Monday, February 23, 2009

A busy week, home repairs, and fabric

I basically spent the entire weekend on the road. I drove to my sister's house on Saturday (4 hours each way) and dropped off a truck load of stuff for storage, and then on Sunday I took Baby Girl to the Big City so we could get my car (where it's been sitting for about a month). Her car no longer wished to be a traveling garbage can and gave up the ghost, so she has now inherited mine.

And since my sewing machines are in Hans' apartment and I'm here and not there, I'm not getting any sewing done.



My family room has a typical drop ceiling with a tongue-in-groove tiled ceiling and fluorescent lighting. But it also has carpeting and a working fire place and in the winter it's really very cozy. Anyway, the plastic 'shade' that shields the fluorescent light had yellowed and cracked with age. Actually there are two of them. I found replacement panels at the local hardware store but they were too wide and would need to be cut down to size.

Guess who got to cut them?

Thank God the employee at the store warned me that it was a difficult task and that the panels can break very easily.

So I bought extra sharp utility (razor) blades, loaded one into my utility cutter, and with gloves and goggles (I'm too damned busy to pay any visits to the emergency room!), I carefully scored a line the length of the panel, and then placing the scored line 1/8th of an inch over the edge of my work bench I carefully bent the panel, snapping it off every few inches.



Here is the old panel up in the ceiling.







This is the panel, before I cut it, sitting on my work bench.
















See how sharp the shards of plastic look? They're just like glass and I ended up with slivers all over the place.














Even more pieces.










Here's the finished product up in the ceiling. It bent and wobbled all over the place and I had to take one panel down because it didn't fit and chisel away at it until it was right.

This was one project that had me a little worried but it's done, and just in time too, as I had a realtor over this afternoon going over the place.


The finished product.






I've painted, papered, cleaned, and repaired and yet I was still nervous about what she might think I should do to my house. The harvest gold kitchen appliances? The old carpeting?

No.

The first thing she asked was if I planned on repainting the living room and hallway.

This is because I painted it (or I should say Hans painted it) what I thought, was a beautiful terra-cotta shade, with a slightly lighter shade on the ceiling, a couple of years ago (I also made the curtains).

What was I thinking?

I told her there was no way Hans would ever paint this room again and I was right because when I talked to him this evening (via skype because he is now in Zurich) and told him what the realtor asked, he said, "I will not paint that room again!"

She and I finally decided that if the color (which she mistakenly called pink) is a huge issue, I can always repaint it. Hans said to tell her if someone doesn't like it, then just knock $500.00 off of the bid.

It appears to me that he's being pretty free and easy with my money!!




I just love getting stuff in the mail and unfortunately after a few bourbons in the evening I tend to get quite a few things in the mail. There should be a law about alcohol consumption and credit card usage!

There really should.

I went to go for my run tonight and found this on my doorstep. I made myself run 4 miles before I allowed myself to open it.

Another delivery from J and O fabrics. I believe it's my third order and of course it won't be my last!





Fun, fun, summer fabric.

This will be a bag of some sort.

















And of course my favorite; wine fabric.

See the wine corks, I love them!!! Actually I have a huge wine cork collection and at least one of them will be a part of the purse that I plan on making with this fabric.







I won't get to the Big City until the end of the week when I have to pick Hans up from his two week absence, and since I don't have access to my machines I'll get this stuff prewashed and ready for when I get there. I see that pattern review is having a purse contest (bad timing for me) and since I wouldn't be able to get anything done until the end of the week I'm not going to enter as it would just be too late.

Maybe next time.

No comments: