQ3vwhWF9IpOKo_09rw_halStHQbDXj78qoHUyOJ_otpoD-GfNYhfDF0TSbgBLK9M2t5H2PhScJeiIDkQLAoKjFfUvPQKnWR9tPR25eYuAgQ26Bs/s1600/P1010896.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSzHM3mYkm94UfrLIaXB-rpXOlXrMXQ3vwhWF9IpOKo_09rw_halStHQbDXj78qoHUyOJ_otpoD-GfNYhfDF0TSbgBLK9M2t5H2PhScJeiIDkQLAoKjFfUvPQKnWR9tPR25eYuAgQ26Bs/s1600/P1010896.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Before cleaning</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh5uEM-z30TbL5rCnZfXihXXyQxjg2XCJfN6xj9uevxUEfArIriGPh4oavTxOOsRDJj6CkceWNeTBUQ_988BQJBplfV1Ck78gpbKfGNRvmJQFB28oV2y9FjTbTD3djUHuMqolVXPCSRK4/s1600/P1010897.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh5uEM-z30TbL5rCnZfXihXXyQxjg2XCJfN6xj9uevxUEfArIriGPh4oavTxOOsRDJj6CkceWNeTBUQ_988BQJBplfV1Ck78gpbKfGNRvmJQFB28oV2y9FjTbTD3djUHuMqolVXPCSRK4/s1600/P1010897.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtuCP567nl6EKnYnJcW5xrI55RX5I8DxLB8wDx6WW_eJnKoUd4NpBt5S2goOUE2eU0mt6MD8jebwjYz1Gb4dyLraS1LNB1tEvBZ9TAH6x8pvEl6Qv64c9J-1I_xVApIxcwbk8sYWb7kkg/s1600/P1010903.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtuCP567nl6EKnYnJcW5xrI55RX5I8DxLB8wDx6WW_eJnKoUd4NpBt5S2goOUE2eU0mt6MD8jebwjYz1Gb4dyLraS1LNB1tEvBZ9TAH6x8pvEl6Qv64c9J-1I_xVApIxcwbk8sYWb7kkg/s1600/P1010903.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">There's probably lead dust in that bucket, considering the plant a little way up the river.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Clean. Relatively-speaking.</td></tr>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447600029746264926.post-1461671465067640132014-01-19T20:26:00.000-05:002014-01-19T21:01:30.764-05:00A Highly Valuable Use of My Limited Time<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
(She says with just the right tinge of snark.)</div>
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Here's where I got to as of 6:15 this morning, when my second bottle of wallpaper remover ran out and I decided to call it a night:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7ZiL8p2wTbNKXV9qk8u-mMK2w6mpJhN4A0O-zwymzDucd9p7GXAFcRtdCjvL6e4OjPCWhN_0pe7fYYo1VoXGU9OKOVO3p6xuW22zMUmhvdo_dj_ttIlfM9LCNA6fDDNZgnQD1qAwsQeY/s1600/P1010881.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7ZiL8p2wTbNKXV9qk8u-mMK2w6mpJhN4A0O-zwymzDucd9p7GXAFcRtdCjvL6e4OjPCWhN_0pe7fYYo1VoXGU9OKOVO3p6xuW22zMUmhvdo_dj_ttIlfM9LCNA6fDDNZgnQD1qAwsQeY/s1600/P1010881.JPG" height="400" width="300" /></a></div>
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Finished publishing the previous blog post by 6:40 or so, whereafter I set the kitchen timer to ring at what I thought would be about twenty after nine and crashed out with the dog on the sofa. It went off, I heard it, but I didn't bother looking at a real clock. No, I just reset the timer to ring at what I thought would be about 10:00 AM. Plenty of time to make it to church. But it took me to more like 11:30, and too late. <br />
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Whereupon I got up, used the can, fed and toileted the animals-- then crawled between my bed covers and slept (still in my clothes) till 6:30 PM.<br />
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Whereupon I fed and toileted the animals again-- and have been on the computer ever since. My excuse is that I'm having second thoughts-- again-- about the color of the "Savernake" dining room wallpaper I bought from the UK in 2009. Hey, I wonder if the color is better now, and if they'll take the eight rolls I have (all unopened) in even trade?<br />
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But now that the site has my location code it keeps reverting to the US page and tells me the company won't ship that William Morris paper to me here. And that even if it did, it would cost me $98 a roll! (I think I paid around half that in '09). That won't keep me from giving them a transAtlantic call sometime this week, but still, this doesn't get dinner (breakfast) eaten or the remaining beige-with-pink-roses paper off the wall.<br />
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So now I'm also wondering if I would have been better off to have gone to bed at a (semi-) decent hour last night.<br />
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But moaning over what can't be helped is a further waste of my limited time. And maybe I can redeem myself with some progress pictures. Enjoy!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju0EJ_CcbxvrvkfoUVqZbMFqGdeqkGDuvyaEU8B9avwS8BJpBsC3tV-4bJmWmXx2s7ciZjfXUV-DyeFiBObJZKq8y0FZcmrClFo1280UNS3H_cER6yd4JTfmbWIqx7Q5v5jZhvUQIv1VQ/s1600/P1010850.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju0EJ_CcbxvrvkfoUVqZbMFqGdeqkGDuvyaEU8B9avwS8BJpBsC3tV-4bJmWmXx2s7ciZjfXUV-DyeFiBObJZKq8y0FZcmrClFo1280UNS3H_cER6yd4JTfmbWIqx7Q5v5jZhvUQIv1VQ/s1600/P1010850.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447600029746264926.post-21528931108917795622014-01-19T02:33:00.000-05:002014-01-19T19:41:11.120-05:00Hard at It<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg08ubvke3SeXeeCT8b2Ab1FWBRk8rGBWwyTSqTbRlljwFfP1Iap4g7XgvwVrR5m6FnFRpQOJyPyOiMLyff884TIb1og7N-A_nM_BNtWCdQB3nKZ_EWWkJrgO2SvfjtaGhhnAAKWF1GOfo/s1600/P1010784.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg08ubvke3SeXeeCT8b2Ab1FWBRk8rGBWwyTSqTbRlljwFfP1Iap4g7XgvwVrR5m6FnFRpQOJyPyOiMLyff884TIb1og7N-A_nM_BNtWCdQB3nKZ_EWWkJrgO2SvfjtaGhhnAAKWF1GOfo/s1600/P1010784.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
Yes, it's the middle of the night. Yes, I'm sitting here making a blog post. But yes, I'm also waiting for the wallpaper remover to work so I can keep on stripping the old beige-with-pink-roses wallpaper off my dining room walls.<br />
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I've never been big on making New Year's "resolutions." <i>Ambitions</i> for the new year have always been more my style. But this year I think my ambition to get my dining room wallpaper stripped had better be reinforced by the resolution to get it done before the end of this month.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtpX9YlJ4c12lBEqixaQ17S8ahHE-glromLhoCxbggfW6va3iMGxihg3qUcT4F6NE9-y2Mz6fSaobeQOCz9q-alMbRoAe8psNAwPZFq3vKdWlskvTZcMBuvoe3hf6fBozANtWgjuITxSg/s1600/P1010827.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtpX9YlJ4c12lBEqixaQ17S8ahHE-glromLhoCxbggfW6va3iMGxihg3qUcT4F6NE9-y2Mz6fSaobeQOCz9q-alMbRoAe8psNAwPZFq3vKdWlskvTZcMBuvoe3hf6fBozANtWgjuITxSg/s1600/P1010827.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
And there's no reason I shouldn't get it done, provided I ignore my initial intention to get the stairhall trimwork all cut, shellacked, and installed first. All those copes and mitres can take a long time . . . while wallpaper comes off in nice, big, satisfying strips.<br />
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Started the job last Saturday night, and got the old paper on the southeast corner and the strip over the portal to the living room taken down. <br />
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Working on the west window wall now. <br />
<br />
I'm finding more than a little irony in the fact that since last spring I've been assigned to the Home DĂ©cor department at the Big Blue Box Store. And every so often I'm called on to sell people the wallpaper scorer and the pre-mixed stripper fluid we carry. But neither is so cheap or works so well as the hot water, vinegar, and dishwashing liquid stripper I mix up as needed or as the Hohlenpoker I learned to make from <a href="http://www.parodipalace.com/hohlenpoker/" target="_blank">Jim Parodi's website</a>. <br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKseiXDF4X5qk0g8mDcxWlz1HCRuQ8VM3hJuM1uANcIwFl_eL6myoyN2I5tZdYqbP6-4vGFRI1jpnDfrajM729X41M70irXkRmHPOgtJo3ydWF_jJCV14I-x09f2mSSu2fwqUYK6Zlpn8/s1600/P1010846.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKseiXDF4X5qk0g8mDcxWlz1HCRuQ8VM3hJuM1uANcIwFl_eL6myoyN2I5tZdYqbP6-4vGFRI1jpnDfrajM729X41M70irXkRmHPOgtJo3ydWF_jJCV14I-x09f2mSSu2fwqUYK6Zlpn8/s1600/P1010846.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">No. 1 rule: Do <i>not </i>kneel on<i> der Hohlenpoker</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Before I came across his tip I was afraid I'd have to invest in some expensive machine or exotic chemical or other to get the paper off the drywall the previous owners two back clapped onto the wall between the dining room and kitchen. But as it turned out last week, all I have to do is roll the Poker over the wall, spritz on the vinegar solution, wait a few minutes, and with a little help from the 5-in-1 and the wallpaper scraper, off it comes. And if the drywall yields well to wallpaper removal, the plaster gives it up more easily still.<br />
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In the process of getting the paper off the plaster, I'm noticing that there's a layer of dark gold under the primer. So apparently the dining room was glazed or tinted (not painted) gold, <a href="http://sowsearhouse.blogspot.com/2012/03/saturday-nights-entertainment.html" target="_blank">just as the living room was</a>.<br />
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How far will I get tonight? Depends on how fast I work and how willing I am to move the miscellaneous tools, equipment, and furniture that's in the way of the north and east walls. Little things can make big roadblocks . . . or turn out to be no hindrance at all.<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447600029746264926.post-4034875787827255532013-12-26T20:24:00.000-05:002013-12-26T20:48:11.896-05:00La Folie de Ma Vie<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh8hUomnC7IV7UDe252XcNPiuAh36-oIEJHArjFi1W9wFIMDI90OdUsIOzlBYZc70G0A4saGahQFiqRGUyHWRFyIxBrv0d6bxxczLDpLNAnOWsIqw5KTCnBVnb54vtL9Vb53HGCFeJV9o/s1600/P1000961.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh8hUomnC7IV7UDe252XcNPiuAh36-oIEJHArjFi1W9wFIMDI90OdUsIOzlBYZc70G0A4saGahQFiqRGUyHWRFyIxBrv0d6bxxczLDpLNAnOWsIqw5KTCnBVnb54vtL9Vb53HGCFeJV9o/s400/P1000961.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
I should have made this post over three weeks ago. Never mind, I'm making it now as the year dies down, before the thoughts and sensations that gave rise to it fade away.<br />
<br />
Early in the morning of the 3rd of this month my living room renovation was to the point where I could refill the bookcases flanking my fireplace. And it didn't give me pleasure to get it done, it made me disgusted with myself and sad.<br />
<br />
The books had been stored in boxes in the guest bedroom since August of 2008, and in all that time I'd forgotten much of what I had. Or at least, I'd forgotten the implications of all the books I had. For once I got them all shelved, I felt empty, disquieted, disturbed. I hardly knew what to do with myself. <br />
<br />
For looking at those bookcases was like peering into a window to the past. There are books on music criticism and music history. Musical scores I've carried to symphony concerts and scores I've sung. There are plays and essays and poetry. Books on art history, church history, secular history. On art and architecture, ancient, medieval, and modern; on icons and stained glass and Gothic cathedrals. All the subjects and pursuits that make for a civilized life, sidelined, ignored, for years. The works of so many great, entertaining, and wise authors and composers sat again on my shelves: Tasso and Browning, Shakespeare and Chaucer, Lamb and Emerson. Beethoven, Schubert, and Berlioz (always Berlioz!). Eusebius, Schaff, and Chadwick; Ruskin, Conant, and Arnheim. Coulton and Tuchman. Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Frank Lloyd Wright. Where had they been these past years? Where had I?<br />
<br />
There was a time when I sat down and read those books. When I sang and played that music. Back when I had a full time architecture career and felt like I was contributing to the beauty and order of the world. I was a better person then, before I began to dissipate my energies on computer card games and checking my Facebook Notifications tab every fifteen minutes . . .<br />
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Well. I kept at the work of putting my living room back together. By the following Tuesday I had all the tools and debris and the dog kennel cleared out and could see and clean the floor. By early on Thursday the 5th I had the two-seat sofa moved back in from the front room and the chest of drawers pulled in from the dining room to carry my 1970s-vintage stereo system and the lamp I got two or three years ago and had never used (getting the linen chest out of the dining room clears the way to finish stripping the wallpaper in there). <br />
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By Sunday the 8th I was in a fair way of looking at it all and emulating God on the sixth day of creation, standing in the middle of the room admiring my work and thinking it was Very Good. And since then I've cleaned off the sill of the portal to the 1st floor hall and even decorated for Christmas.<br />
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But still. But still. I can't shake the feeling that I've screwed up seriously. It's not that I'm spending time on house renovation instead of reading <i>The Stones of Venice. </i>Redoing the house is an artistic pursuit in itself. Rather, I feel I've betrayed the whole way of life my books and music represent. I've made several bad career moves these past few years and I don't think I'll ever get back to my life the way I hoped it would be.<br />
<br />
And if I spend too damn much time fooling around on the Innerwebz, I'll about guarantee that outcome.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447600029746264926.post-18457458331280136672013-11-24T23:30:00.000-05:002013-11-25T01:15:45.424-05:00O Gosh, Such Excitement!The tall bookcase, the tall-black-used-to-be-natural-teak-Scandinavian-Modern-1978-vintage bookcase, is finally up and loaded.<br />
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It only took some drilled pilot holes (through the plastic sleeves), two sets of new black metal shelf supports, a couple ounces of wood glue, a couple-three more coats of shellac, and quite a few whacks with the rubber mallet to convince it to come together.<br />
<br />
And even after all that, it was still wanting to gap at the top once I stood it in its corner again. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
"Take <i>that!" </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Whack! </i><br />
<br />
"And <i>that!!"</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Whack-whack!!</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
"And <b><i>that!!"</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<b><i>Whack-whack-whack-whack!!</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
Another coat of shellac to cover up the evidence, let it dry a day or so, and by Friday it was ready to receive back all the LPs and books that have been sitting in boxes in my front room the past, oh dear, five years or so.<br />
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Of course I managed somehow to put the new shelf supports at the wrong height.<br />
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Never mind. I was not enlarging any more holes so I could change it. No law said I had to put all the books back the way they used to be (even if I did print out an old picture as a guide). Maybe this time I'd do it more logically and better.<br />
<br />
So they're in. And the walnut veneer bookcase (which used to belong to my grandmother) is in the process of getting levellers on its right end to accommodate my sloping floor (had to paint the white plastic part black. Looked glaring otherwise). And last night I stayed up till 4:00 AM cleaning out my workshop so I can go back to cutting trim for the stairhall and new stops for the windows. Not that I didn't start that task two or three months ago.<br />
<br />
My excuse for the slowness is that I'm substitute teaching during the day most days and within a hour or two of leaving school I'm working every weekday evening at the Big Blue Box Store.<br />
<br />
If I were truly dedicated to renovating my house, I'd avoid the computer and the Internet and work-work-work on the house until I fell into bed.<br />
<br />
I am not that virtuous or disciplined. But millimeter by millimeter, inch by inch, I'm getting things done. <br />
<br />
By Christmas 2014, I may even have the wallpaper in the dining room stripped. Now <i>that </i>would be excitement.<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447600029746264926.post-21563991168592841192013-11-09T22:13:00.000-05:002013-11-09T23:57:29.136-05:00Wheel-Spinning<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioIYi5BO1Udp6mZs7s9l_1wdwytgalBKrzDXy5r1tuv3xGGT5Jm98OSSeGY1SZAxIleRsE7b1dT8Q5d2ADLnWOU17zb4VG8rDPvFhdmvAdfDcoNV9KtdA-ERdcqDquF3cva7JEOZUsvHg/s1600/P1000552.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioIYi5BO1Udp6mZs7s9l_1wdwytgalBKrzDXy5r1tuv3xGGT5Jm98OSSeGY1SZAxIleRsE7b1dT8Q5d2ADLnWOU17zb4VG8rDPvFhdmvAdfDcoNV9KtdA-ERdcqDquF3cva7JEOZUsvHg/s400/P1000552.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sitting in its corner, pretending to be done</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
It will probably shock you to learn that the tall living room bookcase I started to redo in black last Christmas still isn't done.<br />
<br />
No, I guess it wouldn't shock you to learn that the tall living room bookcase I started to redo in black last Christmas still isn't done.<br />
<br />
Oh, it's refinished, finally. Took forever to strip off the crummy oil-based black paint job over white primer, but sometime this summer I finally got that done. And about a week ago I finally got the black shellac to the point where I like it.<br />
<br />
Give it a couple-three days to harden up and cure, and it should be all ready to reinsert the shelves and put the books back in. Right?<br />
<br />
But what do you do when you can't remember where you put the shelf hardware or how you even held up the shelves in the first place?<br />
<br />
This bookcase has had many shelf-support solutions in its long career. It came with these bent heavy-gauge wires whose ends fit into little holes in the sides of the bookcase. Grooves were routed into the side edges of the particle-board shelves to receive the bent part of the support wires. Trouble is, that method didn't keep the bookcase sides from pushing out from the pressure of all the books and records I keep in it.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH0LvWiFR2xoO5mca8wCw7ZSrjdgknJMso2rIx0gjPdm-UUtkclvkglBN5F2AKcWnklVwFHSM7k9YDEcYzBzbVvB1q5joKsfRoaZzmBboA43b_7yBajH1Rqn0x9FRxUvGMPgAB9f7gnlM/s1600/P1000613.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH0LvWiFR2xoO5mca8wCw7ZSrjdgknJMso2rIx0gjPdm-UUtkclvkglBN5F2AKcWnklVwFHSM7k9YDEcYzBzbVvB1q5joKsfRoaZzmBboA43b_7yBajH1Rqn0x9FRxUvGMPgAB9f7gnlM/s320/P1000613.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The round piece is brown under the shellac, of course</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
So back in the '80s a woodworker friend of mine retrofitted the shelves each with four plastic disks that receive a screw which fits into a plastic sleeve sunk into the carcase sides. This did a good job of keeping the whole thing together, but didn't allow for any adjustments to the shelf spacing. From photos I took before I unloaded this bookcase I know the shelves didn't all correspond with the sleeve locations. And I definitely remember there being some brass shelf spoons I took off. But I couldn't remember where the aitch I put them last December.<br />
<br />
By Thursday or Friday of this week I found them, in the tray of my toolbox. But only four of them, enough for one shelf only. And I can't find but three of the twelve black screws I should have for the other three shelves.<br />
<br />
And maybe it doesn't matter whether I can find any of this or not. Because . . . because . . . even with some replacement screws I found (intending to paint the heads black, no problem), <i>with the black finish I</i> <i>can't see to get the screws into the sleeves in the sides of the carcase!!</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
I've been trying the last three days, and it doesn't matter: Night, day, with a worklight, without a worklight-- with my lousy eyesight I simply cannot see where anything is. And yes, I shellacked the white plastic sleeves black as well.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjNXmb4cnBILpd266Z4N2YZX04LskgrgqErhQyq-gcNbbYnI013NpIDKNS3iQIpMMoh57Viut3czfNw3uucJ0iwtXQcL78mYPuBhkPp5JM8YAecVZHFBwKcL1TY7I3Hu7miwxZ2_6kzi8/s1600/P1000614.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjNXmb4cnBILpd266Z4N2YZX04LskgrgqErhQyq-gcNbbYnI013NpIDKNS3iQIpMMoh57Viut3czfNw3uucJ0iwtXQcL78mYPuBhkPp5JM8YAecVZHFBwKcL1TY7I3Hu7miwxZ2_6kzi8/s400/P1000614.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dig the scratches. And the plastic sleeves I can't seem to hit.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I've already made a mess of my new shellac finish, since the plastic cams or whatever they are that are routed into the shelves have a little protrusion that fits into the sleeve on the bookcase sides. That didn't matter when it was finished natural teak, but now that it's shellac, I've got scratch marks all over.<br />
<br />
Actually, the only reason why I'm not throwing tools across the room and screaming at the top of my lungs is because it <i>is </i>shellac, and therefore repairable. <br />
<br />
But I still can't get those screws lined up.<br />
<br />
So what should I do? Get my friend Hannah* to come hold the worklight so maybe I can get at least two of those screw-in shelves in, and thereby return the favor for all the weekends I helped her with some computer work she had to figure out? <br />
<br />
Maybe I should invest in some more packs of black metal shelf supports and put all the shelves on those. Oh, and Dremel off the protrusions so they slide in smoothly.<br />
<br />
But then the bookcase might go back to falling apart on me once it's reloaded.<br />
<br />
Or maybe I could solve that problem by working out something with wires and turnbuckles that'll go behind the books and keep the sides together.<br />
<br />
It's too damned complicated having to do all this for a 35 year old Scandinavian Modern particle-board bookcase. After all, isn't my time worth something? Better I should have just chucked it and bought a new one.<br />
<br />
But I've been online again looking at the price of new ones, and my time isn't worth what they would cost me. $300 and up for things that aren't built as well as the one I've got.<br />
<br />
Maybe I will look into turnbuckles. It'll give it a high-tech industrial feel. Just right for my Victorian/Arts and Crafts living room. Right.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, I'm feeling very, very stupid. And spending a lot of time I don't have just spinning my wheels.<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447600029746264926.post-45553681618679332062013-07-03T23:30:00.000-04:002013-07-04T00:51:46.565-04:00Crape Myrtle Watch, 130703<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7D5QrDOMQwV2j3VtVEBw4J8kS-yhRTatFWCzfX3b52figtqAc851QXwiFnr57PYt3mIwDcZB9GsZwgYS_K9M78M2JURoAbDdvoAOY9alkBC7zOcDHOQ910CRo0FrHnGwonUVGogTzSKw/s1600/DSCF4867.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7D5QrDOMQwV2j3VtVEBw4J8kS-yhRTatFWCzfX3b52figtqAc851QXwiFnr57PYt3mIwDcZB9GsZwgYS_K9M78M2JURoAbDdvoAOY9alkBC7zOcDHOQ910CRo0FrHnGwonUVGogTzSKw/s400/DSCF4867.JPG" width="225" /></a></div>
So how are the crape myrtles doing, subsequent to my switching two of them around last fall?<br />
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Well, the one-that's-supposed-to-be-a-Bayou-Marie-but-isn't is doing fine in its new location down next to the step. It's got fat bright-reddish buds on it and looks ready to burst into bloom any day now.</div>
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The one-that's-supposed-to-be-a-Pixie-White-but-isn't is still making up its mind what it's going to do. Or maybe it's sulking at having been dug out and moved to the top of the patch. At any rate, though its wood is green it still hasn't broken dormancy. I read online about a crape myrtle that didn't start leafing out again until the August after it was transplanted, so I'm giving mine time.</div>
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One of the New Orleans specimens is doing quite well, thank you. I anticipate flowers from it very soon.</div>
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However. However. The other New Orleans is not doing as well. You could say it has suffered from a disadvantage. Don't know how I didn't notice it before, but it is tiny compared to its mate planted at the same time. The latter has completely overshadowed it.</div>
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So to give it a chance and to fill out my new front garden bed a little more, this afternoon I dug it up and moved it to the opposite corner of the lower plot, by the west entrance to the path. Yes, I know autumn would have been a better time. But the late great gardener Christopher Lloyd liked to say that the best time to do anything in the garden is when you're thinking about it and you have the time. Besides, how was it going to survive all summer under there?</div>
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<div>
Took longer than I'd imagined. Crape myrtle roots go deep, but I couldn't dig to the extent of them since this one's roots were so tangled up with those of its companions. And then the hole I dug for it was full of rocks at a comparable high level. Afraid for a minute there I couldn't get enough dirt out of it to get the shrub in.</div>
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But I did, and for the record, this is how it looks as of today,<br />
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<br />
mulched with compost and watered in. We'll see how it does.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447600029746264926.post-60496237815630981602013-06-15T22:45:00.000-04:002013-06-23T16:49:50.217-04:00Dabbling in Dirt<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0HZ8ZidyUhi6HPwrnC4QVnGMZlovqGzH-dAIajAm2PXdlhr5uGsR4gL7xBrMRa553_DLhjGwnkWcMMeMmJwgIXWU9grDVp7r7pYomHQ3cuU3A6QgVAt4adQMn7i9ZnghsNzY7uzm-3iw/s1600/DSCF4017.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0HZ8ZidyUhi6HPwrnC4QVnGMZlovqGzH-dAIajAm2PXdlhr5uGsR4gL7xBrMRa553_DLhjGwnkWcMMeMmJwgIXWU9grDVp7r7pYomHQ3cuU3A6QgVAt4adQMn7i9ZnghsNzY7uzm-3iw/s320/DSCF4017.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
Having considered the matter these past few days, I've determined that literal dirt, like the figurative kind, is best kept to oneself.<br />
<br />
It started with an idea I had last Wednesday. Obviously, when it came to the excess dirt in the south garden bed, shovelling it into the cart and then bagging it up or whatever was not going to work. Then, too, the possibility of coming with a pickup truck seemed increasingly remote. If I were going to get this soil to my friends' house, I'd have to think of another way. <br />
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Well, how about this? <br />
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I took one of my big wheeled trash bins, and lined it with a 45 gallon lawn bag. I then shovelled the dirt into it-- twelve scoops per bag worked out all right--then wheeled it over to the side of the yard, tipped the trash bin over, hauled out the dirtbag (sorry, couldn't resist), and slung it up on the rock mulch under the Norway maple. Where it could lie pending further ideas.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYxq5oro5-IRzrLVtnTAbOKJu39HBF6eBiLwvHXkx2J4EYDmrUNW1-e5rKezqgMN3swKNJoaB0RQqkENew0YtGOmWYrqwvUjAkXxVYQFcnkACYTnh6i1PqjGlawSZPC5wLhXUzoqwIT-k/s1600/DSCF4048.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYxq5oro5-IRzrLVtnTAbOKJu39HBF6eBiLwvHXkx2J4EYDmrUNW1-e5rKezqgMN3swKNJoaB0RQqkENew0YtGOmWYrqwvUjAkXxVYQFcnkACYTnh6i1PqjGlawSZPC5wLhXUzoqwIT-k/s400/DSCF4048.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I think there's 16 or 17 bags here, all told</td></tr>
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<br />
Did three bags like this on Wednesday, and was thinking of asking my friends if <i>they </i>knew anybody with a truck who'd be willing and able to help. But Thursday came and I was looking at my front yard. At the need for soil in the new garden bed where the sod as dug out. At the rest of the lawn where I've dug out all that soil to try to root out the nutsedge. I'd planned the make up the difference with compost, but unless I wanted to commit myself to a major tilling operation, that wouldn't make sense. Even if the yellowjackets let me get to it, it wouldn't make sense to try to grow grass in compost.<br />
<br />
So I shifted gears. Mentally, I mean. I kept on loading up the bags-- even though it was raining when I started and I wasn't all that thrilled about it-- but with a different destination in mind. For while I dislike being an Indian-giver (<i>i.e.</i>, making promises then going back on them), I see I need the dirt from my backyard in my front yard more than my friends in New Brighton do in theirs. And as depressing and onerous and Volga-boatmen-convicts-hauling-the-barges a process somehow schlepping those bags of dirt to my front yard would be, trying to boost them into the back of my PT Cruiser and unloading them again in New Brighton would be even worse. Not to say impossible doing it single-handedly, but close to it.<br />
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Got the tomato bed flattened out before time to head for work. So at least that was done. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD6ecxDbg19Y4CAfvBb1IvtZCDSkLOGke5xqDq-jmlF79R5-2g_R27tRDzSXLQjfu7tkyRrAJVdF5UhR2z6BarpYreky0tTCH9-vUaiiyDIUA66DWYb6Qfkx2dZaSNi4tGMiWb2-h5wLs/s1600/DSCF4005.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD6ecxDbg19Y4CAfvBb1IvtZCDSkLOGke5xqDq-jmlF79R5-2g_R27tRDzSXLQjfu7tkyRrAJVdF5UhR2z6BarpYreky0tTCH9-vUaiiyDIUA66DWYb6Qfkx2dZaSNi4tGMiWb2-h5wLs/s400/DSCF4005.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Almost there</td></tr>
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That afternoon, too, I talked on the phone to my friends, explained the haulage problem, and begged off. Happily, it was okay with them-- I think half of it on their part was wanting to do me a favor and give me a place to put the dirt.<br />
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That was one very <i>heavy </i>problem solved, or at least eliminated. Still had to figure out how to get the bags into my cart to get them round to the front.<br />
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But today, I discovered I could turn a defect into an advantage. A defect in my backyard walkway, that is. There's a place by the Norway maple where one walkway slab sits a good inch or more higher than its neighbor. So if I tipped the cart over on its front end and dragged a bag of dirt into it,<br />
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I could brace the wheels against the walkway lippage, like so<br />
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and pull it upright with the bag in it.<br />
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That done, I could empty the dirt into the cart, ready to take around front.<br />
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<br />
So good for me, I got seven bags of vegetable garden dirt (primarily a mix of compost and sand) into the new front garden bed. <br />
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While I was at it, I rejiggered the brick border at the toe of the slope so it'd come out square, <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Swiped a couple of matching bricks from another part of the yard</td></tr>
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and mixed the remainder of a carton of Preen into the lower part of the new garden bed. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwl4heHkoGPtYpE3zWepXkgaLMtMXjrZgusNQL9kBR1En5BXe7t-gM98NMm7XNRv6OslBNGbIscwVzKrjt-LlyQ39xVPdQFAFRMj-W1nRIiSqR1dQibWs7hmekrEapDdxd_1UbcjaMOls/s1600/DSCF4083.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwl4heHkoGPtYpE3zWepXkgaLMtMXjrZgusNQL9kBR1En5BXe7t-gM98NMm7XNRv6OslBNGbIscwVzKrjt-LlyQ39xVPdQFAFRMj-W1nRIiSqR1dQibWs7hmekrEapDdxd_1UbcjaMOls/s400/DSCF4083.JPG" width="225" /></a></div>
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We'll see if it does any good-- it was pretty old.<br />
<br />
If I had nothing better to do I'd also figure out how much the average shovelful of that soil weighs and calculate how much dirt I moved.<br />
<br />
But I do have better things to do. Like plant stuff in the dirt I shifted. But that's a separate post.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447600029746264926.post-43147514752070784292013-06-12T23:30:00.000-04:002013-06-20T01:41:13.191-04:00A Bit of a Break<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDRuL3W9dyMgELWKQ_gUWLY4-ll5C2eJZ6bngEbr9wiJK0YDT7NSahmH5i4onzQ1oFk3eQ3nFzBRwEQE6ELvlotsS4ZnNxo6gcBhbgYajZyvxzXA3hrlyZS23toW49YzdWvfznYuIXlO8/s1600/DSCF3950.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDRuL3W9dyMgELWKQ_gUWLY4-ll5C2eJZ6bngEbr9wiJK0YDT7NSahmH5i4onzQ1oFk3eQ3nFzBRwEQE6ELvlotsS4ZnNxo6gcBhbgYajZyvxzXA3hrlyZS23toW49YzdWvfznYuIXlO8/s200/DSCF3950.JPG" width="112" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me, showing off</td></tr>
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Today was my birthday, but I had no time to celebrate in the usual way. No cake, no ice cream, no kicking up of the heels. <br />
<br />
For that matter, except for some dirt-shifting late in the afternoon, I didn't really get any work done, either.<br />
<br />
On the house or garden, I mean.<br />
<br />
This is because I had the annual recertification training for substitute teaching in the morning, work at the Big Blue Box Store in the late afternoon and evening, and errands in between. <br />
<br />
But that doesn't mean I can't be festive here on the houseblog. And frivolous, too.<br />
<br />
"Frivolous" is exactly the way to describe one of my errands this afternoon. For I have an Idea of what I want to do with the paving in my new front garden bed, though I don't have the cash to do it and won't have it for the foreseeable future. Nevertheless, being in the neighborhood I stopped at a local stoneyard and checked out the flagstones.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPXoj9xTnDoRF9rQHD3MOYb5Fcr7v6BDOh_yNS5yZ06Q-oC-WRhGCLorVy6zlP_2C6TZiKsc1QopUH6oFbufn9QacxvXzU8MK7az7D8C-Kjb4KOh1SbksFNmPypoBENWmPT3xj2QBDeWI/s1600/DSCF3927.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPXoj9xTnDoRF9rQHD3MOYb5Fcr7v6BDOh_yNS5yZ06Q-oC-WRhGCLorVy6zlP_2C6TZiKsc1QopUH6oFbufn9QacxvXzU8MK7az7D8C-Kjb4KOh1SbksFNmPypoBENWmPT3xj2QBDeWI/s400/DSCF3927.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
This is Colonial wall stone. It matches my bluestone windowsills and some other flagstone paving I have on the property. Nevertheless, I don't like it as much as I do this:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBqJkJvGhj2lSBUFMw2K_ao2KUN4C0Nms_kF8S1F6CssdFC23Dfy5cieoTGu-hGLtm_XCW062wjRQHvA7rvM9wqJArWF0CPYQdHnd4T3C1jcMWzkx9QI-ZcZQIA-Sw_XMo781rllfCV08/s1600/DSCF3921.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBqJkJvGhj2lSBUFMw2K_ao2KUN4C0Nms_kF8S1F6CssdFC23Dfy5cieoTGu-hGLtm_XCW062wjRQHvA7rvM9wqJArWF0CPYQdHnd4T3C1jcMWzkx9QI-ZcZQIA-Sw_XMo781rllfCV08/s400/DSCF3921.JPG" width="225" /></a></div>
It's called West Mountain stone, and it comes from over by Scranton. I really love the colors. Wouldn't it be great if I came across someone who had some stone similar to this on their property that they wanted to get rid of? Barring that, for this while I can only dream.<br />
<br />
There's that. But I can also treat you to some pretty flower shots from my garden, of what's currently in bloom and blossoms from earlier this spring.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIlKUzoIf2LE3wy16Mk_2Ql2r2Wer7QQTM2UBQLOMI0-ivY-aX-rN-XuQ601JVaA_afYfNGLvZjHkncm0QslufpFRDNQgoMOlJMJxmBAPiCakWc6ysrx8FtStl4tb9f8sXiXj6bX4ABN8/s1600/DSCF3212.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIlKUzoIf2LE3wy16Mk_2Ql2r2Wer7QQTM2UBQLOMI0-ivY-aX-rN-XuQ601JVaA_afYfNGLvZjHkncm0QslufpFRDNQgoMOlJMJxmBAPiCakWc6ysrx8FtStl4tb9f8sXiXj6bX4ABN8/s400/DSCF3212.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Flowering quince, backyard west border, April 21st</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcaT6BGmz-Hgdnf4cdsR5vE3NhBxL85q_SKS6VCrJbJ6ymZAfbR2LI9pCQDB_MGWFFYk9gDGv5-PLvtmSYRVbcrrfqi8A_mZAUdRMmDb9DrzcldI_Dsr9kAZeorpDpdw9wFhRFYm3dKSM/s1600/DSCF3411.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcaT6BGmz-Hgdnf4cdsR5vE3NhBxL85q_SKS6VCrJbJ6ymZAfbR2LI9pCQDB_MGWFFYk9gDGv5-PLvtmSYRVbcrrfqi8A_mZAUdRMmDb9DrzcldI_Dsr9kAZeorpDpdw9wFhRFYm3dKSM/s400/DSCF3411.JPG" width="225" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Columbines, backyard, east border, May 12th</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYKQgaa21NBQS9OZEVTJGA8GyixcEr0-14CXypWtDRGqi4h-E4AyYkA28jbJtS-HSHk9QehHHI_AhmbVRoqjlHRvcmsg-9iUFjzaYDmPIaBhSOLBU0GdaDiuqaapKD1cVNWl3YZCC5JdU/s1600/DSCF3416.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYKQgaa21NBQS9OZEVTJGA8GyixcEr0-14CXypWtDRGqi4h-E4AyYkA28jbJtS-HSHk9QehHHI_AhmbVRoqjlHRvcmsg-9iUFjzaYDmPIaBhSOLBU0GdaDiuqaapKD1cVNWl3YZCC5JdU/s400/DSCF3416.JPG" width="225" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Kerria japonica pleniflora, </i>backyard, north fence; also from May 12th</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFIWr6zyIFhtWB6FKG92Pli0-HKOmUvJ7CtWLpkphsRUD7kLs-l7M2sicxTqCRWbz7czIYjF13pjZZwCH9vJfgEEWBQmiTTKOIcUHj1m32AmgVCbuUkPyJhSfUpE27D96j5slbCeh8CA0/s1600/DSCF3460.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFIWr6zyIFhtWB6FKG92Pli0-HKOmUvJ7CtWLpkphsRUD7kLs-l7M2sicxTqCRWbz7czIYjF13pjZZwCH9vJfgEEWBQmiTTKOIcUHj1m32AmgVCbuUkPyJhSfUpE27D96j5slbCeh8CA0/s400/DSCF3460.JPG" width="225" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lilac; "Miss Kim," I think. Side door, May 18th</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzut4Hhb7jW110q7TF7pCCg0I0yagSYeHMRdsbltzJwS3wCfFMBepNHj-hdW4GP71Y9sysndHTJpHuUUiun4lZWCQrS-nmMskhRrildnQTtDHQwqzIN4pMK58aT5Sg7cb68NRJEiJunqs/s1600/DSCF3679.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzut4Hhb7jW110q7TF7pCCg0I0yagSYeHMRdsbltzJwS3wCfFMBepNHj-hdW4GP71Y9sysndHTJpHuUUiun4lZWCQrS-nmMskhRrildnQTtDHQwqzIN4pMK58aT5Sg7cb68NRJEiJunqs/s400/DSCF3679.JPG" width="225" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Brother Cadfael" rose, front border, June 2nd</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU_NV7CQhJyDQpXvzXvH52viQJ4gWMBy_FLUYQZgFb8wfvcZfdl5LyA0ndEyRJ9s6zi48BVwOOLEVt_aQa9H7Ytc15AWtWfOY51iwuXzyAKIXRulquVovnHlknNtcZDhVG2SQsAlkI_-k/s1600/DSCF3793.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU_NV7CQhJyDQpXvzXvH52viQJ4gWMBy_FLUYQZgFb8wfvcZfdl5LyA0ndEyRJ9s6zi48BVwOOLEVt_aQa9H7Ytc15AWtWfOY51iwuXzyAKIXRulquVovnHlknNtcZDhVG2SQsAlkI_-k/s400/DSCF3793.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Don Juan" rose, west side of house, June 8th</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN3wxZ3ddjrhVj8qkpPzzN3FMb2P2F8Jkz-w-1XXwIjJJxB6EAaSUgEK-DLIh_6XUzdrXqQra8IyWhukN-lLNIDnMuJg8u0500m-JEuLa25HjLL6muD4EPafVOqNnvl8K0V7ERKoVF9aM/s1600/DSCF3888.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN3wxZ3ddjrhVj8qkpPzzN3FMb2P2F8Jkz-w-1XXwIjJJxB6EAaSUgEK-DLIh_6XUzdrXqQra8IyWhukN-lLNIDnMuJg8u0500m-JEuLa25HjLL6muD4EPafVOqNnvl8K0V7ERKoVF9aM/s400/DSCF3888.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Clio" rose, back porch steps, June 11th</td></tr>
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There are a lot more I didn't get decent pictures of this year. But I hope you enjoy these. I only regret not being able to depict how wonderful the lilacs and roses have smelled, too. Maybe I can convey a little of it in a haiku I wrote about three weeks ago:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
Through open window</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Scent of lilac breathes rapture</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Soft sultry May night</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447600029746264926.post-16291928642189026482013-06-11T23:45:00.000-04:002013-06-19T14:31:43.677-04:00The Sound of Crickets in the Night<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8IgwvPufZNW_QI5hP9V-Lxp2cvXNFRUVKBUmBaCAq-MxElvEzyO9EnOSSBUZeoVU5OqTiu-XSRLMXPuHWX-EM2fUzSisrCQiTLONVshsvYJ87w9VZGyymkXg6Dqhj_5XDkMPH-r1NRD8/s1600/DSCF3877.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8IgwvPufZNW_QI5hP9V-Lxp2cvXNFRUVKBUmBaCAq-MxElvEzyO9EnOSSBUZeoVU5OqTiu-XSRLMXPuHWX-EM2fUzSisrCQiTLONVshsvYJ87w9VZGyymkXg6Dqhj_5XDkMPH-r1NRD8/s320/DSCF3877.JPG" width="180" /></a></div>
You know what happens when you put out a call like this on Facebook?<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Help! I have some garden soil I need to get out of my yard and some friends who live seven miles away who need it in theirs. Anybody have a pickup truck I can borrow to load it onto?</span></blockquote>
Nothing, that's what. Crickets. Because you have <i>sensible</i> friends who know that it's not just their pickup you want to borrow, but their shovels as well, and also probably (ok, certainly) their muscles and time to wield them. And that's assuming that any friends who might have pickup trucks even see your post, given Facebook's arbitrary practice as to whose news appears in whose newsfeed.<br />
<br />
I posted that plaintive appeal last night around midnight, after an afternoon of <i>fun </i>in the south vegetable garden bed, the one where the tomatoes are to go. Spent about an hour and fifteen minutes weeding it (though it seemed a lot longer), <br />
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<br />
then started sieving the dirt into the garden cart. I have too much and some friends up above New Brighton need some yard fill, but I didn't want to give it to them complete with roots and weeds. <br />
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And when I considered how much dirt is involved (and they can't help me, because the wife is older and the husband has a bad back), I was feeling very discouraged. Like existential-angst discouraged. Why don't I have some nice, useful, significant-other type guy attached to me who could help me do this? Why am I not making enough money so I could hire it done? How could I ever bag up all this and load it into my car? I'm pretty strong, but that would take forever!<br />
<br />
Thus the idea to appeal for a pickup truck. Finished filling up the cart with cleaned dirt-- and slow work it was-- parked it over to the side with a yard bag over it in case of rain, and focussed on transplanting the volunteer lettuces. <br />
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(If they want to pop up without my having to plant them, the least I can do is give them a safe home for the season.)<br />
<br />
But as I say, nobody (at least not so far) has risen up to be a hero and champion in the way of pickup trucks. Not even after I pleaded for mercy for the tomatoes:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: #fafbfb; color: #4e5665; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">This is kind of urgent-- I can't plant my tomatoes until I remove the mound that's built up in the garden bed.</span></span></blockquote>
So this afternoon I took stopgap measures and potted them all up in gallon pots using the soil from the bed where they'll eventually grow. Sunk them deep in the bigger pots to give them more support and encourage them to develop roots from the leaf nodes. Should give the "Red Brandywine" a chance at survival, if anything can.<br />
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Other than that, dumping yesterday's cartload of dirt in the new planting bed in the front, and digging out a few more trowels full of nutsedge-infested soil from the lawn, I've let things sit today. Let's give it awhile longer. Maybe there <i>is </i>somebody out there I know who's dying to haul a few loads of dirt for gas money and free pop. Maybe my friends in New Brighton know somebody who has a truck. Can't hurt to ask.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447600029746264926.post-34020294016776796412013-06-09T23:30:00.000-04:002013-06-19T02:20:43.362-04:00Plugging Away-- and Getting PluggedJust a little progress report. All garden related, of course.<br />
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My friend brought the tomatoes he promised to give me to church this morning. One "Italian Goliath," <br />
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one "Red Brandywine," <br />
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one "Brandymaster," <br />
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and one miscellaneous cherry. Just now they're all leggy seedlings in 8 oz. yogurt cups. The "Red Brandywine" broke on the way home, which is too bad, since I like me a Brandywine tomato. But maybe it can be nursed and recover.<br />
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They won't get planted for awhile, though: Over the years the garden bed that I'm rotating the tomatoes to has gotten so mounded up with soil amendments that it's more than a foot higher at the center than at the edges. And the beds in the round vegetable garden aren't that big. It needs to be levelled off before anything goes into it. Oh, yeah, and it needs weeded before that.<br />
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Which didn't happen this afternoon or evening. What did happen is more digging and spading of dirt off the bare places in the front lawn, where the nutsedge is emerging where I dug it out before. Not as thickly yet as before, but still there. It's very depressing having to deal with this, such a waste of time and topsoil, too, but what can you do?<br />
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Finished cutting up sticks and shifting leaves from the part of the open compost pile I began cleaning off yesterday. <br />
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There was a little finished compost at the bottom of it, which I spread on the new planting bed in the front garden. <br />
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At least, I think it was compost. May have just been a mounded bit of topsoil.<br />
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Whether or no, after that it was time to make a new compost pile where that bit had been. Didn't have a lot of "green" material, unless you count the Virginia creeper I pulled off the fence. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Organic parfait</td></tr>
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Instead I made layers of grassy sod and leftover unmulched leaves. Yeah, I know you're not supposed to put dirt in the compost heap. But what else am I supposed to do with all those turves?<br />
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A lot of the leaves I was using for that I shook off the branches and sticks that came off the limb that fell down last year. There weren't too many large ones left on the pile to cut up for kindling today, so I just took the leaf rake and drew the leaf residue off the old pile to use it on the new.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Where things got left, in a hurry</td></tr>
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Or I did until some apparent residents of the old pile took exception to this disturbance. First I knew of it was when something tried to fly up my right nostril. I sniffed out violently and tried to bat it away, whereupon it stung me twice on my nose right above the lip, on the septum. Ow!<br />
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Quick but careful removal of self into the house-- don't want to be precipitous and trip on the porch stairs-- all the time hoping it wasn't a honeybee, since their stingers remain in and you have to tweeze them out. Quick, find the baking soda and make a poultice with water. Dab it on the affected area . . . know one looks like an idiot, but never mind. It kept the swelling down where the creature plugged me, and within five minutes the pain was gone too.<br />
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Returned to the scene of the incident, though not to do any more raking. Yellowjackets, it was. There were still three or four hovering around. Not going to mess with that pile again until I've consulted the exterminator.<br />
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So as much as I wanted to get that pile <i>turned </i>for the first time in three years, it was time to drop it and do something else instead. <br />
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Like plant the <i>Berberis thunbergii </i>"Crimson Pygmy" barberry I bought Thursday night from the Outside Lawn & Garden department at work. I was thinking I needed a reddish specimen in front of the right-hand Alberta spruce . . . but one will do, since my neighbor to the east has four or five or these.<br />
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She was out in her front yard, too, while I was planting this. I told her about the yellowjacket sting. I mean, I didn't expect to go into anaphylactic shock from it, never have before, but I know some people develop that reaction when they get older. So in case I suddenly quit breathing and keeled over . . .<br />
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I didn't. I finished getting the red barberry into the ground and went on to transplant a few volunteer Blackeyed Susans into the little strip next to the Siberian iris at the toe of the slope to the sidewalk. <br />
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Still so much to do, but the light ran out. It'll all get done-- eventually-- if I keep plugging away at it. At this rate I should be able to go back to working on the inside of the house by, oh, late September or so.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447600029746264926.post-4295421587107083392013-06-08T22:30:00.000-04:002013-06-18T12:53:50.628-04:00It Never Fails<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Well, after studying over it and contem- plating it and poking at it ever since Memorial Day week- end, I put in a plant order with Wayside Gardens early this morning.
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Was not that easy a process. The biggest hassle was trying to come up to the minimum order to qualify for free shipping while incorporating only plants that'd make the biggest impact. If I were flush with cash I would gladly have sailed on past that benchmark and loaded up on shrubs and perennials at up to 70% off. But no. Even as it is, I'm making this order on faith that this investment will turn out to be worth it later. Made my final decisions early Thursday morning and was ready to submit my order, once I would receive the free-shipping promo code they were supposed to send me via email for signing up on the site. But there was some sort of hitch and the code never came. Waited two days, and by last night some of the plants I wanted were sold out. Annoying. I'd get even more annoyed, except that my computer has been working <i>really slowly</i> lately and my email software is even worse. It's just possible that the registration message to Wayside never got out.<br />
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Never mind. The plants I wanted most were still available, and I came up with replacements for the ones I couldn't get. And found another promo code via a Google search that was better than the one I was trying to get before. <br />
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So the order is on its way, as of 1:55 this morning (I know it is; I got the confirmation). It includes
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<li>(2) <i>Berberis</i> "Helmond Pillar" European barberry shrubs (to flank the gate from the back yard on the east side of the house)</li>
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<li>(3) "Royal Candles" speedwell plants </li>
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<li>(3) "Blacknight" <i>Alcea rosea</i> hollyhock plants (as I pursue my never-ending quest for something tall for the back of the front border)</li>
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<li>(3) "Millennium" <i>Allium </i>ornamental onion plants</li>
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<li>(1) "Ostbo Red" <i>Kalmia latifolia</i> mountain laurel shrub (Pennsylvania's state flower-- this'll go over by the west fence, probably where the useless woodpile now is), and</li>
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<li>(1) <i>Asteromea mongolica Kalimeris </i>double Japanese aster.</li>
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All at very good end-of-season closeout prices.<br />
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So this noon I walk over to our town's annual Garrison Day fair, and I make a point of visiting the booths that have plants for sale. Got a new rosemary plant (to replace my old potted one I underwatered and killed over the winter) and some basil seedlings at one. But at this same booth what else did I see? Three (count 'em, 3) "Blacknight" <i>Alcea rosea</i> hollyhock plants, in gallon pots, for sale for a buck less each than the pint-potted ones I ordered last night. It never fails!</div>
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Just for a moment, I considered running home and calling to see if I could cancel that part of my order, and replace them with something else to keep the discount, and . . . No, forget it. What's done is done. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A grassy mess</td></tr>
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And on a brighter note, what else is done as of this afternoon is rooting the grass out of the ground- cover roses and the ornamental deadnettle in the front border. Figured I should do that before I plant anything more. It's true the thorns will get you if they can, but I discovered that if you pull the trailers aside with a hand-held garden fork, the weight of the handle will keep them out of the way as you weed. So the flower bed got a hair cut.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gradually pulling it clean</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cleaned up</td></tr>
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And I got the first third of the open compost heap turned. Which is to say I pulled the brush off it and cut up the sticks to give to a friend to use for kindling. Got too dark to do anything else this evening.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvxGHzZ5X28lWqnshNurKmBZ2wa0NPo5H2SIGKx5YTarKbjnpC3dzQbyixRNFhDIijulog4L39eLR2r4YtcLVfjC4lxjEnY_aOkz7nsifzJB20NxyQnbyX863t2NbKcGWlNofcgJAUw9k/s1600/DSCF3806.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvxGHzZ5X28lWqnshNurKmBZ2wa0NPo5H2SIGKx5YTarKbjnpC3dzQbyixRNFhDIijulog4L39eLR2r4YtcLVfjC4lxjEnY_aOkz7nsifzJB20NxyQnbyX863t2NbKcGWlNofcgJAUw9k/s400/DSCF3806.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The compost heap is next to the fence. The pile in front of it is turves from the front yard.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi71GpB6MthWL8k9rl_uKCa2opPT-fV_zlXUDYQj2Wt5Je5VZOM2ZF47zGHjiiqmncxv28Ur7oyj4xaIDL2g4NQEXFlRAK8L0uNEtgn0FTcc4JcQO8kEr606buYTDHfqeJztaU4BHKU784/s1600/DSCF3813.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi71GpB6MthWL8k9rl_uKCa2opPT-fV_zlXUDYQj2Wt5Je5VZOM2ZF47zGHjiiqmncxv28Ur7oyj4xaIDL2g4NQEXFlRAK8L0uNEtgn0FTcc4JcQO8kEr606buYTDHfqeJztaU4BHKU784/s400/DSCF3813.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kindling</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjkFJBv9E0xbCQgwZ-U1XgNCvnTM64cFB8sIKBE7-HgLPHXUKejwBg1e_kqLSiL07mw5SrsO8kDMMm0snOp_usQ8WvQGM9CGkdcFH0vq2xJAoiMYW_wSfISTGbbSbGjh-_mW43FIQ5itw/s1600/DSCF3773.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjkFJBv9E0xbCQgwZ-U1XgNCvnTM64cFB8sIKBE7-HgLPHXUKejwBg1e_kqLSiL07mw5SrsO8kDMMm0snOp_usQ8WvQGM9CGkdcFH0vq2xJAoiMYW_wSfISTGbbSbGjh-_mW43FIQ5itw/s400/DSCF3773.JPG" width="225" /></a></div>
What else? I picked up a used thatch rake Thursday afternoon but haven't used it yet, and the trash haulers took the bags of nutsedge-contaminated soil I put in the trash to go to the landfill (<i>not </i>into the borough compost pile!). So far, so good.<br />
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What I'm hoping now is that the plant order takes its time getting here. I have <i>so</i> much to do before I can get them in. And I still have those lupines, and the broccoli and eggplant I bought in May to plant, and the herbs I got today at the fair. Not to mention the vegetable beds have to be cleared for seeds, and tomorrow I'm getting some tomato plants from the guy the kindling is going to. So much to do, and I'm still fighting nutsedge in the front garden, and well, you know, life is so comic that the Wayside order will probably show up the day after tomorrow. It never fails.<br />
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