Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Household Chores

Household Chores

Daily

Weekly

o      Make beds

o      Wash dishes/load dishwasher

o      Wipe kitchen counter, sink, and stove

o      Empty trashcans (as needed – trash day Mon)

o      Wipe bathroom counter and sink

o      Pick up entryway

o      Clean cat box

o      Dust

o      Vacuum living room, bedrooms, and utility rug

o      Vacuum couch

o      Wash/change bed linens

o      Sweep porch

o      Buy groceries

o      Laundry

o      Recycling (Tue) and Trash (Mon)

o      Clean bathrooms

 

Monthly

Yard

o      Wash windows and mirrors

o      Rinse trashcan

o      Dust blinds, vacuum curtains

o      Wipe baseboards and window sills

o      Clean out/wipe down inside refrigerator

o      Clean Microwave

o      File papers

o      Sweep steps (weekly)

o      Mow Lawn (weekly)

o      Water lawn and garden (as needed)

o      Prune (as needed)

o      Clean lawnmower (monthly)

 


Monday, May 17, 2010

Finished Project!

I *finally* finished painting the doors.  I had to combat a week of rain (well, not really combat but wait out).  I think they look awesome, even if you don't. Ha!

Finished project:
Purchased:
paint: 1 gallon Behr outdoor Luscious
primer: 1 quart outdoor tinted primer

Already owned:
tape
paintbrush
roller
tray

All in all, the project didn't take long in actual work time - I did one coat of primer and six coats of paint.  When I did paint, I did two coats in succession - so it was 3 actual times of painting.

Here is the finished product

Not too shabby, eh?

I think I'd like to change the door hardware to black or a silver color.  What say you?

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Rainy Dreary Rainy Week

I know. Isn't that post exciting. This is what it's been like here for the last week.


But don't forget to add snow. Yes. You heard me right. Snow. In May.  I drove through it in Wisconsin on Friday evening.  I spent the weekend in central Wisconsin for a wedding for a friend from college. Lots of fun, lots of wine, and a few heart to hearts. My idea of a perfect weekend.

On Sunday afternoon when I got home, I used the lull in rainy weather to add another two coats to the door project (as seen in my previous post).  I also put down weed kill in an attempt to rid myself of many dandelions and the voracious creeping charlie.  It wasn't long before the dandelions tipped over and began a slow death.  The creeping charlie still looks as healthy as ever...I haven't gotten an up close and personal look at it, but I don't think this application was as successful as I wanted it to be.  I used Ortho Weed B Gone Max with Crab Grass control.  If anyone has any other suggestions for getting rid of lots and lots of creeping charlie, please, let me know.

My projects on tap: finishing the doors (I'm hoping just another 2 coats), painting the trim upstairs, getting baseboards for upstairs and buying a grill!

I was also informed that I wasn't invited back to the hockey team I've been playing on for the last 3 years.  Sucks. Oh well.  I might just do some pick-up hockey next year and reclaim a bit of my life in the winter. Heaven knows I've had enough on my plate as it is.  Plus it'll save me some bucks.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Doors Update

Slowly but surely, the doors are coming together.  So far I've got 1 coat of primer and 4 coats of color on them. I'm hoping that after another 2 coats the doors will be at the correct shade.

Up close and personal with the front door:

As I'm driving away from the side door....


So, up close its LIKE WOAH, but from a distance it's pretty eleganski (elegant for you non-polish speakers ;) )

Thursday, May 6, 2010

I'm Painting the Roses Red...

Or, in my case, the doors!

After convincing the paint guy that yes, I did want red, yes, its ok that I have to prime, and yes, its ok that it would take several coats, I finally left the orange store with a gallon of Luscious and a quart of tinted primer.

Here goes nothing...

Goodbye bland wood door...

And hellllloooooo red!

















Oh my...am i sure this won't wind up fuchsia?!?

First I sanded the doors - was quick and easy.  I might make it easier than its supposed to be...I'm pretty lazy with the sanding.  Then came the tinted primer.  My doors turned pink!






















Hmmm, maybe I should stick with pink.

Since I was doing two doors, I had a good system set up.  First I sanded and primed the front door.  While that was drying, I sanded and primed the side door.  Then I cleaned up my roller, brush and tray.  By the time I was done with that, the front door was ready for the first coat of color.






















Then I moved on to the side door for the first coat of red back there.  Since this didn't take as much time as the first bits, I got to take a break between painting...rather than watching the paint dry I played on the internet, checked my reader, and talked to my sister.  By the way - did you see her post today? HILARIOUS

Second coat time!  So quick and easy.  The one thing I have trouble with second coats is that sometimes it's hard to see exactly where you've already painted.  But, I muddled through and tried not to have drips...but its inevitable for me. Got the two coats done, then cleaned up my brush, roller and tray for the day.  I imagine I will have two more coats tomorrow, but I didn't want you waiting so anxiously for my choice.






















Front door after primer and two coats of color.

















View from the outside - it pops nicely I think.

















Side door - eventually I'll get my new storm door up. Nice, yes?


Now, to clear up how I made my decision.  I really liked the dark blue.  And dark blue won in the poll.  But I was worried that it just wouldn't POP enough from the street.  I wasn't sold on the dark red that I had the sample of though - it seemed just too dark.  My decision then had me thinking about the shutters that I want to eventually get.  I wouldn't want super bright red shutters for the windows - so either I do the dark blue or dark red for the door and do matchy-matchy shutters, or pick a brighter red and do black shutters.  

I'm so entirely drawn to really bright doors - bright red, bright yellow, etc.  So, I went with a new option entirely and choose my Luscious color (the trend of picking paint colors with appetizing names continues).

So, what do you think? The man at the orange store promises me that after several coats and drying time, it will go from fuchsia to the red.  I sure hope so....More painting tomorrow!

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Quick hit!

I'm *planning* on painting doors tomorrow!  Stay tuned for the unveiling of the color choice.

To recap: Dark blue won the vote count, followed by the dark red color.

PS: Has anyone ever installed a doorbell?  For some crazy reason I don't have one. I've never been in a house that didn't....

Monday, May 3, 2010

Saturday dawned bright and beautiful - but crazy windy.  Yet another day that I wasn't able to put down my weed killer.  I mowed the lawn instead and figured since my dad just helped carry my chest freezer down to the basement, there was no time like the present to get the garage cleaned out so I can finally park my car in there.

I hadn't done much to the garage - when I first moved in I used it as sanding and painting central for kitchen cabinets.  I did park in there for part of this winter - until the door finally went wonky enough that I couldn't get it lifted open anymore.  You could've colored me surprised when I drove home from Wisconsin a bright and beautiful April afternoon and found my friends Justin and Megan just leaving after installing a new garage door and automatic opener for me.  They're the bestest friends ever.  I think Justin did most of the manual labor, but I'm sure Megan did a great job supervising.

Back to the story.  I could get the door opened, the big chest freezer was out of the way, so it was time to get the place cleaned and swept out.  I started with the important things first - getting a radio and ipod out there so I could clean to some tunes. Then I sprayed down my lawn mower - did you know that you get green sludge under there?!  And cleaned out the cooler I used for softball last week, since I had the hose out anyways.  While those were drying, I started hauling things out of the garage.  And hauled and hauled and hauled. 

Trash, recycling, bike, lawn chairs, mower....

I couldn't move everything out of the garage - my new storm doors were too heavy, the scrap aluminium will just stay until my dad takes it to the junkyard for cash, and all the scrap wood boards have a nice home leaned up against the wall.  I found some old windows - the windows in their frames, the screens and the storms.  I actually had a taker for the windows from freecycle on Sunday, so those have a new home and the trash will be filled each week with the other useless stuff - old baseboard, the old screens, etc.


Scrap soffits and aluminium, shovels, rake, sawhorse.  Isn't that workbench made out of a headboard awesome?

I moved the scrap wood to the corner in the back of the garage (upper left in the photo above).  Moved the storm doors next to the scrap wood so there's more room in the storage on the right side of the garage (in photo below).  I leaned the shovels up against the wall below and put the bike there.

Scrap wood, old paint cans, new storm doors

I'm not sure why I didn't take a picture when I was done cleaning it all out - I'll do that tomorrow and update it here.  Needless to say, it looks a lot better and I'm getting all the cardboard out to the recycling tomorrow.  Sometime in the near future I'll get some pegboard to hang up and start the actual organizing of the garage.  But, I needed a cleaned up space to start with. 

Cost = $0
Labor = heavy
Time = 1.5 hours
Spiders = endless *shudder*

Here's a question for you - if the pegboard doesn't cover up the Panther grafitti (and the Miguel was here that was behind the storm doors) should I paint?  I don't want to be mixed up in that hardcore Panther gang...