October 2, 2009

Dishcloths and Painting

We are slowly making our way through the house painting. My hubby is the all-time prep it right guy so we spend 3 days taping to every 1 day of painting. And I know he's right. Just do it all correctly from the start and there won't be as much clean up work. But I've always been kind of an eyeball it and get it done gal. When we hang pictures, he'll measure and get out his level. I just stand back and point. There, slam that nail in right there. Looks good enough!

Last weekend we finished the dining room and hallway. This weekend we will move on to the family room and kitchen. Our highest ceilings are in the family room at 14-1/2 feet and hubby climbs up and down that tall ladder like a kid. My balance just plain sucks so I try to stay on the ground and do the low stuff like baseboards. He does accidentally drop the roll of blue painter's tape all the time so we have perfected a circus act where I (the lovely assistant) whip it up in the air and he catches it as it sails past his head and comes back down. I don't know why I find this so amusing, but I guess it's a good thing since we still have many days of taping and painting left to do and it helps break up the monotony.

plateau paint swatch

We are painting the family room and kitchen in a dark caramelly beige called Plateau, which should look very nice and goes well with our whitewashed cupboards. Here is a picture of the paint swatch next to a card I have framed over my kitchen desk. This card always makes me smile. It starts with a quote by Samuel Taylor Coleridge: "Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee." Then it reads, "One morning we ran into a neighbor at the store and she asked brightly, 'What was it as your house?' 'Fourteen below,' we replied. Her face fell. 'We had minus twelve,' she said, and you could see that her day was ruined."  - by Richard Ketchum. I received this card from a friend in the early 90s and thought it was so clever, I framed it and it has hung in my kitchen ever since, everywhere we've moved.

We had minus twelve

There's just been too much going on to focus on my larger knitting projects right now so I've been amusing myself -- when I'm not too sleepy in the evenings -- by knitting some of the dishcloths in the 2010 Dishcloth Calendar I blogged about last week. Here are photos of two I've completed - the Purly Waffle and the Sweet Heart cloth. I learned something new on the Sweet Heart, which was making bobbles, a kind of 3D knitted bubble that pokes out.

purly waffle and sweet heart dishcloths

Now back to the circus!

6 comments:

Kelli said...

Oh my gosh, I do home improvement the same way! Git 'R Done! I've used a stapler to bang a nail in the wall before. Once my hubby caught me digging dandelions with a screw driver and he banned me from the tool chest. It's a good thing we're not brain surgeons!

I like your bubbles. Happy painting.

jayaycee said...

I used to work with a woman who said they had 8 kids in their family and their mom wouldn't sew buttons on. She'd stand by the door with a hot glue gun and glue their buttons on as they left for school and sometimes the kids would cry because the hot glue would burn them. I know it's not funny, but it makes me laugh! That was one no nonsense mom!!!

P.S. There is no happy in painting. We are going on 3 weeks now with the house torn up, stuff from shelves piled in other rooms, boxes, ladders, painting crap everywhere. I think the crabby fairy has decided to visit!

Sara said...

How did you 2 miss out on the "Precise Gene"? I have to have the right tool and measure to within a hairsbreadth of accuracy. It's why I stopped scrapbooking -- it would take me eons to finish a page because I couldn't learn to relax and just eye it! BF is trying to teach me to relax about it.

Love my knit dishcloths! I didn't even want to use them at first because they are so cute, but I promised I would actually use them and now I'm sold! I think it's cool you can learn new techniques and get a project done lickety-split for quick gratification.

jayaycee said...

I think over the years my focus shifted from getting things done perfectly to just getting the damn things done! I seem to have adopted a 'wing it' attitude. Even in cooking, I'll take a brand new recipe I'm trying for the first time and change it. How cocky-and stupid- is that, thinking I can improve on something I've never even tasted!

We went to dinner at a friend's home last night (she served an incredible spice-crusted prime rib) and I took her a bouquet of dishcloths that I had just made. She said she has about 2 dishcloths in her drawer and they're frayed so my timing was perfect. I like that I can knit one in 2 to 3 hours and, drum roll please, have a completed project to use myself or give away.

Kelli said...

Do you also offer to do the dishes? LOL

It's got to be the kid-factor, dear little sister. When one has just painted with poop on the wall, another has cut their own hair with safey scissors, another is throwing up two pounds of halloween candy...need I go on? You get pretty happy with "close enough."

jayaycee said...

As a matter of fact, I did offer to help with the dishes ... she declined. You know, we were in a big hurry, too, to get back to our torn up house and ongoing painting saga.