"Properly practiced, knitting soothes the troubled spirit, and it doesn't hurt the untroubled spirit either." ~ Elizabeth Zimmerman

10/20/14

Not Knitting

I have not been knitting the past 5 days. I've been living in a house with ugly white walls for 22 years. I hate white walls. I decided I'd had enough! I've been too busy painting the living/dining room of my house to knit. It was a BIG job!

My daughter Ruth got 4 days off over the weekend. I drove up to Newport and picked up my  friend Judy who consented to spent a couple days with us to help.

The hardest, most labor intensive part of painting a room is all the prep work before you can lay that first bit of paint on the wall. First boxes were obtained, then we emptied the book shelf, which was 8 feet high and totally loaded, and took down all the pictures hanging on the wall.

On Friday I picked up Judy and brought her home. Then we pulled furniture away from 2 of the walls to the other side of the room. I got out the vacuum cleaner and we cleaned the walls. Goodness there were a lot of cobwebs!

Discussing the next step. Notice the ugly white walls.

After that it was masking around the windows, along the ceiling and floor edges, and around everything else we didn't want painted.

Judy and Ruth take a break after masking.

We laid down lots of plastic so as not to get paint on the bamboo floor. Finally, we could paint!

Judy gets busy with the roller

It took almost a whole hour to paint the first coat. Why is it that the fun part takes the least amount of time? Anyway, we took a 4 hour break to let it dry. We went to Paul Bunyans in Rathdrum for lunch (they have great burgers and fries!). Then just rested until it was time to get back to work. We painted the 2nd coat and called it quits for the day.

After the first coat.

On Saturday we had to move everything to the other side of the room so we could paint the remaining walls. We boxed up the DVD's on the other 8 foot high shelf first. This half of the room had the heaviest furniture. The entertainment stand, the piano, and a 4-drawer file cabinet. Whew! We managed to slide them out away from the wall enough to be able to paint behind them! It's amazing what 3 women can do when they want it bad enough. We didn't dare take our tv off the wall though. So we taped it in plastic and masked it extra extra good, and we were very very careful working around it. After all the masking and other prep work, we were finally able to paint the first coat. This one had some ladder climbing involved. I was glad there were 2 others around to see me if I accidentally fell off. Thankfully, I didn't and we got it done. We took a break to let the first coat dry and went into Rathdrum for lunch. This time we went to Taco Bell. After that we got the second coat painted. Around 5:30 Judy's hubby showed up to take her home. We were done painting by then. Yay!

Sunday morning Ruth and I slept in. We were soooo tired and sore. Everything hurt. Even my hair! But, the rooms needed to be put back right, so eventually we got busy. We had to peel all that masking tape off, put up the pictures, move the furniture back, put all the knick knacks back in their proper places, and unpack all the boxes of books and dvds and put them back on the shelves. We got about half of it done. We finished up most of the rest today. I took these tonight. The color is a pale green.

Front window

 Still have a few things to put away, and 3 pictures to hang behind the recliners, but otherwise done.

Entertainment wall.

 I am LOVIN' IT! No more ugly white walls. HURRAY!!! This green is so cheerful and actually brightens up the room. I am so unbelievably happy with it.

The dining room.

I am so thankful to my BFF Judy for spending 2 days helping us. It was a LOT of work. Having her here made it go faster and made it so much fun. Thank you Judy. You're the best!

I'm looking forward to Sweet Hubby coming home to see the paint job. I didn't say anything about it to him, so he's going to be surprised.

Tomorrow, I get back to knitting. I'm teaching a sock class first thing in the morning, and I have Rathdrum Knitalong in the afternoon. I'm a busy busy little bee.

Live long and prosper. \\//


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