Satisfaction



I got the Chair Rail molding up and painted this weekend, with an assist from my mother who was passing through. I did the touch-ups and voila!



The best looking room in the house. While it was a tremendous pain in the posterior, now that I have executed my lovely bride's master plan I must admit it looks damn nice.



Check out the fish "wallies", stickers designed to stick to your walls without destroying your walls. We might add some sea turtles or doplhins or something, but have to make sure it doesn't get too busy.

It wasn't all sugar and light.

For one, I installed new breaker electric outlets. The kind that trip themselves off in they feel a surge (faster and with a lower threshold than your fuse box). In addition to being slightly more complicated than your normal outlet (you have to connect the wires to the correct leads or it can't "break" the current) these are grounded sockets where my previous ones were not. The previous ones were literally falling apart, so some change had to be made, so why not upgrade to the latest in outlet technology? Anyway, grounding a socket simply requires connecting it to the outlet box, the steel box the outlet is sitting in inside your wall. The steel box is grounded, so anything connected to it will be as well. To ensure a tight connection, I like to drill a hole in the box big enough to put in a screw that I can then attach to a grounding wire. Needless to say, sometimes drilling into a steel box recessed into the wall can be a thankless task. In this particular instance it led to one broken drill bit and, worse, a slip that pulled about an inch of plaster off the wall. Already painted plaster. Arrgh!!!

Fear not, I have already repainted the area. But between the initial incident and the final latex painting, there was some swearing and tossing of dustpans. You can tell when I am really angry at myself for doing something dumb, because I start inventing new swear words. In the interest of not having this blog blocked by parent filters I will repeat none of them here. Let me just say I combine the standard dirty seven words in combinations with objects that just don't make much sense... bubble gum, kazoos, whatever pops into my heated brain. Usually I also mention donkeys.

Another problem I had was that one of the closets refuses to dry properly. Every time I think it is completely dry I close it. After an hour it creates a strong, superglue-like bond with the door frame and when the closet in opened again, it rips the pain off. Presently we are living with this issue as dealing with the oil paint any further is more than I can bear... although now we are considering the painting of bureau.

So, what I would like most now is that the room not be used at all, but instead declared off limits using a velvet rope. Tour groups will be brought by, but they may only gawk inwards longingly.

Apparently this is an unreasonable request.

Instead we are filling the room with baby gear. More on that next blog. In the meantime, please enjoy this photo of me and my dog, Pismo, which looks wholely inappropriate, but is in actuality, not:




I'm scratching her back people! It is either this or more pictures of animals wearing hats, I swear!

S.