solo painting

today i painted solo, it was a rare occasion.

but i was pretty proud of myself! i got all the door hardware off (and then back on) and now the final remaining sections of trim and interior doors have a fresh, glistening coat of clean white paint.

italian walnut flooring

and so began the week of flooring. if you remember from my previous post, the bedroom project had 3 steps:

• step 1: clear out the room and remove doors, trim and outlet covers
• step 2: paint the walls
• step 3: install new flooring

with budget in mind, but also wanting to keep my sense of eclectic style, i decided on an italian walnut laminate that was available online and available for pickup at menards. so long cement floor!

and then dad, my superhero handyman, once again came to the rescue. he spent the week working and oh. emm. gee. am i giddy with the results (don't mind my wrinkled bedding). my only regret is not doing this sooner!

the time i lived in my dining room

probably one of the biggest projects left on the final "to do" list was my bedroom.

• step 1: clear out the room and remove doors, trim and outlet covers
• step 2: paint the walls
• step 3: install new flooring

this meant i would be living on my futon in the dining room until the project was complete. luckily, my futon is practically more comfy than my bed! it also meant the move out process could begin. we brought a truck load of my stuff over to tim's house. load #1 of many, many truck loads.

 

the results of a hard days work! and with steps 1 and 2 done, we can move onto step 3!

• step 1: clear out the room and remove doors, trim and outlet covers
• step 2: paint the walls
• step 3: install new flooring

the purple curtains

I finally replaced my bedroom curtains to something less than the BLAH color they were. (Thank Goodness!) I originally bought them one day long ago at Ikea...I was on my way out and happened across the "As Is" section and figured, why not!? They were super cheap and super opaque: exactly what I craved for my bedroom so I could sleep in as long as possible on Saturday mornings.

But the color was just so boring. Especially since I have yet to do anything with my room. Right now it just has a coat of primer on the walls, a cement floor, and that's it! Not what you would expect from a web designer girl who loves color.

Anyways, I'll get to that later. So I was at Ikea again and passed this purple curtain set. I have been very into purple lately (no idea why) but nonetheless, I grabbed them.

And here they are! I like them best with my snowflake lights on, it gives them a soft glow :)

where's the rainbow?

so i'm in my bedroom getting ready for work when i notice an odd reflection near the wall. 

standing water. 

the fridge must be leaking! i remember back to last night when i had too many lights and electronics on and ended up blowing a few breakers. the freezer must not have turned back on and leaked the ice (which turned into water) out onto the floor...

nope.

i run into my kitchen only to see that is definitely not the case. my entire pantry is flooded, along with the hallway to my back door, which then leads through to my bedroom. i open my door to find even deeper water covering the back section of my condo, and it seems to be coming from my laundry room.

sure enough, the floor drain is completely filled with about a half foot of water, and it has spilled from there, through the walls into my kitchen, then through the walkway and into my bedroom. my floor drain in my bathroom closet was also completely flooded, but luckily nothing flooded too far in there. 

not exactly how i want to use my work vacation hours...

a breath of fresh air

it's been pretty miserable trying to get a good night's sleep in such a hot muggy bedroom, so i finally gave in and decided an air conditioner had turned from luxury to necessity. we picked up a soleus air 12,000 btu unit, complete with a remote so I can control it from my bed. how lazy am i?

anyways, turns out my window doesn't open...so dad had to go at it from the exterior of the building. he took the window off completely, cut a board to fit the empty space, cut out a square from that board to fit the air conditioner through, put it all back together, bolted it in place, plugged it in, and that was that. easier said than done of course (thanks for all your work on such an incredibly hot humid day dad! i know it was a lot more work than that).

 it's been a week now and i can honestly say i am loving the latest addition to my condo. not only can i sleep straight through the night, but i have a new-found appreciation for hearing little birdies chirping in the morning (there's still a sliver of open air around the unit that dad has to caulk up) and rain drops pitter-pattering on the air conditioner. it's oddly comforting.

a hanging garden

i've had a topsy turvy sitting quietly in it's box since winter, and six months later i finally got around to purchasing the remaining ingredients: a few small tomato plants, a giant bag of soil, a few hours of my mom's time, and a cleverly chosen rainy afternoon.

word to the wise: don't try to plant anything that you have to awkwardly hold multiple feet above the floor while simultaneously pouring in soil while carefully keeping the tomato plants unharmed and above the floor so they don't get crushed, all while in your bedroom.

but no matter how my hanging garden began, one month later it's alive and kickin. tiny yellow blossoms are flowering (which i hope is a good sign...?) and i've been watering it religiously, praying for the day that i wake up to a baby tomato...that will one day make delicious salsa.

speaking of, does anyone know any good homemade salsa recipes?

walk with me, talk with me

here's a little walkthrough of my condo so far...

THAT took you three hours?

since the parents are on vaca, me and matthew decided we could put up my bedroom fan (that chad scored me an awesome deal on from the HD). anyways, it looked pretty simple. but like everything that me and matthew attempt to do, it takes an insane amount longer than it should.

case in point: three hours later and this is as far as we got.

and we had to re-do most of it since the electrical wasn't hooked up right. bummer.

slowly but surely

everytime i go to the condo lately i've been bringing a box or two of my belongings with me. i am slowly but surely moving in...and i finally get to use my dish set that mom bought me for my college graduation. they hadn't even been out of their original packaging yet! i didn't want to risk breaking or losing them with all my crazy roommates i've had over the years.

anyways, our main goal tonight was to get the bed put together — since this was one of the last "big" things that i would need help with. everything else i can pretty much work on at my own pace, without needing any boys or muscles.

seal it in...once and for all

today was messy: we used kilz odorless oil-based paint on the floor. but i think i was more soaked in paint than the floor. and oil is a pain to scrub off.

supposedly this stuff is a primer, sealer and stainblocker all in one, and we were told it would seal in the remaining cat odor. so if this doesn't work, nothing will (since we've already ripped out the original flooring, cleaned it with special odor-eliminating cleaners, scrubbed and vacuumed every crack, and now sealed it with this paint. goodness gracious).

let's stay fifteen more minutes

after working on primer for an hour or so, dad says "let's work for fifteen more minutes...and then we'll call it a night." well, in that fifteen minutes we got the entire bedroom pergo flooring out. wow, that was easy.

glitter and pink paint

memorial day. thank goodness stores are open! me and mom spent quite a while at the home depot narrowing down light green paint for the living room wall. i ended up choosing "home song" by behr for the walls....i hope it looks good!

oh, and we decided to get ceiling paint that goes on pink and dries white -- so we can see where we have already painted. im just a little skeptical about putting pink paint on the ceiling, let's hope the pink fades away like they claim it does!

so we headed over to the condo to get started on the living room ceiling. dad rolled on the pink paint while i followed behind him throwing glitter up into the wet paint for a sparkly ceiling! who would have guess i would get sore from throwing glitter into the air.

next we ripped down the big closet between the living room and dining room. we found a sewer pipe running through the edge of the wall, so that beam will have to stay, but other than that, the demo went really well. and meanwhile, mom was priming the walls and ceiling in my bedroom.

we finished up around 5:45 and headed home for a few hours for a yummy memorial day bbq of burgers, corn on the cob, and fruit salad. then me, chad, and dad were back at the condo moving in the fridge and dryer until 10pm. phew! what a day! but so much fun!