Do You Suppose

that the Pioneer Woman swears when the new flour container she probably has that is probably just like mine (because she is such a copy-cat) dumps flour on the counter and floor when she is making her blueberry muffins?

I bet she does.

And if I were the swearing sort, which of course I am not, I would too.  It was just the crowning end to a day of annoyances, and yes, that is a paint can barely visible in the background because this kitchen project will.never.end.  I swear on all that is holy or holy-ish.

Three cabinet doors had chips in them, so the painter picked them up last Saturday to re-paint them.  I wanted them back today---she said "No problem," and we went to get them.  However, she had only just painted them this morning so they were still wet.  And still needed the spray coat of polyurethane.  Oh, joy. They are in our garage, still drying.

Maybe tomorrow they can go back on the cabinets, but in the meantime, we have been painting the white woodwork that has black splotches on it because I painted the pantry door black and my aim isn't always too precise. Although I do blame the brush.  And we have been touching up the yellow suede paint where other things have gone wrong, but then I have to put more white paint on the woodwork where the yellow paint got by mistake and then paint the yellow where the white, and maybe some black too, but who's looking, made its way from the door to the woodwork to the wall to the......

Oh well.  Someday the kitchen will be finished.

But in the meantime, I'm eating as many mini-blueberry muffins as I want. They're small.

As Roseanne Rosannadanna Always Said

We are still in the process of having the kitchen cabinets re-painted.  Yesterday and today's work consisted of spraying the cabinet boxes and front frames with a top coat to protect the finishes.  The painter has used all green products up to now so there have been no fumes at all.  It's been a nice way to get the painting done.

However, the oil-based product used for the topcoat reeks of chemicals and the painter uses a gas mask, the kind you might see in a The World is Being Destroyed by ....  kind of movie.  I don't have such a mask, so I put the cats in the basement where my husband works in his office and ensconce myself upstairs in my knitting/computer/tv room with the window open and the door closed.

Today after the painter left, I opened the front door and the back door so that the fumes could go out and ruin what's left of the atmosphere and I hid in my lair.  After awhile I heard male voices, very LOUD male voices, yelling: Hello? Is anyone here? What is going on?  Things like that.  I peeked over the stair railing to see two armed, uniformed police officers in the front hall.

A neighbor, who was still in our driveway, had called the police after seeing the front door open and not getting a response when she called our names from outside of the house.

We explained everything, the neighbor identified us as the residents who do live in this house, we all laughed and now it's over.

Sweet Baby Cheeses!  Scared me to death!

It will all end on Monday.

And then my heart will go back to its normal rhythm.  I hope.

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Aaannnd.... It's an hour later and I wondered why the house smelled like gas.  Turns out it WAS gas. The painter must have knocked a knob when she was cleaning up and so the stove has been spewing gas for....oh, three hours or so.

I hope we live to see Monday.

The Mess

The painting will be finished today. Phew....

This is the mess my house is currently in, but it will be worth it in the end.(Look-the painters covered all the furniture just to paint the windows! I big puffy-heart the painters!)

Isn't it pretty? Nope, it's a mess...

And this is a bonus. I wanted the door to the garage painted to match the front door. But the painters suggested that I not use the water-based paint I had used on the front door; they told me that oil-based paint would hold up better.

I took the can of the older paint to Sherwin-Williams and asked for the same color in oil-based paint. This is what I got-gloss. But apparently oil-based gloss is WAY glossier than water-based gloss.

So now I can see myself in the shine of the door. I do not want to see myself in the shine of the door. (I don't show up in this picture once I transferred it to the blog, but in the original-I'm there.)

And another bonus-the house reeks!!! I asked the painters to use S-W Harmony paint, which is low VOC. But then when we switched to oil-based for woodwork, the odor from that paint out-did all the good of using the Harmony paint.

#$%^&*()

Pros vs, well, Us

This is the first time I've had professional painters do indoor painting for us. Usually it's DH and me struggling to get some painting done. But dH is too busy, and I'm trying to put off hand surgery as long as possible (never) and holding paintbrushes and roller handles is really painful. I need my hands for knitting.

So here is what professional painters do:

*Show up completely stocked with everything they need.

*Put drop cloths on every single thing that could conceivably get paint on it.

*Sand ALL the surfaces to be painted.

*Sand the areas where they have put putty in holes, over damage.

*Then, as doG is my witness, they VACUUM up all the dust.

*Put all the switchplate/outlet covers back in place the SAME DAY that they paint.

Here is what dH and I do:

*Make at least a half dozen trips to the paint store/Lowes/Home Depot to get the things we forget or run out of.

*Find an old sheet and move it around on the floor as we paint. The sheet will not be large enough to catch all the drips and spatter. Guaranteed.

*Sometimes sand a few of the surfaces to be painted. But usually not.

*Where we do sand, if we do sand, we vacuum up all the dust. Hah, hah, hah....No.

*Eventually, maybe, put all the switchplate/outlet covers in place. If we can find the screws.
*Drink alcohol.

Lesson learned:

Hire the professionals.

(And I love, love, love the turquoise!)

Painting

Not as much fun as you would think.

We are in, I hope, the final stages of mission creep. You know about mission creep, right? It's when you do one project (new countertops) and then realize you need to do another one (backsplash) and then a neighbor comes over and says: You should paint that door to the deck black so that it continues the color into the family room. Hmmmmm..... you think....what a great idea!

And then you try painting it. Sand it lightly so the primer coat goes on. Check.

Paint the first coat of the black paint....uh, oh, why is it sort of bubbling up? Too humid to paint? Maybe it will dry out better. (Sort of like blocking out knitting problems, you hope)

Nope. Didn't work. Take the door off the hinges and put it on the deck to sand. (Should have done that to begin with, really.)

Dh starts sanding and notices that the paint is gumming up in the sandpaper. Rats. Sands down to bare wood.

Paint door with primer....again.

Paint door with black paint.....again.

Paint second coat....and watch the paint sort of gum up.

There is paint on the glass, paint on me, and paint on the deck (oooops).

I'm sticking a fork in it and calling it done.

I give up.