No PIctures - just blisters!

Just a word to give a quick update so you won't think I've gotten lost or buried!
This weekend we started the tile in the great room! Woooo Hoooo! I thought I'd have time to work on my window treatments but as it turns out my painting license was not revoked I merely had a restriction put on it. "No painting after dark".

This came about shortly after I painted two walls in the great room one evening last week. Unbenownst to me, by the light of the day it looked pretty rough.

I was on a high, either from paint fumes or because I was actually allowed to paint in a public area of the house(I had been on my apprenticeship and only allowed to paint closets, bathrooms and my craft room.) Unsuspecting, the next day I asked Super Hubby if he wanted me to paint. With painting in the great room I felt I had graduated to semi-pro league. Well, Super Hubby's response knocked the wind out of my sails. He walked me over to the great room walls I had painted the previous evening complete with chunks of foreign matter painted onto the wall and missing spots where the primer showed through. He politely said "no thank you". How was I to know that the roller pan had old paint stuck to it until I filled it with new paint and went to town on it? How was I to know that those florescent lights which save energy do so for a reason, it's because they don't put out any real light - just ambiance?

I felt pretty bad because I'd caused him more work to fix my mess and I couldn't help out as much. So I made plans to do other things....line the kitchen cabinets with shelf paper, touch up my craft room paint, and make window treatments. Then I learned that my license merely had the "no painting at night" restriction so my plans went out the window. I painted two more areas of the great room, helped set up the tile for installation, lined the kitchen shelves and did gopher work. I was busy but it didn't feel like I accomplished anything - ever have those days? Luckily Super Hubby's Uncle and Cousin came to help lay tile. It's a big job and hard to do alone.

Well the chandelier pendant came in today so that will go up tonight and then the scaffolding will come down. I have come to think of the scaffolding as a part of our decor - I'll miss it and have to think about filling that big open space.

Carpet comes on Thursday so all the last painting has to be finished and the transitions to tile areas have to be complete. Maybe there will be time to put in my cork flooring in the craft room before then.....

Cinderella

Yes, I feel like Cinderella of the construction trade -
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Here's what I was doing last week. Finishing up polyurethening the 197 boards. (See can on the right.)

Here's where they went - (that's Super Hubby 25 feet up)


Then I used a dark mahagony stain on some 6" beams (see stain can on the left in top picture) - like this -


Here's where the beams went - oops, forgot to take a picture.....see above ceiling - where the seams are, about a foot from the lights, imagine these beams over them.....in three places down the ceiling. I'll take some more pictures when I can lift my hands to hold the camera!

Last night, I painted the inside of my craft room door chocolate - well, actually it's Betsy Ross House Historic Color - which happens to look like chocolate pudding. As a matter of fact, the paint was a one coat covers Valspar - and it looked amazingly like chocolate pudding just before it's set. Ashley aka The Princess suggested that this would be a very good diet aid....it looks like pudding only without the calories. She neglected to take her reasoning down to the tastebud level....I declined to have a taste to see if it had chocolate pudding flavor....my combining cooking and painting has only ventured to cornmeal so far....

Update and hopefully some more pictures tomorrow!

Working Hard and Recipe of the Day

Thank you, Thank you to those who posted a "miss you" comment!
It is so nice to be thought of!

We are on the home stretch and there is so much to do! Work is overwhelming so I can't take any extra time off and the tasks I need to help Super Hubby with at home are tiring!

I am painting, staining, cleaning, moving....you get the picture because you've all been there!

Well, I wanted to share a recipe with you. Since I don't have a kitchen - as you expected it must be a paint recipe.

I wanted the hep green color in my craft room to have a suede treatment - the problem is hep green isn't popular enough to make it one of the available colors - don't understand that! What's not to love?

Anyway, one of my Princess Sister-In-Laws, Deb and I schemed about how I could make my own suede paint. Deb is a fab non-professional designer. She helps her club each year with a home show. A vintage house is selected for a do over and they bring in professional designers and renovators. Club members assist the professionals and learn tricks of the trade in the process of re-doing the house in fab designs. The home owner can purchase some of the items. For the wall treatments and floor treatments I think the homeowner has a budget and the designers keep within that or are out of pocket - not sure how it all works financially but it's a fund raiser for a charity.

Anyway - Deb said the paint was textured - but not as much as sand....I offered flour or sugar, she responded corn meal.

So here's my recipe:

Ingredients:1 roller tray
Enough paint to cover desired wall size, I filled the well portion of the tray (fab color preferred)
1 cup corn meal (any brand, I used Krogers White Corn Meal)
1 old roller
1 paint brush 3-4"

Pre-treatment:
Primer the wall, allow to dry (4-12 hours). My primer happened to be the ugly light blue color I didn't like per the previous post.

Paint one coat in the desired final color with no texture added (that was hep green for me).
If you're using a vibrant color like hep green the coverage will not be even - that's ok.
Allow to dry (8 hours)



Suede Treatment: Fill 3/4 of roller tray or enough paint to do a section of wall (in my case one fill was to much for an 8' x 4' space) but I didn't want to throw off the ratio in case I needed more.






Sprinkle 1 cup corn meal and stir until well blended. This provides a very highly textured surface, adjust amount of corn meal to meet your desired texture.



Fill roller and apply to wall. The beginning of the roll will be very textured and it will reduce as you roll down the wall. Be sparing in the number of times you go over the textured portion. If the texture becomes to thin stop and reload the roller and then continue down the wall trying not to overlap. The corn meal tends to mush down if you over-work it - I did not like that on my sample so I just rolled once down the wall and did one touch up in a random pattern after I did a few vertical rolls. I recommend you go from different directions on each alternating vertical roll - starting at the top down and then starting at the bottom up of the next row for the area to be painted. If you try to touch up seeking perfection you will start to pull the textured portion off the wall and leave a blank hole. According to the real suede paint instructions if doing a large area work in 18" x 18" patches - I just did my entire 8'x4' wall in vertical stripes and one touch up over it all. It seemed to work fine, but again, it was a small area.

Here's a picture of my sample board so you can see what happens if you overwork the paint. Notice the mushed texture







Here it is applied to the wall- the texture is much sharper than the sample board. It isn't perfect or even - it is just "ok" but I decided to leave it alone until it dryed. Unlike manufactured suede paint you do not do the paintbrush "x" stroke treatment while the paint is wet

Allow paint to dry. I gave it a week (but that's because I was busy). I'm not sure of the curing time for corn meal!!!! I would give a day or two to ensure it is totally dry.



Final suede treatment step: (pictures to follow - I haven't taken them yet)
Mix a small batch of the cornmeal paint - this will add another layer of texture to even out spare patches and provide the layering of color associated with suede.

Using a 3" or 4" wide brush, apply x's to the wall randomly. Paying special attention to those areas that were light on texture. Do not try to cover the entire wall with "x"s. Leave small areas of the original textured portion showing. This will give you the different tones of the suede. Mine was darker in patches covered by the roller only and lighter more vibrant on the newly brushed patches. Again, do not overwork the paint. Do not be consistent either. Some thick and some thin, large and small stokes, some vertical and some angled is perfect. However, avoid drips!

I do not have proper light to show you the finished product adequately but I love it - I think it looks just like the suede paint treatment of a manufactured paint. I am pretty critical and I would tell you that it is just "ok" if I didn't think it was "professional" quality....Love the Color - Love the Treatment.

Tip of the Day:
Be brave - paint with food products!