The Ink-Pot and the Palette

...why I painted my porch bright purple (the paint color was actually called Red Meets Blue) until I got a security camera--and a bright, sunny (albeit VERY CHILLY) day. Now I can enjoy my color choice from indoors, on my phone. 



 
The technology of home security is weird. I don't want or expect to catch any villains with this thing. Mostly, I want to see who's at my door, or whether my cat Graydie is sitting there wanting to come in.

But since it's brand new, I'm having fun turning on the speaker at night, saying, "Hey Boo-boo," and getting Graydie to look up at the camera. 

Can you believe it? IKEA discontinued my pink couch and sold the very last one in the Pacific Northwest yesterday!

( Read more... )

I think I'm gonna buy a new couch.

I've never had any kind of guest accommodation in this house. The living room is too cramped for a traditional sofa bed, and there's just the one bedroom. In the past, visitors have slept on a twin mattress on the living room floor, on my undersized couch (she was unusually small), and in a tent in my side yard (sorry, sis!). Others have been directed to moderate hotels not too far from here.

I think IKEA has come to my rescue at last with a sofa-bed that will fit, if a bit massively, into this space.

( It's pink. )

Both of my sisters came over yesterday and helped me assemble furniture. This may count as an even greater act of generosity than helping someone move house.

Both of them were calm, thorough, and patient, and even if I could have physically managed those giant wardrobes alone (I couldn't have), the task would have defeated me mentally without their help.

( We got about 80% of the way there. )

The electrician is here with his assistant, installing outlets, switches, and light fixtures. Furniture delivery is scheduled for tonight. My sister is coming over tomorrow to help me start assembling it.

I should be able to move my bed back in by Monday. After that, it's a gradual process of cleanup, garage sale, fiddling, reorganizing, slipcovering, probably four more trips to IKEA for bits and parts, and the slow return to normal*.



* Normal includes resuming my online life, finishing Restraint edits, and hopefully getting tired of 2048.

I can't decide whether the best invention ever right now is kneepads, utility knives, audiobooks or ibuprofen. All of these have played major roles in my life the last few days.

( It's a good tired )

The drywall contractors dropped off 20 sheets of Sheetrock the other day, and it's been lying on my sad, sad bedroom floor, conveniently wrong side up, so last night I magicked some of it up.


That's my one and only professional portrait photo, which I had done for my 40th birthday and have had hidden in the back of a closet ever since. I wrote a little history of my time in this house on the back.

The writing is "The Jewel" by James Wright, my forever-favorite poem:

There is this cave
In the air behind my body
That nobody is going to touch:
A cloister
A silence
Closing around a blossom of fire.
When I stand upright in the wind
My bones turn to dark emeralds.


A couple of vigorous fellows came at 8:30 this morning, and had my drywall installed by 2:00. (One of them looked at my Sheetrock enhancement and asked, "What's that?" and I said, "Just some magic," and he kind of nodded, like, yeah, I've heard of that. Apparently people do this kind of thing all the time. Who knew?)


(Look at all my light fixtures! \o/)

Taping tomorrow morning, mudding tomorrow afternoon, sanding on Wednesday, and the contractor says I can paint by Saturday.

Just a fly-by at the end of a long day of obsessive project-detail-absorption, to share my new wall painting idea.

A few weeks ago I was testing a pastel color-meshing technique. It wasn't quite right, and two things caused me to change direction. First, a couple of people commented that the finish would look better with some metallic silver in it. And second, I'm getting new walls! Color-meshing is great for disguising damaged old walls, and I don't really need to do that now.

Silver metallic paint tends to read as gray, so I started playing with pearl powder. Then I thought, ooh, how about stencils?

I discovered Cutting Edge Stencils and fell in love with one called Birch Forest.

Here's my initial--and, I think, final--experiment.

( Winterwood )

Apologies to everyone in my circles for being a bad online friend over the last several weeks. I'm entering the freaking-out portion of my bedroom project, and my level of absorption--not to say obsession--is extreme. I hope to return to regular communication very soon.

( Ready for the onslaught )

My sister came by today and used her superpowers to pull out the last of the earthquake-proof closet.

( Deconstruction Accomplished )

There are a few things left in the bedroom--including my bed--that still have to come out before flooring can commence. My living room, kitchen, and porch are already heaped high, so the next order of business is a choice: rent a storage pod or just jettison a bunch of stuff.

I'm leaning heavily towards jettisoning. It's a lot simpler.