I got up bright and early and pursued yet another DIY project…the front entrance and closet. I’m leaving the intense palette at the front door. Ten years ago, I wanted to keep a triad sort of palette going, with the three primary colours, but recently I’ve been muting the colour throughout my living space to create a more peaceful sense. I’m continuing to work my way through various categories inspired by The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up byMarie Kondo and translated by Cathy Hirano. I’ve still got so far to go, but, at times I can see my space evolving.
I didn’t take a photograph of the inside of the front closet. Suffice it to say, it was a disaster. So…I got Max out to Frank’s Flats and then began in earnest. Does Max look pleased? Would anyone else publish photographs such as these on their blog…NAH…but, I’m putting them here as a way of explaining just why I’ve been isolating a tad during this summer. With the broken foot tying me down to this space for all of July, I’ve spent August transforming my spaces, beginning with the top level. Now, for this one!
My place looked just like this, when I got myself cleaned up and excitedly, headed out to the Bogners! Escape! Vacation time! Friendship! Laughter! Jane and Randy are angels and the day could not have been more glorious for a drive toward the mountains and all that green! Four dogs are presently sharing their space and so there was extra fun upon my arrival. It was great to observe and talk about other folk’s DIY projects as Randy has also been up a ladder for a good part of the summer, painting the stucco and window frames of this beautiful home.
See all that green…uh huh…see those white window frames! Yuppers!Moose Mountain, straight ahead…the view from the deck.
Dog walking, Forestry Way…fun times with Charles, Ripley, Stella, and Juno…Max was waiting patiently, in the DIY chaos back at home.
Looking toward home…gosh, I love this beautiful Juno!
Do you see her? Peek-a-boo!
I GOT A STUDIO TOUR! What light! What space! A wood stove and everything! A potter’s paradise. The kiln space also wonderful! And I received the beautiful 60th birthday gift of a Bogner tea pot, fired in this very kiln! WHOOT!
Arch within the kiln. East side studio windows…lovely mature jade plants next to a wood fire place.
North facing studio windows…wowsah!
The artist stands before the signage for the house entrance.
We finished our tour in perfect time to enjoy one of Jane’s beautiful meals…salmon marinated in olive oil, garlic, ginger, soya sauce; broccolini, garden fresh green beans, tomatoes and roasted potatoes followed by fruit crisp, with bits of lemon and orange zest served with a dollop of vanilla ice cream. Nummers! Wining and dining with Alex, Jane and Randy…a beautiful afternoon/evening after a tour of the studio. Before the grill…
During the service…warm, homemade bread with needle nose pliers. :0)
Dogs overseeing the operation…
The feast… Saying good-bye to exhausted Great Dane, Stella. (and hoping that she would have a good sleep through the night)
I am grateful for friendships that last the years and believe that they must be preserved and tended with care. Now that I have found my way out to visit the Bogner’s, I hope to do it again very soon.
This was a delicious holiday experience! With gratitude, I headed home before sun faded to the west, silently and slowly passing a deer out on Forestry Way…amazed by the peacefulness of the scene.
Back at home, I applied the second coat and began putting my space to rights. I feel rejuvenated and happy to have had a get away. It’s been a long summer, but there has been magic along the way.
Walls ready for some art and a light fixture crying to be out of here. When my table was finally clear of the clutter, I set out the gift of a tea pot and felt grateful. Thank you, Randy. Its aesthetic reflects that sense that I wish to create in my home.
Today is a tremendously magical day. Fresh snow covers everything and I ended up spending more time than usual at Frank’s Flats…playing with the Max Man and delighting in the dazzle of everything.
Plans for the day have changed because of the beauty of the white…and the wonderful feeling of fresh cold air. I like how that happens.
The last I posted of this bedroom furniture DIY project was titled, WHITE. I had everything primed and ready to go. At that point, I had thought to paint based on Marc Chagall’s work, but have opted to do a free flowing bit from my own heart. I wanted to pick up on the colours found in a feature painting hanging already in my bedroom…something I did a long time ago. Here is where colour comes in.
First of all, Sisters Marjorie and Ita enjoyed a Sunday dinner with my son and me. They were so gracious and brought me a beautiful spring bulb arrangement. It has sat on my feast table this week and I have watched one plant after another, burst forth in colour.
While I have been very slow to progress with my studio furniture…I wanted to give a bit of a sense of where it is going at this time. As well as what you see here, there will be other layers…text as well as sparrow paintings incorporated in collage techniques. In the meantime, I continue to sleep on my brand new double box spring and mattress, on my bedroom floor. I hope to update you again in the spring with the completed furniture. Painting can be like experiencing the seasons…moving from the blank canvas to an energized piece of colour.
Moving beyond white, I’ve applied two coats of colour to the pieces and I’m now beginning to create the art. I thought I’d continue with the theme of this earlier painting that I’ve hung in my bedroom and incorporate the autumn leaves, as well as some mountain ash berries foliage and a couple of sparrows. We’ll see how that goes. I have begun to block in some areas for colour. Because I’m using acrylic paints, I don’t want to apply yellow over a green or blue. I find that yellow is very translucent and will not be pure unless applied to a white ground.
This is the fun part. The first coat of base colour (a periwinkle or lavender blue) has been applied to the other vanity and I’m in the house drinking a glass of water before the project continues.
Be mindful when taking on a Freecycle item OR a Kijiji item…just sayin’.
It begins with this. This is a 3/8″ bolt. It doesn’t look like anything too too problematic, but stay with me.
This is one side of a conversation outside of an Airdrie garage.
“Oh, you have a bolt missing on this one bracket. But, never mind…this one is loose enough; just take it out and take it to Home Depot and they can match it up for you.”
Next morning…some time around 10, I go to unscrew the aforementioned bolt, to have it drop out of the hole and into my hand. I pop it into the upper and lower of two holes to learn, sadly, that it is totally too small for the job. Ok…the bolt isn’t threaded, so this must mean that both holes (not in the bracket, but in the baseboard of this cool antique hospital bed) must be threaded. Here begins my DIY dilemma.
First gent meets me in the hardware isle of Home Depot where I learn that there are some standard bolt sizes, 3/8″ being one of them. As well, there are 1/4″, 5/16″ and 1/2″. I was supposing I needed something like a 7/16″. Hmmm…I leave with these, thinking, just maybe the holes were larger than I imagined them. Folks, there’s a big jump between 3/8″ and 1/2″. Don’t do it!
I know. Ridiculous…even if able to fight them through the base board steel tubing, there is NO WAY possible to get them through the thick bracket!
I tell the same gent on my second trip, WE HAVE TO COME UP WITH A SOLUTION!
He gives me these…are you kidding?
Standing out in the parking lot, even anticipating the EPIC FAIL on this possibility, I have the foresight to go into the Home Depot for a third time and get washers. Will you look at the size of the heads on those screws? Compare them to the size of the heads on those Hex bolts! So, I buy these.
A number 8 leaded super duper picture plugger IS NOT GOING TO DO IT! Not large enough to even explore the possibility.
I decide to try Lowes. The guy who is spread out and changing oil under his car across the street, comes out from under the car and inquires, “Just what project has you going today?” I give him the short version and he adds, as he’s slipping back under the car, “Your neighbour is a welder.”
The guy from Lowes knows what he’s talking about, I think. He starts talking to me about Tap Kits and walks me over to the tools section. He is talking…but I’m not really listening. The voice in my head is saying, “What the heck? Is this really happening? How the heck am I going to learn how to use a Tap Kit??” When I come out of my apparent fog, he says the only other thing to do is to call Calgary Fasteners. They have the solutions and the hardware for pretty much everything. I appreciate that I am, at least, going home without more tools and bits in my pocket.
I call Calgary Fasteners. A very nice guy entertains my story over the phone, but in the end repeats the common story about what sizes of bolts are available, but promises that if I bring all of the pieces over to their location (somewhere in la la land), they might be able to show me how a Tap Kit can modify things. He says that I might not require a 7/16″ bolt, but something metric. It’s a precise art.
I thank him and put down the phone.
At this point I’m well into the day and feeling hopeless.
I look up the Husband-For-Hire number and leave the directory open on the kitchen counter and decide to pour myself some cold water and go over the natural consequences that surface when making less than ideal decisions.
Logging in to Facebook, I put out a helpless plea.
I’m in a bit of a fix-it conundrum presently. If you have knowledge of hardware/bolts/tapping new holes etc, please private message me.
It isn’t four minutes when I receive duo responses from two wonderful guys. Pretty much, in tandem, they respond with the exact solution…not necessarily the most aesthetic, but very strong and relatively easy.
I calculate the diameter of the steel tube and off I go, back to Lowes, where this time I feel confident that I’m going to resolve the function of the bracket for the bed. I purchase these items, as well as two lock washers and hex nuts. I purchase 2 1/2″ long bolts to account for the thickness of the tube, front and back, the washers and the nuts.
I do the job.
Next time? Yes…go ahead with the instinct that tells me, “Please, sir, will you put this thing together in front of me, so that I might see the pitfalls before I bring the pitfalls home with me?” A big day of learning for me!
While in the back yard, with tools and things scattered about…I quickly put together my bean-bed and decide it’s time that Max have some company.
That’s it…three sessions of scrubbing down my sanded furniture and I’m ready to apply the primer. I thought I’d capture a photo of the living breathing wood before I seal its pores again with paint.
After some discussion with daughter #2, I’ve decided to free-form the pieces for my bedroom to capture the feeling of autumn. So…forget Marc Chagall. Onward and outward, Kathleen Moors!
I used this furniture for healing. It took me a long time to recognize that…but it is so! Alzheimer’s disease steals layers of memory so incredibly slow. My heart goes out to every reader who has had to find strength through years of watching your dearest loved ones make this journey…and I pray with everything in me for families who have just received a diagnosis and who need to find creative and accepting ways of taking this same walk. I came to discover as I peeled back the layers of paint over so many nights and weekend afternoons that GRACE is what helped me…GRACE is what healed me and the quiet of hours picking away at paint in the warm light of my studio. Mom, you remain, with all of your memories, inside of me always.
I picked up the green vanity on September 12 of 2011 and the other pieces August 22, 2013. The fronts and backs of every piece were totally suffocated in multiple layers of paint. I will not be removing paint from furnishings again…let it be known!
Max and I did a round at Frank’s Flats. There was a chill, but it was so wonderful to get out there and move! Both of us enjoyed it. The two of us have been on a retreat, of sorts, along with Peanut-the-cat who is always on retreat! Max broke one of his claws, to the bleed, on ice, at the start of vacation, so I’ve been wrapping his paw for our modified walks ever since. And I decided at the start of vacation to paint two of the upstairs bedrooms that have been sporting colours that are dark and lacking cheer. So, the three of us have been intensely together and I have been involved in the Lenten meditation of painting walls.
The thing about painting walls, with a border collie in close proximity (wandering in with his throw-baby and putting it down again and again in front of my two liter of paint), is that the ritual must begin each time with a vacuum of the area. And so, unlike past years and zillions of wall-painting experiences, this one has been dragging. (And you know what the rest of the house looks like when you decide to paint walls, right?)
Anyway….I’m sitting here, ready for the next attack! I’m eating a home made Caesar salad…squeeze of lemon…ground pepper…lots of garlic! The floors have been vacuumed throughout the house. Max is sleeping calmly on his Bambi. (every dog has its place…and Bambi is Max’s place). Posting some photos of the process and then off I go.
How did you spend Spring break?
The hidden monsters…and something you can not see, unless you are there, washing the walls! Blahhhh!
Dark Colours and filling holes!
Taping base boards, around doors and windows…YUCK! Cutting in edges with primer!
Rolling primer…
Last night, at 10:30…while cutting in my colour, I knocked over my two liters of paint, and with response time being less than ideal, spilled one third of the can over THAT hardwood floor. This is the floor, after clean-up. Needless to say, this was the whole reason I am now, finally beginning today’s work. I considered paying someone to do this work…heh, but then I wouldn’t be having these sorts of experiences! Have a good weekend, folks! Stay tuned for photos of the completed projects!
Just briefly checking in with my readers regarding my DIY project. I took a couple of days off from this project, but was back at it today. My father was wondering with all of the close ups just what I am creating, so I slid the drawers in to the dresser to give him and idea. Nearing the finish line with the stripping and sanding. I will be purchasing a tube of wood filler and a can of primer tomorrow after Mass.
After Mass today, I stopped at a store to replenish my DIY supplies.
Max and I headed out for some off-leash fun and then after a quick lunch, I started up some tunes (Jann Arden) and continued on with the bedroom furniture prep.
Today’s readings at Mass really spoke to me for a whole number of reasons. The following song causes me to think again about the Gospel reading, Luke 13: 22-30.
I began my session of stripping furniture today with some new tools…beautiful rubber gloves and a new paint stripping tool! I also picked up, upon someone’s recommendation, some Heirloom paint stripping gel. The work went remarkably well. Now, to put my feet up.
Heirloom Paint Remover, Fancy Paint Stripper and New Black Gloves
Head Board Coming Along
Yesterday
Today
Things are happening here.
Unlike the Heirloom promotional video, this is what my first application and stripping looks like! Not so easy as presented.
The mess would drive some people bonkers.
I’m starting to think about what artist I’m going to be exploring on these next three pieces of furniture for my bedroom. At the moment, I’m thinking about Chagall’s Madonna or his Abraham and Three Angels. I want to use a colour scheme that includes Pthalo Blue and a rich deep earthy orange. I might go a whole other direction, but just for this time, this is what I’m thinking.
