The Ink-Pot and the Palette

The first big push of the patch season was over on Friday. Finally! Working till 7:30 every evening was getting old. I think I can make my Zumba class tonight for the first time in a couple of weeks!

With the reprieve from patch-season stress, I was also able to summon up the mental power for a couple of projects at home.

The first of them is the Glass Soffit Project, which has turned into the Acrylic Soffit Project.

TAP Plastics supplied me with some nice thick frosted acrylic sheet material on Saturday, precision cut and drilled in less than an hour. It's lighter and more transportable than glass. Cheaper, too. And involves way less lead time. For someone with a bike and hardly any free time, it was a perfect choice.

I managed to mask off and prep and paint everything in the awkward soffit space above the cabinets near the ceiling. The frosted panels and some LEDs are going to turn that space from unsightly dark cave of Prior Homeowner Ineptitude to a sort of glowing overhead box of tasteful (and yet magenta) loveliness.

That's the plan, anyway.

Patch Season Part II begins next week and runs to December 6th. I'm enjoying the breathing space while it lasts.

It's been awhile since I've done anything much to my house. Saving for a big trip chokes off the home-improvement funds, and after the trip there's the whole OMG-I'm-broke thing. Then too, I'm determined to retire in two years and that means saving like crazy.

At the same time, winter's coming, I'm indoors a lot, and my poor little house's many defects and flaws really start shouting at me right around now. What to do?

Well, DIY, I guess. I have a detailed kitchen remodeling plan which will cost second mortgage levels of money to complete, and no new mortgage is in my future (because good lord, if we haven't learned anything else these past three years...) but what if I could do some of it myself, for the cost of materials?

I mean, how hard could it be, right?

( LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL )

I was hoping to get all the way from "before" to "after" in the Kitchen Remodel in a Weekend project, but I'm still at "during".

( About 75% done )

So, getting there. It's going to be a couple more evenings. Off to the Bathtub of Resuscitation for me.

The unexpected outcomes of Project Empty continue to occupy my free time and brainspace...and, I sheepishly report, my wallet.

I wasn't going to buy new stuff--especially not "storage solutions". The last thing I wanted was new containers for old crap. Which was a great intention, but I didn't see the kitchen explosion coming.

When I was eating from restaurants and packages, the storage space in my kitchen was fine. But when I started preparing twenty-one meals a week at home, things got out of hand.

( Befores and afters in the Project Empty tradition. )

So, the level of stuff falls a lot, then rises a little, as the whole lifestyle changes. I wish I could say that I've stopped acquiring new things, but all I can really claim is that the influx of stuff into my life has dropped off sharply.

The quality of my life seems to keep going up.

Help! Project Empty is in danger of succumbing to my Serial Enthusiasm Syndrome. As with every single thing I've ever undertaken in my life, once I get my arms around the general theory, I get bored. But I'm not done with Project Empty yet! My house is still partially full. I really want to keep going.

( Inspiring friends, big insights, and the will to carry on. )

A bunch of my friends are doing Project Empties of their own, and reporting on their successes here. roseambr has a great junk drawer post, complete with amusing and impressive pictures, that gave me a kick in the ass this evening. I, too, have a kitchen drawer...

::Flops exhaustedly to couch::

Over the last couple of weekends, I've made two trips to Home Depot, three visits to the corner hardware store, three jaunts to IKEA; I've used up 40 hollow-wall anchors, a Ryobi battery pack, a Philips screwdriver bit, and a quart each of drywall mud, primer, and paint; and I've required several ibuprofen tablets...

( Huge strides in Project Empty: Get Rid of My Crap. )

Holy shit, that was a lot of work! That's FOURTEEN areas done now. Fifty-two more to go.

I'm going to bed.

The thing about IKEA is that you go there to look at kitchen cabinets and go, "Oooh, cabinet! $39!" and somehow when they ring you up for everything you need in order to actually install two of them, like doors and stuff, it's $345 and you're too embarrassed to say, "Whoops, I was in fantasyland."

So I ponied up. It's all part of Project Empty, my new hobby.

avventura1234 helped steady my nerves getting through IKEA--honestly, is there a portkey to a graveyard in the middle of that store?--and load the heavy flat-packs into my car. Now they're lined up in my kitchen, and as soon as I finish drinking this restorative pot of tea I'm going to flex my Allen wrenches and start assembling the thing.

Here's the Before picture that this cabinet purchase is intended to make an After picture out of. Note: this represents Project Empty, Area 3.1. It's in my kitchen.

( Try not to scream. )

Oh, and for the tally of Project Empty completed areas (and I can't emphasize enough how important it's been to slice this project very, very thinly):

• 7.1 Outdoor areas: Front porch
• 2.8 Bedroom nightstand a: top surface
• 2.8 Bedroom nightstand b: drawer

Only 63 more to go.