Tag: me

Last Day of Blue Walls!

It’s been almost 15 years since Chris and I panted the walls blue. It wasn’t my favorite color, but it was my favorite color of the Metro Paint colors. Rereading that post, I was reminded that I once had an idea of installing shelving so the cats could hang out up top. I have no memory of that plan, though I do remember the plan to stencil Hungarian stars on the wall.

Anyhoo! I’ve grown very tired of this blue and am very excited for a new era. Here’s a corner by corner view.

To prepare for painting, I pushed my desk into the middle of the room, put my bedframe in the back yard, and my mattress in the front room.

To prep, I spackled over holes that I wouldn’t be using, and removed all of the extraneous things like switch plates and shelving.

In this picture, you can see that the second mirror on the wall was installed before the room got painted, and we didn’t bother to remove it when we painted it. It won’t be coming back, so I spackled and texturized those holes.

The big texture spot on this wall was where the folding desk was. That desk only lasted two years; I have other desk plans for the new room. The person on Buy Nothing who came to get it was thrilled. And also named Patricia. And was younger than me. Weird!

Both the postcard display and the drying racks on this wall will be coming back.

All the shelves are down from the desk area, but they will be back.

And here’s an interior of my very empty closet. The front room is stacked with all the many things I efficiently stored in my closet. It’s kind of a lot.

And here’s the view from the closet floor.

I’m excited for the changes.

Protest Outside of My Work

I was over near the window and spied something odd: inflated figures. There were two of them, attached to two white trucks.

When I craned my head I saw their purpose: it was a protest by construction workers.

A well-timed protest, as a media tour for the new Albina Library was happening in the next 30 minutes.

The protest seemed to be about one of the contractors for the library using non-union subcontractors. Hence the rat (I think it was a rat, I didn’t see it from the front) squeezing the neck of the construction worker.

After a few hours, they deflated the figures and drove away.

Paint Acquired!

More buying today. The paint is here. The dark green is for the stripe at the top of the two walls, currently it’s a dark navy blue. The lighter is for the rest of the walls, and the closet. I’m currently wishing I had gone one shade darker, but we will see how it looks on the walls.

Also present in this box: an Ikea pillowcase. I have two sheet sets, so I needed another two pillowcases. I bought orange to match the new duvet cover. When I got home, I discovered they are sold in singles, not pairs. So I had to go back and get another one. And also three more shelves for the Billy bookcases, and two more storage ottomans.

Bedroom in Transition

I spent a good chunk of allotted room transformation money at the Swedish flat-pack store and have been in my happy place: assembling Ikea furniture.

The cat tree that was in the bedroom so that the cats could get to the windowsill and perch has now moved out to the living room in preparation for moving to a new home. In the meantime, it’s corralling the cardboard of the items I did and didn’t assemble.

My new table! One of my goals was to have a place where my sewing machines could be easily accessible. They will sit on top of this table, which has drop leaves that will let me have space to sew when the bed is put up.

The wall with the window will have three Billy bookcases. This is the biggest one, it will be flanked by two smaller ones. It has a rolling drawer.

I also bought a new duvet cover. It’s not as orange as it looked in the store, so it might not be the final iteration. We will see.

Three Fun Days with the Garmin Watch

I’ve spoken before of my delight at how my watch gives random badges. I had a three-day streak of surprise fun.

Did I know it was World Bicycle Day? I did not. But I’m glad I biked and got this badge.

Did I know it was Global Running Day? I did not. But things worked out for a second day in a row.

And who knew it was World Environment Day? Not me. But I’ll take the threefer.

My Bedroom: Before

While there are many downsides to being a cat-free house, one upside is that I can finally move forward with my plan to switch out my bed for a Murphy Bed or Wall Bed. I couldn’t take action before because the cats slept on the bed, so I couldn’t put it away during the day. Here’s a four-corner view of the room before I get started.

The desk area will stay the same; that part of the room works for me.

You can see that some planning crept in, there are paint chips on the wall. You can see I also took this picture, folded my hanging laundry, and then took the last two pictures.

The postcard rail will stay, but the room color will probably change. The fun desk will go; I have plans for a different kind of desk.

I’m looking forward to getting started with the changes.

Requiem: Timer

Well, it has happened. My CDN timer has finally given up the ghost. Other than showing the time (which you must set exactly at noon) it no longer counts down or up.

In my correspondence files, I have a letter written on July 1, 2006 to the CDN corporation. I had purchased their timer at the hardware store, and it promptly gave up the ghost, so I sent off a letter of complaint. They wrote back offering to replace the timer and this one arrived shortly after.

And so I got almost 19 years of use out of it. Excellent customer service CDN, and well done hearty timer that survived being regularly dropped by me for almost two decades.

Sadly the recent drop brought the good record to the end, so I must say goodbye to this companion.

Completed: Grammar Success in 20 Minutes a Day

I’ve been brushing up my grammar skills using this skill builder book.

While they seem to think this will only take four weeks and that learning will occur quickly and easily, I took much longer than that, because I wasn’t working every day, and also because I also made a ton of flash cards to help me memorize all the grammar terms.

Unfortunately, you can see from pre- and posttest results that I improved by a little less than 3 percent. I can say though, that during the posttest I was much more familiar with the terms rather than taking a by-ear guess.

Onto my next learning journey: verb tenses.

Some 7611 Favorites

The house is creeping closer to being ready to sell, and I took some pictures of some small details I love.

The fact that there is a utility room. Everyone has always called this the utility room, something that I didn’t realize was nomenclature of the period until I was reading a small booklet about Richland Washington’s Alphabet Houses, and noticed that all the plans had utility rooms. It would be called a laundry room now.

But also I love that cake cover style light cover, which is probably original to the house.

Here’s a closer look.

In the grandpa bathroom, a tiny room off the utility room, no one ever cleaned out the grandpa medicine cabinet, so here it is, last used in September 1990.

It includes a handy list of first-aid hints held up originally by cellophane tape. The other taped up item says, “Yet, it’s a pretty good and very simple remedy. It is not infallible, but very frequently will settle a queasy stomach. Use a two per cent salt solution (one-half teaspoonful of salt in three ounces of water). Then take a tablespoonfull of this solution.”

At some point in possibly the Oregonian, the was an article about someone in real estate (agent? photographer?) who kept a collection of cool light switch plates. I understood the appeal.

Here are two very cool light switch covers. I didn’t notice until I was taking the picture that they have mirrored backgrounds.

And here’s one of the two probably original bathroom switch plates. (From the other bathroom, not from the grandpa bathroom.) This one is cracked, and the other is not, but the picture of the non-cracked one came out blurry, so you will have to make do with the cracked one.

I also like the grooves on this switch plate.

Grandpa also had grandpa items in the big bathroom. Here they are, patiently sitting there since the George H.W. Bush administration.

I took the medicine cabinet contents home and put most of them out on the street for people to take as needed. They were all gone within hours, even that empty English Leather bottle.