I found my buckwheat pillow today! Only took me seven days after moving into my new house. My next goal is to find my toothbrush, my sonic care, the one I really use. I have been using my travel toothbrush, which is a child’s size from Dr. Lombardo’s office. It feels like everything I have is lost, but at least unpacking is more fun than packing. I am reassembling my life, one box at time. (How strange that a life can be boxed up.)
I had had the brilliant idea that I was going to pack a suitcase as if I was going on a week-long trip, for the moving transition, but then I only had time to half-pack. That’s my excuse for not running last week – couldn’t find my running shoes! Luckily, my bag always has a toothbrush in it, because I have a faraway boyfriend. I am really looking forward to finding my sonic care toothbrush. When my dentist first suggested one, I gasped, $100 for a toothbrush?!? but now my teeth just don’t feel right without it. Anyway, now you can get one at a place like Macy’s 4th of July sale for $50 (if you lived by a Macy’s and not in the boondocks like me).
I learned a bunch of stuff about painting a house that I am going to write down here, so I can reference it next time. With the help of the Murdy clan, we got one 3-bed 2-bath house kicked out in two days. And the house looks very, very snazzy. You are all invited to come and see it!
After much deep thought and hee-hawing, I decided against doing my house in the same colors as Carolyn’s apt on Lombard St. I think this house is a little too dark for those kind of colors. Also, I asked myself, was it worth the bother if I thought I was going to move out in a year and rent this place out? I talked to some other slumlord friends of mine, and it turns out they paint their rentals all Navajo white. They might have even said they paint the whole house semi-gloss (!!).
I made a compromise with myself and picked two colors: Moccasin White and Wheat Dust. (Where can I get a job naming paint?) Bella’s room is pink: Fairy Breath. I let her pick the color and then when I ordered it, I had them put in half the red that the formula called for. That made the fairy breath, half the pink it was intended to be. It is unlikely that she will ever find out, because she would never bother reading what she calls “Mommy’s Boring Myspace.”
The living room, my bedroom and my office are all Wheat Dust, which is a glow-y kind of a tan. The kitchen, both bathrooms, hallway and the hallway closet are all Moccasin White. The kitchen, door jambs, doors, and both bathrooms are in semi-gloss for easier cleaning. Apparently this is house-painting norm (the semi-gloss I mean. We decided that the hallway closet is a good one for semi-gloss too.)
The thing that made the whole house-painting endeavor happen so fast is that my boyfriend’s dad used to paint houses for a living. He told me exactly what to buy: we got 2 5-gals plus two 1-gal cans; and the equipment we needed: two or more rollers, several roller pads, a roller extension rod, drop cloths, plastic yogurt containers, two good slanted brushes (looked about 4-inch), and old clothes to paint in. We also used a milk crate to stand on, and a couple ladders.
Al came over on Friday and prepped the the house – which turns out to be the real work of painting. He doesn’t use any tape at all. I was pretty impressed with how straight a line he could paint! So, first he took off all the light switch and electrical outlet boards. Then, he took off all the doors and propped them up on bits of wood in the garage. (Painting a house without doors was much easier.) Then he prepped all the walls and the closets, which means painting any spot a roller can’t fit into; so corners, edges, around stuff that can’t be unscrewed, around windows and sills, i.e., most of the house. All this made painting the next day a breeze.
The next day, we painted all the doorjambs (sloppy, but without drips) in the glossy. When Al spotted a dry paint drip on the jamb I had painted, he just reached up and peeled it off. Then he said to make sure that I hit that spot again – when I had painted ove it, there was no trace of the drip mark. Then the baseboards, again sloppy, because the careful part was going to be the wall color going down. I used a long thin metal edge to keep the paint off the carpet.
Once the rooms started to get rolled, the house got painted very quickly. The bathrooms were a pain, because almost the whole thing is edge work, but at least the whole thing is one color. The closets took up a lot of paint and time too. I guess they are like a little room to themselves.