it's all done

sort of.

During my last two week hiatus, I've had three evening concerts, two evening rehearsals, one thanksgiving dinner, and one bout with the flu.

But, thank the gods, the house is done.

Well, at least done to the point that I'm OK with it. The last big project will be tiling the master bath, replacing the shower, vanity and vanity lights. But I'm out of gas and I can live with what we have for now. There's no more brass. So I'm OK.

Here's a recap of the last two weeks.

Since day one in the house, I've had issues with the lighting fixtures and ceiling fans. All but two of them had been replaced. One was on the vaulted ceiling in the living room. It was a dusty brass relic. Most straight women would find no issue with it, besides being dirty.


But I hated the harsh, non-directed light it gave off. (the gays need soft light)

And since I couldn't reach that high, we hired it done. After getting estimates that ranged from $150-$500 (mind you, we already had the replacement fan. This was just install costs) and most of the guys saying it would take 4 hours, we settled on a $200 bid with a guy who told us it would take 2 hours. AND he could get it done before Thanksgiving.

While most folks have nothing but bad things to say about contractors, these folks were awesome. They showed up on time for every appointment and, sure as shit, came in this Wednesday afternoon. It didn't hurt that when the old man who gave the bid showed up to install it he came along with a cute 20-something guy.

After two hours, they said they were done. But when we flipped the switch, not all the new track lighting worked. So they spent another two hours fixing it.

But, get this, he still only charged $200.



While they were working on that, I was finishing up the master bedroom/bathroom paint job. It took more than a week because I didn't want to make us sleep on the couch. And, though I love it, I have regrets of buying solid cherry furniture whenever we have to move it.

Plus, the paint job was multiple steps.

1. clean the walls, remove old switches and outlets to replace.


2. Paint the wall color. Which was actually two steps because the first color I picked last March turned out a dark-purplish-eggplanty-this-will-depress-you-if-you-have-to-wake-up-to-this-every-dark-winter-morning color. So I went back and this soft grayish blue caught my eye. Cape Cod sprang to mind. And I loved the idea of waking up to Cape Cod.

3. Tape, then put two coats of primer on the woodwork. Followed by one coat of semi-gloss white.

This includes the double window, 3 doors, and a vanity.

4. Replace all hardware on doors and vanity (again, no pic)

5. Replace 80's throwback ceiling fan.


6. Tape the ceiling. Paint ceiling.

7. Touch up paint.

8. Enjoy my new favorite room.


The art is new. We framed some pictures I took in St. Louis a few years back. I took them on a cheap digital camera, never intending to do anything with them besides put them in a photo album. It was my wonderful husband who suggested we turn them to black and white, print them out and frame them.

Plus, it's the holiday weekend, so we got the frames for $10 each and the awesome girl at the store custom cut the mattes for $13... total. For five awesome original pieces it totaled to about $70. (Jake, you should be proud.)

Now I'm taking a break from the holiday decorating. It's at least a two day job.

I made a little montage you can see on youtube of what I did last year. It's all the same stuff, but different wall colors now and new fireplace.

Here's the link if you're bored.

On a sidenote: I started getting sick almost the moment I was done with all the painting and heading to  turkey day dinner on Wednesday. We were supposed to go to St. Louis for my family's Thanksgiving on Thursday. But five hours in a car while running a fever didn't bode well for either of us.

Count this year as one of only two Thanksgivings I've missed with the family.

And the first I've never decorated mom's house. Since I was in Junior High I've been mom's Christmas Elf. (some may argue Christmas Fairy.) I had it down to a science of how the exterior lights would be wired and plugged in so you wouldn't see any cords during the day.

I realized while on the phone with my sister who was trying to hang them that I'm not very good at explaining how things are done. Which is probably why I like to do things myself. That way I don't have to explain it.

Language laziness. It's a problem. It means I'm going to be a mean old man who gets frustrated when the young'ns don't understand me.

Love!