Otherwise Occupied

I've felt like I was melting lately in the 100 degree plus humidity we've been having lately. We've been going to the beach in search of cooler air and staying indoors in the AC as much as possible. Thankfully last night's storm dropped the temps 20 degrees and dropped the humidity. Normal life can now resume.


I have not been slacking while avoiding the heat. I spent all my free time for over a week cleaning out B's bedroom. You have not experienced tedious until you have sorted more than 10 years worth of Legos, Bionacles, K-nex building sets, and Yugi-Oh, Magic and other assorted collectible cards. M kept telling me to just throw it all away. I kept thinking how much it all cost and that maybe my eventual grandkids might like to play with them some day, so I continued sorting. Once that was done, it was time to get rid of the day-glow stripes painted around the room. These stripes were on the walls when we moved in, the room previously belonged to a 5 year old boy. B never complained about the paint colors, so I never knew if they bugged him or if he'd gotten attached to them.

When I texted him and sent him pictures of me repainting the room, he responded with "Yeah" and that he wouldn't miss the stripes. So now the room is repainted and now it's time to move a different set of furniture in there and return some of B's items to his room that he actually uses. All the little boy stuff has been packed in plastic bins and stored in the basement. I'll post a picture once the room is put back together. I did take a number of before and after shots with my phone camera, but accidentally deleted them before storing them on my computer. So this is the best I could do. I'm also nearing the end of my "summer of rotating rooms." It's been a virtual circus trying to get the upstairs in order, just so I could begin a makeover on mine and M's bedroom. We got a new Queen-sized bedroom set in April, that's been waiting in boxes in the garage all this time. So the plan was to take our antique full-sized set and put it in B's room. B's full-sized iron bed would go into Min's room. The open futon in Min's room would go back in the office as a sofa. Before each move could be made, rooms had to be cleaned and the painting done. So the office got finished first in a matter of days. Min's room was next and took 2 days. B's room has taken a couple weeks and after today, I will begin on our room. Yes, I am a glutton for punishment, but I'm trying to finish before M's family arrives for a visit on August 8th.


Oh, one other thing, you're probably not going to believe this. I've been painting rooms for all of my adult life and even back into my teen years. I've always known about edging paintbrushes, but never really thought they would work. So I've been using painter's tape to tape the edges of molding, windows, etc. whenever I painted. I hated the end results. No matter what, some paint would always bleed under the edges of the tape and I would have fuzzy, messy edges. I decided to be bold and reckless and try an edger brush this time. The results you see above in B's room are the first time I ever painted a room WITHOUT ANY painter's tape on the edges. Other than taping down plastic to protect the rug, I did everything freehand. My edges look better than when I used tape. I will never go back to painter's tape. I will forever invest the few extra bucks into a good edging paintbrush. I also got the room painted faster because I didn't have to take time to wrap everything in tape. Yee-Hah! Now back to work for me!