Chaos!

I wanted to post pictures with this blog, but I can't because my camera is lost in all the chaos of redecorating. My house already looks like it's been ransacked, so it hasn't helped me much to ransack the house in search of the camera. :-(

But I'll tell you what I'm doing anyway.

First of all I had this wonderful idea that I should paint the railings in my house black instead of white. It was a really good idea, because it looks amazing. Unfortunately I also had the idea that spray-painting them would be cheaper and easier than using a brush. Not only that, but since it would be very difficult to remove the rails, I decided to do it while they were still in place—right smack between my kitchen and living room. I will tell you right now that a person who decides to spray paint anything in the middle of the house is a dork and should probably be shunned. OR maybe they are a dork and should be pitied and helped in any way possible.

Anyway, I draped the living room off with lots of plastic sheeting and began spraying from the kitchen side of the world. And guess what I did? I didn't even think to turn off the fan blowing from the hallway. So one can of paint later I had 90% of one side of the rail painted, and all the paint that dried in the air settled all over my entire kitchen. Clean up took about an hour.

The next day I got marginally smarter—just a little—and bought more plastic and was more careful in my draping, and turned the fan off. Two cans of paint later I still had a lot more to finish. On the third day I did amazing things with that plastic sheeting (I really got to be an expert in draping off the house) and used up another one-and-a-half cans of paint to finish the rails. Finally. Except the next day I found some spots that were missed. Urrrgh!  Was it cheaper? No. $19 for the spray paint and $15 for the plastic; a can of paint would have been about $5, and a sponge brush is only about 50 cents. Was it easier or faster? No! I wouldn't have had to do so much draping, and it probably would have only taken one day if I'd brushed it on. Does it look fantastic? Well, yes. It does.

Once that was all finished, I cut the pieces for the kitchen floor (a full day's work) and put them in. It looks all right—too bad I can't show you a picture. :-(

Then I was ready to start on the kitchen counters. But before I could do that I had to fix some leaks under the sink and in the faucet. It turns out that I'm no good at plumbing; everything I touched broke. So I called my brother Gregory and he fixed the faucet and the shut-off valve that I broke. Unfortunately the next day there was still some leaking, but Greg was at work so I called my father-in-law and he fixed it. Yay! Now I could get to work on the counters.

Day One: The first thing I did was remove the kitchen sink. (Since there's no photo, you will have to imagine a big hole where the sink should be.) This gave me major deja vu, even though I've never removed a sink before. Next I finished sanding and washing the counters, and finally I could put down the black primer.

Day Two: Today was painting day! I sponged and painted on my counter colors and, I have to say, it looked pretty darn good.

Day Three:  Top coat. Twice. And I am done with the Giani products.

Now I had to decide whether to use marine spar varnish over the whole thing. I'd read a few countertop finishing sites and blogs that said this was a good idea. Marine spar is supposed to be fairly heat-proof and, obviously, waterproof, and very tough. After discussing with Bruce, I decided to do it. Now the one blog that really persuaded me to use the marine spar said that the varnish was thick, "like honey," and needed 24 hours of cure time between coats. What it didn't say was that it has a yellowish tint, but I'm OK with the color; instead of whites I have golds. Not exactly what I had in mind, but it still looks good.

It also didn't say that it's impossible to put the varnish on without leaving brush strokes behind. That's not so OK. I did my absolute best to not leave brush strokes, but . . .

After four days of curing (and an entire week with no kitchen sink), yesterday I still had to put on another coat of spar varnish, and I was feeling pretty irritated about the brush strokes. So I got online and started looking up tips on marine spar. And guess what? All the woodworking people (not the cute little moms who paint their counters) say that you need to thin the varnish by 15% with mineral oil if you want to brush it on smoothly. And also that, once cured, it's nearly impossible to sand out the brush strokes—and yes, they need to be sanded out. Well, that would have been nice to know. I sanded and sanded and sanded and got nowhere. So, in irritation, I slapped on a much-too-thick final coat. This means it's going to take longer to cure. Arrrgh! 

Well, besides having no kitchen sink, and not being able to use the dishwasher (and washing dishes in the bathtub for a week—rednecks!), everything that I normally keep on the counters is on the kitchen table. So are the rice-cooker, the electric frying pan and the crockpot—my current cooking devices because the stove is also pulled out of place and sort of out of commission while this project is in force. The dirty dishes are piling up on the table too, hidden amongst everything else. I can't really put anything back on the counters until they are completely cured, and who really knows when that will be? My big plan is to bring a card table into the kitchen and put all the extra stuff on that so we can use the kitchen table again. I'm thinking this will last one or two months, just to be safe. But I will go ahead and re-install the sink, probably tomorrow, because it's getting kind of ridiculous. (By the way, removing the sink was probably the easiest, quickest part of this entire project. I anticipate that replacing it will be equally simple. I hope.)

Oh, and did I say that the ceiling fan/light has been removed? I was taking down the fan blades so I could clean them and Bruce thought that would be a good time to hang the fan correctly. It's been loose since we moved in, and every time the kids run the fan I'm pretty sure it will fall down on someone, chop off their head, and smash their brains in all at the same time. So fixing it is a pretty good idea. Unfortunately, Bruce couldn't finish that project before he had to go out of town this week, so here I am with only a half-lit kitchen and the light fixture/fan sitting on the living room floor. (I'm not a plumber; not an electrician.)

On top of all that, my peaches are ripe and falling all over the ground. Seriously, we've probably lost more than 200 peaches. So this week I've been picking peaches and then going to Melanie's house to do my canning.

So, yeah. We are in utter. complete. chaos. And my camera's lost.