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OK - so we have been involved in a bunch of activities lately that you may or may not be interested in. As always, if not just look at the photos, otherwise sit back and enjoy the story. About a month ago, Terra got the bug to do some painting. She decided that she could paint our dinning area/kitchen. As it turns out it wasn't that hard, and she has found out that she rather enjoys it. I on the other hand hate it. I don't like painting. I never have and would rather wash a wall than paint it to give it a "new" look. I just don't like painting. I really don't know why, because it really isn't that hard, but it has never appealed to me. Well Terra has been in my same boat, but as it turns out she has never tried it, and now that she has, she actually likes it. For those of you who have visited our house know that we have a dark kitchen. It is painted a dark brown and the area around the white cupboards in the kitchen is painted black. So in Terra's attempt to remedy this, she went to the store and chose a nice light blue to paint the dinning room. |
| Here is the first attempt to change the color of the dining room. She allowed the kids to take part in the adventure, and they had a great time (they just like to make a mess, and this was a license to do so). Terra started with a primer to first paint it white and then went back with a light blue. I wasn't home during these activities, or I may have helped, well I may have at least tried to better document the events. I was actually at an auction while the activities were happening. |
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Here is the final color of the room. We don't really have any good images to show the state of it once it was complete (because it didn't last long), but it was sure a change. After the lighter color was applied the mess needed to be cleaned up. One of the down falls of having the kids help in this mess making is that they excel in this area of life (more so than we thought). We then had to embark in the task of cleaning all of the paint off of the flooring. There was splatter (and in the kids case I don't know how much of it was accidental) all over the tile and the laminate wood flooring under the table. |
| Part of the cleaning methods was to pour water on the floor and then use a mop to wash away the paint. As this was somewhat successful on the tile it yielded poor results on the laminate (actually slightly starting to buckle the seams). Laminate flooring doesn't like water (THEN WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD YOU USE IT IN A KITCHEN ANYWAY!!!!). After the damage was assessed, and the table rotated 90 degrees to hide it, Terra decided that she didn't like the blue and wanted a darker color. She went to the store and chose a darker color and here is the darker color being applicated. |  |
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The end result is that the dining room is almost exactly the same color as it was originally. Ironic. Now, though, it looks better and is appreciated. Terra wishes that it were lighter, but it will stay as it is. She did paint the black color above the cabinets red rather than black, and it actually doesn't look bad. In fact it seems to be just fine. In my opinion, as long as I don't have to do the painting, I can get used to just about what ever color is applied - with in reason. This time the application was done only by Terra (while I was at work and more importantly the kids were at school) such that the mess to clean up was almost non-existent at least from splatter. Practice makes perfect. |
| This Saturday I embarked on putting another light in the remaining closet in our computer room. This was a task that I had planned on doing - and now that we will be selling our home due to me taking the job in Benson - I have the proper motivation to finish the job I started some months ago. I don't know if I remembered how to do it, but it went together easily. I located the wires behind the outlets in the first light installation, and used them to power this light (and subsequent outlet below it). Everything went together so well that I thought I was becoming rather proficient as this type of job and felt quite accomplished. When I turned on the switch I was even more pleased with everything working perfectly. |  |
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Then I stood back and looked at my master piece creation and noticed that the morons that built this closet didn't use anything to seal the top of the wall from the ceiling. In fact even the trim that was used was highly inadequate. The light inside of the closet was shining above the wall. After a few highly choice words I had for the constructors I went to work and started to caulk the gap. This gap took 1.25 tubes of calk to seal it completely such that the light would stay inside of the closet and not try to escape out the ceiling joint. In the photo below you can see the shadow where I drilled a hole down from the attic and landed directly inside of the wall. Again a rather impressive feat. If you will remember the last time I tried to do this, I ended up drilling a hole in the ceiling of the closet and had to redo the hole. I am finding that the older I get, the more picky I am becoming. This is true with workmanship as well as with food. I am starting to want others workmanship to be up to high standards of quality. This is particularly true when it comes to the dwelling I occupy. There is almost nothing so frustrating as attempting a simple home repair, and finding some ones negligence forces me to increase the scope of said project I am currently embarked upon. If this continues to head down the same path as it is currently headed, I will either have to build my own house and live with the fact that the moron is me, or just budget more time and money to fix the "simple" home repairs that I continually do. The flip side to this argument is that I actually like to tinker in the world of home repairs. |
| In case you missed the subtlety of the description on my motivation to repair our home, I have accepted a position in Benson, AZ. I will be working for a division of Trico Cooperative and be working at the Apache generating station as a project engineer. This facility has 2 coal fired boilers, 3 natural gas fired boilers, and 1 gas powered 747 turbine engine hooked to a generator (combined cycle generator). The facility produces 800 megawatts of electricity. I hope that the position is both mutually beneficial to me and the company and that it is the beginning of a long profitable relationship. I will be relocating at the end of November with the family following mid to late December. |  |