Renovations Update

I thought I’d take the time to update you all on the renovations taking place in my house, even though I really don’t have much to report. Motivation seems to have stalled out, on both Rob’s and my part.

We did go shopping again a while ago, so now I have on hand pretty much everything I need to be working on it. The only thing we haven’t bought yet is the molding & ceiling materials; Rob thinks he’ll wait till last to deal with those. We did come up with a plan for the ceiling, however, and worked out some of the details on how exactly it’s going to be done.

My plan for this week is to set up the sawhorses out on the driveway and get to work on sanding trim. I have “goop” that I’m to fill all the old nail holes with – that’s my first task.

My second task will be to take the sander that Rob loaned me and get to work. He brought both an electric one and a hand-held spongy one: I’m thinking the spongy one will work best, since I don’t have to be perfect. The goal is to just scuff it up a bit so the paint will hold.

That is my third task: painting. Once I get all the holes filled and the sanding done, I can just line everything up on the sawhorses and paint it all in one fell swoop. Theoretically, at least. I really should find some newspaper to put down, or I’ll be cleaning paint off the driveway along with all the oil my lovely ex-roommate left behind.

Back up in the room itself, I borrowed Mother’s carpet shampooer and cleaned real well. Then I took some carpet freshener and sprinkled pretty much the entire container on the floor (how was I supposed to know you didn’t need that much?) to help counter the smell of cat urine. That took several more passes with the vacuum to clean up, but now it smells nice and fresh!

Washing the walls with a mixture of 25 bleach/75 water took care of most of the dirt, dust, and grime – at least up to the 7-foot level. That’s as high as I could reach without going to get a chair to stand on. I was feeling a bit lazy that night, so just called it good. Rob can touch up the tops when he comes over next.

I had a lot of help that day: Thing was being so cute. She does love a clean carpet and was rolling around that whole evening. I had to take several breaks to roll around with her, of course.

That’s pretty much where things set now. Hopefully this weekend will see some real progress – but honestly I’m not holding my breath. Whatever happens, happens – and whatever doesn’t happen, doesn’t happen.

It would be nice to have my craft room set up, though.