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Got Grapes?
I do. My grapevine, planted only a few months ago, had grapes. (Note the “had” in the last sentence.) My cousin Janet showed me some purple grapes from her grapevine over the weekend and that made me take a closer look at my grapevine. I noticed the green grapes and thought, “Cool, I have green grapes, I wonder how they taste.” Genius that I am, it didn’t occur to me that Janet had purple grapes and I had green grapes and they both came from the same vine, from my Aunt Lucille’s house. So, stupidly, I picked my grapes and thought I’d give them a try. Well, as is probably obvious now, purple grapes start out green. When they are green, they are NOT ripe or ready to be picked. And when they are green, they taste TERRIBLE. They also have a much bigger seed thing inside them, which almost caused me to crack a tooth. So, this just reaffirms the fact that I have a lot to learn when it comes to gardening.
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I Have a Floor, and it Looks Good!
So I’ve used my new favorite tool, a Rigid Random Orbital Sander, to finish the sanding of my floor. I still have more sanding to do with finer grit paper, but here’s what it looked like when I was half-way done.
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Something is DONE!!!
I had the urge to completely finish something. The only thing I have that could be completely installed is the ceiling fan, so I installed it. Took just under two hours. Here’s what it looks like:
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Paint is Mostly Gone
I rode my bike over to Home Depot on the way home from work today and picked up some more sandpaper. It didn’t take long to finish taking the last of the paint off the floor. There is still a bit that I might have to do right along the wall, but I’m not worried about that right now. I think I can now switch to the big sander that Janet is letting me use. Hopefully, I remember how it works.
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Back to Work
After a long weekend in Tennessee, it’s back to work on the house. Amazingly, while I was gone, no little elves showed up in my house to finish sanding the floor. It was still in the half-finished state that I left it in last week. So today I did a little sanding. Actually, it was a decent amount of sanding. I used all 12 sandpaper belts that I had and probably could use around six more. I still have about six square feet of crappy paint to remove and then I should be able to use the big sander to make the floor smooth, instead of trying to remove crap from it. I’m hoping that while I’m at work tomorrow those elves might finally show up. I’ll leave some cookies out to see if that entices them.
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Bought Fan and Light and Went Back to Drywall Taping
Today was basically a wasted day. Though I did purchase a ceiling fan for the bedroom and light for the closet. I went with an iron fan and a black light. I think these will go together, but I’m not sure. The problem I had is that I found a fan I liked, but I couldn’t find a light kit that went with it. My solution was to buy a white one and some black paint. I painted it and hope it will look ok.
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Floor Stripped and Ceiling Painted
I got some paint stripper and took off as much paint as I could from the floor. I need to start sanding now, but since the temperature has been in the 90s for the past few days, I’ve been holding off. It’s not good to sand things when I have all the windows shut because the a/c is on. On the one day when it did cool off this week, I went ahead and painted the ceiling. It looks ok. Since it was hot, it seemed like a good time to go shopping for ceiling fans and lights for the bedroom. That is something I’m still working on. The choices are many and I’ve yet to actually purchase anything. Though, I do think I’ve narrowed things down a bit. I’ll probably do more shopping this weekend, and hopefully pick out the fan/light combo that I want.
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Floor Issues
Sanding the floor is proving somewhat difficult. The problem is the area near the walls, which was painted. When I use the sander on it, it seems to melt the paint which gums up the sandpaper, making it useless. Today I used paint stripper on the area to take off some of the paint. It’s incredibly smelly, but I think I did a good job of ventilating the room. I got about a quarter of the outside done. After I finish the entire room, I’ll probably do it another time, because there seems to be a couple of coats of paint on the floor.
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The Floor Begins
I had intended on putting a cork floor in the bedroom, but when I went to the store to order it, the store was closed. (Even though the website said they were open until 8 and I got there at 7:15.) I’m taking this as a sign that I shouldn’t install the cork floor. Instead, I’m just going to try to clean up the pine floor that’s already in the room. Janet brought over a floor sander and we started cleaning it up the other day. I think it’s going to look pretty nice.
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My Backyard
My backyard looked great last month. I didn’t do anything, just let everything grow. I guess I’ll have to look up how to care for roses, so I can keep them looking nice.
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Shopping
I’m basically done with the drywall and ready to start painting. This has caused me to basically stop working while I decide on how I want the final room to look. One thing I did do was buy a gallon of flat white paint for the ceiling. I thought about painting the entire room white because it would be easy, but now I’m pretty sure I want some color. Unfortunately, picking out the color is pretty hard. I’m also looking for a ceiling fan and window sills and since these things should probably match the floor, I’m taking my time with it. So, these days, I’m doing the one thing I really dislike, shopping.
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Back to Work
The class at IIT was not meeting my expectations, so I decided to quit going. This means I can get cracking on the room again. I think I’m just about done with the drywall taping. I just need to wipe down the coat I put on yesterday and I’ll be ready to prime it. I also started working on the floor. I cut out the bad pieces and cut some new plywood to fill. I may have to put something thin beneath the plywood to make sure it’s level with the rest of the floor. But I think it’ll be ok. Another trip to Home Depot to buy the ductwork and I should be good to go.
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Temporary Delay
I’ve started a class this summer at IIT and it’s taking quite a bit of my time. Needless to say, nothing has been done on the house since the class started. However, this needs to change. My last success was the installation of my new window. Now, I can finish taping the closet and the area around the window. So, to finish the room, I need to do the following:
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Mini-Vacation
There will be no work done on the house this weekend, as I’m taking my mother and a friend of hers to Springfield to see the new Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum and Library.
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Window Installation – Part 1
Ok, got the window and started the installation. First thing I did was to take the old window out, scrape off as much old paint as I could and clean it up. Then, I painted all the old wood that was there.
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Window Ready!
I got a call that my window is in. Now I just have to find a way to get to a place that’s only open Monday-Friday from 7am – 5pm. I think I’ll have to take a morning one day and drive up before work to pick it up. It’s just too hard to try to get there by 5.
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Primer On!
My mom came over yesterday morning and we primed most of the room. It looks pretty good. It’s not perfect. Since I know where all the seams are, I can look closely and see where I didn’t do a good job tapering them out. But, if I don’t look closely, it doesn’t look too bad. I still have to finish sanding the closet, so that I can prime that. And I am waiting for my window to come in, so that I can install that and finish the drywall around the window. But, overall, I’m happy with how it looks.
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Primer Has Been Purchased…
This means that the drywall taping is almost done. My Mom is coming over tomorrow morning to start priming the walls. This means that tonight, I’ll be smoothing out the walls as best I can. Hopefully, they’ll look ok.
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Thanks Janet!
My cousin Janet came over last night to help out. She put another coat on my horizontal seams and showed me how to feather it out, so that it will look a little better, hopefully. The coat was pretty thin, so I should be able to smooth it out tonight or tomorrow and see if it needs even another coat or not. Either way, it did wonders for me, even though I was a crabby pain-in-the-ass.
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It’s Neverending…
So, I could be taping the drywall in this bedroom for the rest of my life. Today, I decided to put one more coat on the parts that look like they need it. Later this week, I’m going to smooth it out, to the best of my ability and that’s it. It’s never going to be perfect, but it should be ok. The problem is still what to do by the window, but I’ll figure that out eventually. It’s time to move on.
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Ahhh, Spring…
There is a temporary halt in work on the bedroom because spring has arrived. Which means, that as a homeowner, I have grass to cut. In the places where my lawn is growing, it is inhabited by not only grass, but also dandilions and some weird little purple flower. I spent last night pulling out the dandilions in the front yard. I also put out some fertilizer and watered a bit. This required the requisite trip to Home Depot to pick up the basics, like a hose and nozzle. I thought about buying a lawn mower there, but since all they had were gas powered ones, I couldn’t get myself to do it. Somewhere I read that gas powered lawn mowers are very polluting and with gas prices going up, it just didn’t seem like a good idea to get one. Plus, as I tend to work on the lawn at night, I didn’t want to disturb the neighbors with the gas powered mower. My Mom offered me a relatively new push mower that she has, so I’m going to use that. It will require me to do a little more work, in that I’ll have to cut more often, but I think that’s a tradeoff I can live with. So hopefully, after tonight, the bits of grass that I do have, will no longer be 8″ tall.
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Smoothing It All Out
I feel that I’m pretty close to having all the drywall mud up and that I’m at the point of final smoothing. All of the videos I’ve seen and books I’ve read say that this is when you start sanding. I did a little sanding earlier and it is very messy. I had to wear my heavy duty dust mask so I didn’t breathe all the dust. My cousin Janet instead told me that I could use a sponge and water to wipe down the rough spots. I started doing that a little this evening and it’s working really well. Best part, no dust, which makes it so much easier to work. Hopefully, it’ll turn out great.
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Let There Be A Light…
So, after a period of darkness (both me being somewhat depressed about the time things were taking and literally because there was limited electricity in the room), my bedroom now has light. Actually, it has A light.
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Pure Genius
This morning, I thought the weather was going to be nice, so I decided to ride my bike to work. It was a nice ride going in to work, but it was fantastic, coming home. Why? The White Sox had a home game this afternoon. When I reached Sox Park, traffic on 35th was pretty much backed up all the way to Ashland. It was awesome to be able to ride between the cars and get home quickly. I’ll have to ride again tomorrow because I think there’s another game.
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Have Electricity
Since I couldn’t sand the drywall on Sunday as it was still wet, I did some electrical work. I disconnected the old wire from the breaker and installed a new one. I then went to the bedroom and plugged in a lamp in one of the outlets I’ve installed. IT WORKED! HAPPY DANCE! I then shut the breaker back off because I haven’t finished putting the other outlets and switches in.
