laundry room - part deux (wall prep)

Last week was rough. Everyone except Jackie was battling a cold, vertigo, and sinus infections (yes, this includes Stella). Can you tell Jackie's nose is really pink? (and don't you want to give her a big kiss, look at that face!) Sickness or not, I dragged us through Ikea to finish pre-shopping for final measurements and costs.

Nothing in my original pre-pre-shopping event stuck on this project. This includes cabinets, paint, and accessories.

First off, a very convincing (and helpful) Ikea worker showed us the Varde series. Winner!

Forget the ugly and boring, these horizontal folding-door cabinets are much cooler and provides more storage space than vertical cabinets. 

After some debating, we went with the slim shoe cabinets since they take up less width than the doubles. We lose some shoe storage, but I gain room for my butt while I load and unload baskets of clothes.

WALL PREP TIME!
[p.s. don't know why I left the flash off, so excuse the doom and gloom pictures. I'll get better, I promise!]
Before starting anything, it's time to research then buy supplies shopping at Home Depot (#1). I love me some YouTube tutorials.

First step:
Cleared out laundry room of everything except the washer and dryer. This includes removing the original shelf and brackets. Didn't realize how much junk we packed into this space. See how unappealing this room is?

Pain point #1: 

Shelf removal should have been straight forward. Whoever hung them was definitely huffing paint. I found extra screws, painted over nails/screws, mixed use of nails instead of screws and vice versa--worst of all--wood blocks. Try as I might, I had to suck it up and wait for him to wake up and ask for help. After another trip to Lowe's (#2), a new smaller crow bar, and chiseling around the nail/screw, we finally wrenched those blocks off.

Pain point #2:

Washers are heavy. Especially moving them out and down a tiny step.


Second step: 
Scrape and patch the wall. I had a floor to ceiling crack, a medium size hole by the washer box, and a few dents from removing those support blocks. Finish it off with more spackle, sanding, spackle, and wiping down the walls for paint.


Pain point #3: 
The mesh patch I bought to cover the hole was just a centimeter or so too small. It gets worse: because the hole butted up to that washer box, there wasn't a fourth wall to secure it! DAMN IT! So back to Lowe's & Home Depot (#3) (yes, went to both) to get some drywall.


Third step:
Texture the wall. I was pretty confident, he was not (common thread in his lack of believing in my untested skills). I tested my spray and knock down on some scrap wood outside. Not going to lie, test went badly. Still, it didn't seem too difficult, so I decided to wing it and do the walls anyway. Ran out of texture because I used so much of the can in the test, so back to Lowe's (#4) to buy more. In the end, I think I did great and matched it up fabulously. (He does admit I did a good job on this, so there.)

   

No crack!

Hole begone! Can you tell it used to be a 6" hole?

Forth step:

Paint paint paint! Tried green, blue, and more blue. Finally went to a lemony/buttery yellow (sorry again, forgot to put the flash on). I was testing what size stencil to create, but didn't choose either you see here.

It took two coats and a rushed third around the trim. It was much better than the living room experience which required three or four coats. (Oh, and it included a trip to Home Depot (#5) to buy an extra quart.)

Fifth step (and also pain point #4)

Stenciling without a stencil. Which really means, I drew something on the wall and painted it. I couldn't find a stencil design or size I liked, so I made my own and hand-painted the design. I had help with some large grid paper from JoAnn's (#6 & #7) and a handy leveler. Unfortunately, my walls are warped and floors are slanted. It was a combo of eyeballing for perceived evenness and measured correctness. Bad news, pencil refuses to come off freshly painted walls. I had to go over the lines over and over and over again to try to hide those pencil marks. BTW, I LOVE MY ACCENT WALL! Too bad it's getting covered by cabinets and machines.

  

Lessons Learned

1. Go with instinct on paint color, it turns out better.

2. Plan a thorough shopping list, plan to do returns instead going back half dozen times.

3. Stencils are beautiful, but a pain in the ass.

4. I'm right, but he is a lot right also.

Cabinets are  going up next! Wish us luck!

tv marathons: 'i shouldn't be alive'

I have shameless spot--a soft spot on the brain that is--for tv marathons. I also have a daft spot for reality tv; and documentaries; and home improvement shows. Alright, my range varies--call me well-rounded.

However, not all programming is equal.

Generally Bad:
1. Bachelor, Bachelorette
2. Military shows

BAD

Generally Good: (this is obviously what I watch!)
1. Medical shows or documentaries
2. Anything on Bravo or HGTV
3. Talent shows

Could anything tickle your brain better than parasitic twins on a Discovery documentary, followed-up by Oddities (Science), maybe a little Sing Off (NBC), and then an inspiring (slightly hoarder-like) Extreme Couponing (TLC)? I think not.

EDUCATIONAL

Lately I'm stuck in I Shouldn't Be Alive (Animal Planet). Obviously, based on the title, we know someone survives, so really you're looking for the other casualties.

Before this show, I thought I was into nature and adventurous. This show runs with 1000 Ways to Die (SpikeTV), it's a motion picture advertisement for things you should never do.

1. Never test the elements. If it's raining, stay home; if it's snowing, stay home; if there's forecast for anything other than sunny with patchy clouds, stay home.
2. Never attempt to climb a 100 ft cliff wall if your kayak capsizes in white water rapids. .
3. Never go to the desert for a picnic, especially if it's summer or you're old.
4. Never go into the woods, forest, brush, or anything with high vegetation. Cancel your plan for a walk-about and put the didgeridoo back in the closet.
AND MOST IMPORTANTLY
5. Never go anywhere alone. Take a friend. Hopefully a sturdy one who can lift 200 pounds and also carries arsenal, flare guns, Swiss army knife (I supposed I could carry it), emergency food/water pack, and a transistor radio.

Don't believe shows like Man Vs. Wild, all lies. You will never be able to braid rope from an indigenous plant, securely anchor it to an object, and swing to safety 50 feet below. You will fall, you will hope to die, but you will probably be conscious staring at your tibia which has broken through skin. Your only hope is that the nerves were severed on the fall. This way you can break off the rest of your shin bone and create an emergency shank in a futile attempt to stab the grizzly bear who wandering on over with his gang of alligators and man-eating hippos.

Watch How It's Done Right--But He's Bear Grylls

There are good lessons to learn in these sometimes true/sometimes false survival shows. As a precaution, I suggest you hit the nearest muscle gym and give flirty eyes to the guy pressing 50 lb bells with his toes. Even better, find the one making loud 'whuah' noises. Chances are steroids destroyed his capacity to control emotions, leaving him volatile but more likely to rage at attackers. Get his number and establish a future meeting point. This way you should be safe come hither or high infected blood water. There's plenty of time to be friendly later, so try not to get distracted by his sexy tattoos.

\

so it's halloween again

I promise, I do try to get into the spirit of things. It just seems so pointless.

When you were a kid, it was obvious, trick-o-treat yourself into the biggest stash of candy as possible. Hoard and consume candy as quickly as possible.

So what happens a few decades later when you're competing with the 20-something slut-face in the corner (and in that corner and on bar table and over by the bathroom and hooking it with the doofus on the dance floor)? This is while trying to convince yourself you have no concerns of mass exits by the inebriated in clunky costumes and on top of it trying to avoid eye contact with your friend whose bu-dunk is hanging out of her costume. (Friends do not count as aforementioned slut as they are a friend. Halloween is the one night friends are excused from telling other friends they need to change before going out in public.)

Things I hate about Halloween:
1. Crowds of people
2. Costumes without life-skill purposes (aka camo, which you will also never catch me wearing and hence never in the woods hunting animals or in the dessert hunting people)
3. Being co-erced to open my door whenever someone rings it
4. Lying to children (okay, I don't mind this so much) Pretending to not mind random kids hustle me for candy (this is particularly bad as it mixes item #2 and #3)

On a side note, I found a neat website that let's you draw and create your own comic strip. Hopefully these posts will get more visually interesting if I can figure out how to make my avatar look Asian.