Monday, October 31, 2011

Color by Numbers



392 days ago we bought this house.
We have painted 9 rooms (8 rooms, really, but one was done twice....in three days....)
We I have removed carpet or groaty linoleum from 7 rooms
We put a new floor down in 1 so far (hardwoods in the rest..rough hardwoods...but we can suck it up as long as it takes)
I spackled in and sanded smooth about 100 paneling grooves in the dining room to try and make the walls look like they were not paneling. It sort of worked.
The trim in the entry way took me 6 goddamn coats of white paint. Srsly.
My first heating season with oil heat cost about $2500 and that's WITH being a total miser with the thermostat.
20 is the number of cabinet doors and drawers I primed, painted and glazed.
20 is also the number of new cup pulls and knobs that I installed in those cabinets.
Jeff managed to spill 1 half gallon of paint in a box sitting on carpet that we had luckily planned to remove anway.
14 is the number of leaky, drafty, and amazing original wood 7 pane windows I need to put shrinky plastic on this winter to save myself some dough!
New gutters were the first major home project we had done here. being obsessed with running water away from the house we added 2 extra downspouts at the front where the house has sunk about 3 inches.
I lost count of my trips the the paint store, so I have no number for that, but Elliot at the Sherwin Williams around Capitol and 63rd is a delightful young man who is very patient, very knowledgeable and knows when it's just a good idea to give the lady one of the big ass paint decks to keep forever. We bought so much paint we now get their mailers for professionals.
There are still 4 rooms in the house that have not been touched by cuteness.
One of them has carpet that is old. I mean really old, like 1950s or 60s. When it gets to be over 100 up there in the summer it smells bad. Real bad. It's going to come out pretty soon. I have that room in my sights for the next project.
I have 2 boxes with light fixtures in them sitting in the junk room waiting for me to decide precisely which room to have them installed in.
There were more than a few nights when worry and insomnia were my companions and I watched every single episode of McLeod's Daughters on Netflix. Seriously. Every one. Do you know Australian series have like 32 episodes a year? That shit ran for like 9 years.
I have probably 5 gallons of paint in the basement for rooms yet to be painted. What? There was a 40% off sale. The good paint is nearly $60 a gallon.

Here are 6 pictures that show a little bit of what I have been up to:







And tomorrow is the first day of NaNoWriMo and last year I was too overwhelmed with projects and moving and still freaking out about the flood and everything and this year....I don't know. Maybe this is my year. Maybe I can both find a plot AND write 50,000 words. Who knows? I think I'm going to try.

Oh, and the number of water heaters I bought in in 392 days? Washers and dryers? Dehumidifiers? Furnaces? Shop vacs? Dirty water emergency pumps? None. And that might be my most favorite number of all.