Up to My Ears

Do you ever have an idea that seems great, and turns out to be more work than you would ever have thought?

I decided that we needed to paint the living room. We've had the same color now for about 10 years and it was worn and I was tired of it. The problem is that the living room is tall--about 13 feet in the front, 10 in the back. But we've divided it with a chair rail, so I figured we could paint the lower part easily and leave the top to do in winter when there's more time for big projects. Sounds like  good plan, doesn't it?

But first I wanted to put up this long shelf we got from our buddy Carl who tears down old buildings. In one old shed he was taking down was this beautiful oak shelf in great condition with an excellent finish, being used to store cans of oil and other junk. I wanted it up over the big window in the kitchen, to hold my metal trays. Now, this was actually a pretty simple project and I felt like we were on a roll.

To paint the lower walls meant, of course, taking down all of the trim, which also needed freshening up with new stain.That was step one. I thought I was going to paint the lower part green but I didn't have enough of the sage green color I wanted so I went with white, since that was the paint I had enough of.

Bad idea. Didn't like it at all. So I took the bucket of white back to the workroom and started adding greens--any and all greens I had until finally, after a little gray and brown and who-knows-what, I had sage green. A lot of it!

So I repainted. That was day one.

Day two was the second coat of the green, which I really do like, and getting the trim boards ready. Very messy work. Then while they were drying I thought I'd paint this little table that used to be my mother's. The top was ruined and I always kept it covered with a cloth, but I thought it would look great if I sanded the top down and re-stained it dark, and painted the bottom part white. I already had the stain out (and all over my hands) from the trim boards.

Well. I sanded and sanded and it didn't look good. Stained it anyway and it looked worse. I sanded it again and painted it butter yellow. The veneer started to bubble up! What??

Got out the heat gun, pulled off all the veneer, sanded and cleaned it.

While that was drying I painted the wardrobe we use as a coat closet. It was pretty beat up and I thought a coat of paint would freshen it up. I got the first coat (of 3) on it and went back to the little table.

And the underlay on the table top had bubbled up in one small spot! I have never seen that happen before. I thought, well all right, I can live with it since this is for me anyway. I put a coat of sealer one it, let it dry, painted it again, sanded for the distressed look and put on the brown glaze for that old look. Every single tiny mark left by the sander showed and looked terrible! No pics of that, maybe later. Because that is where I left it.

By then it was late and I was tired and aggravated. We managed to get all the trim boards put back in place and that was where we stopped.

Yesterday, Mother's Day, I didn't touch the living room. I made us a good breakfast and we ate out on the deck and enjoyed the beautiful morning.

And then I planted flowers, lots of flowers that I've been buying and waiting for the rain to stop long enough to get them in the ground. In the evening we enjoyed a fine dinner prepared by our son Derek--his fantastic barbecued chicken with veggies, salad and grilled bread. Ahhhhh....

So the living room project, which I thought would be a piece of cake, is still not finished and it looks like it will be another day or two before it's done. Because I also have all these pictures and mirrors and a shelf I want to put up...

Stay tuned! It has to get done sometime, right?

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.