and paint...

Actually, only paint in the living room, dining room and my studio, but still, it's paint.  Is it a cultural thing to paint with semi-gloss on the walls in rooms other than bath and kitchen?  The painter has to buy more paint and re-do everything because I don't want semi-gloss in the living room or dining room (except on the trim).  Sigh... and he was gonna come back Monday to do it.  I put my foot down... I am not going to live with all my furniture piled up in the middle of the living room covered with tarps for two more days.  I sent him off to buy new paint and come back and finish it today!  He wants to keep me happy - he wants to paint more rooms for me later.  I know it would be cheaper to contract for the whole house at once but I can't afford it.  So he's doing it one room/area at a time.

Next will be the stairway, a major project in and of itself.  There's still cottage cheese ceiling there, like in the bedrooms... it's gotta go before repainting.   I may do the hallway and all the doors and trim myself... There's 8 doors along this hallway and very little wall on the side where all the doors are... I think I can handle it and it would cost a lot of money just for them to do that cuz of all the hand/detail work.  I'll have them do all the bedrooms - cottage cheese ceilings and wallpaper have to come down, and the bathrooms...

I'm thinking of doing the master bedroom in dark plum, the guest bedroom in blue or maybe a pale tropical green.  My son's room (which will become my longarm room someday when he moves out), I will do in silver and steel colors I think... so I will have a plum room, a blue (or green) room, and a grey room.  I will paint the library that deep green of old leather bound books.  Most of the library is bookcases anyway, so not a lot of wall shows, but I think it would be restful and calming.

I have no intention of changing the tile or countertops in the kitchen or bathrooms, so the main bath will stay sand/tan, with maybe tropical/ocean blue walls.  The master bath will keep blue tile, with maybe paler blue walls.  or dark blue?  The kitchen is all in white tile so the very few and small bits of wall I think I will paint deep cinnamon or tuscan red for some drama.

Any ideas welcome....  my husband, as usual, simply says 'whatever you want, dear- just remember I have to live with it, too'... which means really, he has an opinion, but is being passive aggressive.  If he had his way, the entire house would be painted white.  Not off-white, not swiss chocolate, not navajo white... WHITE.  with white trim.  sigh.  Ain't happening.  I want COLOR.... DRAMA... I want to be able to tell my guests... 'you can sleep in the blue room'... lol... I know, sounds silly, but I think it's cool.

I've got about half my colorwall arranged... Just the greens and reds remain, and the greens are half done.  I have yet to get to the batiks or the stuff that was never sorted... I'm gonna have to leave the cat fabrics in bins.  There's only room for so much fabric.  It will be nice to be able to see and get to all my fabric, touch it, get eye tracks all over it, and find just what I need when I need it. 

And someday soon, I might get to sew again - that IS what all this is all about, isn't it?

New Cabinets!

My new cabinets were delivered and installed yesterday!  I am thrilled with them... but daunted as well, for before me lies the task of refolding all my fabric, storing it by color, and figuring what to do with all the fabric that won't fit in the new shelves.

What's really funny is that the folks who built the cabinets are the husband and sons of a quilting friend.  She told me her husband doesn't think I can fill all those shelves... boy has he got a lot to learn.  He has no concept of the amount of fabric I own.

I JUST started on the browns, tans and creams.  I have done about 1/4th of a bin and filled about 1/4th of a shelf.  At this rate I will fill the shelves and still have about 10 bins left over.  sigh.... but it will all be more accessible and controllable... I hope.

Not to mention the fact that I can cycle out what I don't really love and sell the unloved fabric at a huge stash reduction sale next year.

I am getting the tile fixed on my countertops today from when I got my new stove installed... and I get to pick out paint color for the living room later today.  Maybe Friday we will have the painter return to do the work.  One room at a time is all I can afford right now.

Oh, and my dog hates the new floor... she can barely walk on it, poor thing.... all the slipping and sliding... and she can't sneak around any more cuz her claws click and clack on the laminate.  Poor old pup...  sometimes she just stands outside the door and looks pitifully at me, torn between wanting to come in and not wanting to walk on the floors.

Now all I need is, I don't know... TIME to actually SEW???

Getting There...

It's been a long time since I posted anything.  Just a quick update on everything.  Organization of the house moves on apace.  Most of the paperwork has been purged, either recycled or waiting for shredding.  We still have to deal with books and games, but the house looks like people can live it in finally.  My studio is ready for new ceiling and cabinets, but the contractor for the ceiling hasn't contacted me yet.  The ceiling better happen soon, or I won't get my cabinets. I'm not seething yet, but I'm not thrilled.  My todo list for tomorrow includes a phone call to the general contractor of course.

DH Joe has been great this weekend.  He put together my new Ikea chair and footstool, 5 sets of metal shelves and came with me to visit with friends in LA on Saturday.

I also finished a mystery quilt and am starting to learn hand quilting.  Not sure I'd want to make a career of hand quilting, but I'm enjoying learning how regardless... I have so much admiration and awe of incredible hand quilters like Bertha Stenge... and that awe is growing the more I learn about hand quilting.  I can't wait til my longarm is delivered and I can start machine quilting larger quilts, finish up some of those UFO's that are sitting unquilted in my WIP baskets.

Today was the weirdest day... despite all the things I did, I have been gripped by an overwhelming lethargy all day.  It's like there was something in the air... floating ennui, barometric changes... I don't know.  I hope tomorrow is better - it's my last day with the organizers til the week before thanksgiving.  I am hosting thanksgiving dinner here for friends and family, so I hope the house is ready to receive all.  New interior, new start, new life...

STRESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSsssssssssssss

The floors are supposed to be done by today.  I'm supposed to drive to Camarillo today on a couple of errands, as well as pick up some new power strips for our house.  I have an appt. at four, bootcamp at 6, had to cancel my housekeeper for today (how can she work in a house with half it's floors, workmen around and cement dust everywhere?  She is coming Monday morning instead.

I've just found out that the installation of our new cabinets starts Monday in a room full of fabric, papers, furniture and electronics from the living room.


No problem, just move the stuff out... We are going to the theatre Friday night, have an engagement from about 11am til 10pm Saturday.  So we have Sunday... To clear out a room FULL of fabric and papers.  Not to mention OrganizeThis is coming on Monday as well to help put the house back in order.  HAH!... This is going to be a fiasco.  sigh

Out of chaos comes order (or is it the other way around... if so, I'm screwed)...

One Potato, Two Potato, Three Potato.... Floor

They started working on our new floors yesterday (Monday).  It was supposed to be a one day job... with another day or two for the stairs... Sunday, we finished packing up the last few things lying around on furniture and such.  We unplugged all the electronics, moved TVs and DVRs and such.  Monday morning we locked up  one cat in a bathroom and two more cats in the library.  Poor kitties were miserable all day with the noise and the strangeness of being locked up and all.  The installers didn't even get all the carpet up on the first day.... sigh.

Apparently our foundation is in very bad shape.  They ran into a problem with one of the old wood floors - it was laid down on and glued to tile underneath... and the tile was glued to the foundation... they had to chisel it off, leaving pits in the foundation.  Needless to say, there was a lot of cement being laid down to level everything off.  We slept in sleeping bags in bare rooms last night.   It was... less than pleasant.  Poor dog was locked in the master bedroom with a miserable cat.  Another cat stayed locked in the library (he wouldn't come out of hiding, he was so traumatized, poor thing), and the third cat slept in her usual room.

This morning, we locked up the cats again, and the installers pulled up the rest of the carpet and found more bad foundation.  They laid more cement to level it as much as they could, but said complete leveling was beyond what they could do.  I hope the floor lies flat, that's all... anyway...

It's 3pm and they have half the living room floor laid.  I really doubt they'll get any of the bedrooms started today, so not only will it be an uncomfortable night, it will be chilly and uncomfortable for the dog especially.  She hates her dog bed and the floors will all be hard.  She's gonna have to get used to sleeping on a dog bed really soon because I won't let her sleep on the sofas.

I have pictures of the rooms with no carpets... hopefully I'll soon have pictures of the rooms with floors.  Unfortunately I haven't been able to upload any pictures here... I think I'll have to lower the resolution so they don't get rejected.

On a brighter note, I finished (REALLY finished) another quilt.  My best friend's birthday quilt is done.  I'm gonna surprise her with it soon.  Picture of this quilt should appear in the slideshow soon.  I tried a little sewing today amid the chaos (they're not reflooring the family room where my studio is).  Yet it was still hard to work - half the living room furniture and all the electronics are in the family room, not to mention cement dust everywhere.  I finished one block and some cutting, but I just couldn't work in there. 

On another note, my new china cabinet hasn't arrived yet... it was supposed to be here Monday or today.  I haven't got my 24 hour warning call yet, so I doubt it will be here tomorrow either... I hope they didn't forget me, though I have to say I'm glad they didn't deliver it before the dining room floor got finished.  I look forward to all this being done at last and we can get on with the business of clutterbusting, painting and just living...

And my adult son can move out of the house and I can have my new longarm delivered!


Oh and more good news... my husband wants my truck and said I can get a new car (originally he wanted a new truck).  I'm gonna be looking for a newer Baja, but maybe I'll get an Outback instead.  (We both love Subarus).  I wish they were still making the Baja... I'd buy one in a flash.  Anyone out there have a 2006 Baja they want to sell?

TGIF

So today was my first weekday in almost two weeks that OrganizeThis hasn't been here.  I miss the team (Shannon, Mary and Tina).  Still, I did some of my homework today - I sorted books.  I bound a quilt. I made a label for the quilt, put a hanging sleeve on it.  And it's only a week late for Kathy's birthday.  I made blocks for a BOM, a paper pieced mystery block, and I did a little walking and a little shopping.  I did a few changes on the blog so it displays only my own quilts on the main page slideshow. 

Tomorrow I have a BOM meeting in the morning, exercise in the park with our trainer at 9am, then off to the Conejo Guild quilt show for the rest of the day.  I hope I survive it! 

Sunday should be a day of rest, but the flooring installers are coming first thing Monday morning and we still have a few last minute things to move out of the rooms so they can work.  One day to do the house and I think he said another day for the stairs. 

Not sure when, but the cabinets for my studio should be done and ready for install any day now - he said two weeks and it's been almost that now.  Can't wait - I can put away all my fabric and have room to WORK in my studio.  New ceilings in there too, then the skylights in both studio and kitchen.  I think then it will be time to stop and enjoy the house for a while as it is before we start thinking about the interior paint.  (I know, I know - we should have painted first... but we might have never gotten to the floors if we'd done that... it might be months before we actually get to the painting, and these carpets have GOT TO GO!)...

I can't wait for my studio to be done and to be able to use the photo studio again soon to take pictures of the quilts... I missed out one show already this year because of inability to get a decent photo... next year for sure!

Oh... and I've discovered the joy of using a stiletto... I have always resisted using them, but I've come so close to sewing through a nail (and the finger underneath, and got to watch someone do that on Project Runway last episode), so while I was sewing all these tiny points, I figured wth, I'll try it... and WOW.. what was I waiting for??? what an idiot I am... I LOVE it... I may use it for everything from now on... sigh

AND I got to play with my new quilting toy today.  A friend recommended this thing called a gachunk?  anyway, came from theclipstore.com - large size... OMG... are these wonderful binding clips!  they stay in place, don't stick out from the edge like those hair clip thingies.... and just pull off when done.. It took about 30 of them to clip an entire wallhanging, but they are great!...  Had to share.

Talked to an old friend today.  She moved to South Carolina a few years ago and I miss her a lot.  Made tentative plans to go out to visit her in February.  I hope they are more than idle plans, I really do want to see her.  She saw me through some pretty dark times when my mother passed away, and she is just a comfortable, warm friend to be around.  I could use a hug from her, and to give one right back.  Soon, soon...