It’s been some time since I’ve posted anything here. Mostly because it felt not much of significance has been going on, but there actually was. My list of things to accomplish is shrinking steadily.
For many years, I’ve wanted to change the color of the primary rooms in the house. It was formerly a yellow color and it was everywhere. Because it was everywhere it was too much for me to commit to doing. I eventually hired someone to do the job for me. At the same time, I hired someone to remove the popcorn ceiling in the space, which was another too-big-to-tackle task.
Popcorn down; ready for painting.
Painting complete; area rug added. I also added an area rug in the music room, as much for appearance as for reducing the echo and reflections.
After that was complete, I replaced the smoke detectors, which had turned yellow on their own, with fresh new white ones. I also shot the doorbell cover with fresh white paint. So everything on the walls was fresh and new.
And I finally – finally – got the artwork up on the wall like I’ve wanted for years.
So many years ago, I began a project of repainting the folding closet doors in the bedrooms and the pantry. My painting turned out really crappy for some reason, so I sort of abandoned the idea. The closet doors went back in place, but the pantry door, with its crappy paint job, just sat in the garage. I recently decided to slap on another coat of paint on it, using some leftover paint from other projects and it turned out decently. So, I was able to finally return the pantry doors to their place. Some of the mistakes I made in that project were with the rollers and pivot pin that holds the door in place. First, I installed the pieces on the door upside down. I couldn’t figure out how the door had suddenly reversed sides. After realizing that mistake, I was unable to remove the rollers without breaking one. So back to Lowes for a replacement. Installing the replacement, the new piece wouldn’t fit in the hole, despite the hole being the correct 3/4” size. I hammered in the roller, but just broke it. So I drilled out the broken roller and used a razor to trim the next roller sleeve to slide into the hole easier. Success at last. Part of the folding door repainting project was going to be replacement of the hinges, which were brass and had been painted over previously. I do have the nickel hinges available, so I may do some swapping out on the other doors in time.
A lot of this work has been done in order to clear out the garage in preparation for the garage door installation. Things that were previously stored in the garage are now stored in closets in the bedrooms. The folding doors are now out of the garage. Along the way, I found the dart board that had been installed in the garage when it was a game room. On a whim, I decided to remount it, which will now necessitate installation of a light and the purchase of some darts. (I am disappointed I can’t find the darts that used to be here.)
One of the bigger space hogs in the garage is the leftover paint cans from all these projects. I had seen something online about storing paint in mason jars so you could see the colors and take up less space in the process. I liked the concept, so after years of procrastination, I bought the mason jars and transferred the paint to them, using my label maker to document the paint color and finish. In many cases, I had two jars of each color, so half a gallon of extra paint – more than enough for touching up. All of these quart jars went on the floor in the pantry, which is now behind a closed door. There are some unopened gallon cans of paint and primer than I’m probably going to keep in the garage somewhere on a shelf. Otherwise, if it’s opened, it should be in a mason jar.
In my office, which is now on the lanai, things were rather messy. I had a couple of plastic bin drawer units that held all my cables, and I had a lot of cables. It was always a hassle if you wanted to find anything. I took the opportunity one weekend day to relocate all the cables from the six plastic drawers to an unused storage cube unit, which had a bunch of pull-out fabric cubes with labels. I broke up all the cables into the different types, gave each their own cube and labeled the cubes accordingly. That freed up space in my office and moved the clutter to a bedroom closet, even though it wasn’t clutter anymore. I still have room to work in both bedroom closets, so I need to determine what is going to be stored in each.
Outside, I had to refresh my floodlight bulbs. I had a couple of broken and burnt out bulbs, that I wanted to convert to LED. Along the way, I made a discovery. Early on when I bought the house, I installed a dusk-to-dawn light at the driveway corner.
This light was on a switch near the main entryway and always just remained switched on, so the light could turn on and off with the sunset. What I didn’t know, was that the switch also controlled the lights on the other side of the house. While I was replacing the bulbs, I learned that both bulbs on this fixture were burnt out, and why wouldn’t they be? They’d been switched on for over a decade.
The problem was now, if I replace the bulbs, the light will shine all day and night. If I turn off the switch, I lose the dusk to dawn light. So I decided to swap the fixture with a motion-sensing version. For the most part, the lights would stay off unless someone walked nearby. So, sometimes at night, I will see a burst of light come in through my bedroom windows where the motion sensor light is pointing. It’s fine.