She's (still) Crafty

Law School (notice the capital letters?) is insane. It's good, it's challenging, but knitting time has been seriously curtailed. If I get a row done, it's a very, very good week.
So instead, I sneaked in this project:


I had the little deviants (er, darling children) rip out the old peel & stick:
and then tear up a bunch of paper bags from our local grocery stores:

Didn't count, but I'd guess we used ~30 bags.

At first I painted front and back of each paper sections, but when Z started to 'help':

I made it easier on us both by crumpling the sections of bag and dipping them in the watered-down glue. Much faster and had more texture, so I was happy.
Note: My floor had a combination of what appeared to be self-leveling compound and plywood underlayment, but I didn't worry about it and just papered right over it.


I let that dry for a day and a half, then I stained it with some cheesecloth and a tube of Minwax Express Color in mahogany.
[I was cheap, er, frugal and only bought one tube ($6.50) b/c our bathroom's not that big (abt 55 sq ft). Right now there's just the teensiest bit of stain left in the tube. If I were going to do it again, I'd buy a can of stain and hold on it for touch ups.]
Then I polyurethaned it many, many times.


When you're sick of this floor, to the best of my knowledge you can just do a new underlayment and then whatever your new choice of top layer is.

Here's some tips & good images if you want to try it:
http://www.yankeemagazine.com/issues/20 ... e/flooring
http://groceryshrink.com/2010/05/illust ... loors.html
http://www.anoregoncottage.com/2010/08/ ... loors.html (the video is quite helpful)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/di ... s=287x5019
http://texasfishingforum.com/forums/ubb ... 80/gonew/1

I was lazy and didn't take out the fixtures (horrors!) but I figure as a temporary (2-5 year) treatment, I'm not gonna worry too much about it. If it gets holes, you can just patch with another piece of bag and polyurethane.

I really like it, esp. b/c technically it means we now have a wood floor in that room.

It Comes in Threes

Thanks so much for the kind words of support. It means more than I can say.

So much has changed in the last few months. Not just the loss of my dad, of course, though that is a sea change I still haven't fully processed.
But there are three big updates since I last checked in:

1) I sent N & T to Chicago for the summer, because their bio mom has been really sick. They've just returned -- and are huge! Many pounds and (shoe sizes!) have been added thanks to the Grandmas. Shopping for school will be interesting this year.

2) Miss Z will be starting school this fall! We've been home together for 2.5 years, and she's ready for a change. Unbelievably, we all loved the first place we checked out, so we're signing her up!

3) Mama will be going to school, too! I was accepted to Lewis & Clark Law School. I'll be starting in a couple of weeks.

Colonial One

Celebrating the little munchkin's b-day today, so busy busy busy getting things ready.

In the meanwhile, here's some house pics to distract you. These are from before we bought it, so they are empty:

Um, yeah. Colonial my ...er, eyeballs.

Living room. Gorgeous, gorgeous light in here.

Other end of the living room, which is kinda long and skinny; we're currently using this as our library area.

The kitchen, which you've seen before. It's an eat-in, and I think it needs just a bit more separation than that. I have a plan...

The first floor bathroom. While sorely lacking in style, it does have an adorable clawfoot tub. They are fiendishly impractical for all but the most fit people -- ever try getting out of one of these suckers? -- but I am a huge, huge fan. This is probably the easiest room to finish: it needs accessories, tile around the tub, new floor and window trim.

More later...

Bitter Much? (the sequel)

So clearly, I shouldn't be optimistic. Every time I have a thought like, "Whew, almost done with that (long, long, long) list of things that need to be repaired," something freaky happens.

Exhibit A:

This, dear readers, is the new fridge. Delightful in its shiny black sexiness, no? Yet that was a significant chunk o'change we here at Casa Boy-O had not planned to part with. However, since we like to eat without risking ptomaine, and since the fridge part of the original fridge gave up the ghost, we resigned ourselves to this expenditure.

It's a much better one for the number of mouths we regularly feed, too, so that was another reason we were less inclined to moan. Onward and upward, we said. Let's just get through this list of repairs, and then we can move on to fun stuff.

Until last night when the microwave stuttered, sputtered and died so completely the screen went black and would not resurrect. I've never actually seen that happen: even the time I attempted to boil an egg in my mom's first microwave (I did mention that, didn't I, Mom? I didn't? Well, um, never mind. You just forget I said anything.) it eventually came back on.

Stunned, I assumed it was the circuit breaker, and visited the basement to try flipping that switch.

While down there, I thought, "Oh! I should throw in that load of laundry." 'Cause you know, clean socks? Turns out they really do make the day a little bit nicer for everyone involved.

Except, of course, when your attempt to start the washer results in GIANT BLUE SPARKS flying at your head. Then, not so much with the clean or the nice.

So once again, Mama will be trekking over to this fine establishment to see what I can see in the way of appliances that a) don't suck and b) won't bankrupt us. Ahh, the fun and joy just keep rolling on...

Better add some cute kid pics to get that bitter taste out:

(We were at One Green World for their annual open house. No, I have no idea why that required princess garb. Better safe than sorry, though, right? Cause how silly would you feel if you needed formal wear and didn't have it?)

Notice how slickly I slipped that adorable Baby Surprise Jacket in there? (Look Ma, actual knitting!) Not mine, of course, since I don't think I can even find a ball of yarn in the maze that is our basement. It was a baby shower gift from the very kind Chris T. of AliceThelma.

Little Things

Still making my way out from underneath the avalanche of boxes which accompanies our move. After a frustrating week of getting repairs scheduled/done, unpacking only to find more to unpack, and weird vacation days for the kids, I wanted to feel like I'd accomplished something.

So I tackled the thing which had been annoying me all out of proportion to its importance:

Oh yes, friends, the dreaded 80's fug is alive and well. (Unbelievably, you can still purchase these same handles.) I had thought about replacing the doors, but decided that the cabs just weren't worth the investment. So I went for a subtler improvement:

My clever spouse picked these out --and, of course, the fancy new drill we used to install many of 'em (I did many by hand, but got tired).

More -- and better! -- pics to come of the house proper, which Boy-O and I have dubbed Colonial One (mostly 'cause we're BSG fans, but also because looking at this house from outer space is about the only way it could honestly be called a Colonial).

Homeward Bound

And I'm back, just for a moment, to say hello to the blogosphere, especially to the nice folks who've come by from the Twist blog. Thanks so much for stopping by and I do hope you'll come again.

Posting will be much easier and more frequent in the days to come, as I've finally finished the big project I'd hinted about: we bought our first house!

Z enjoying both her new kitchen and Mama's shoes! Wow, that kid can multi-task.

That's right, kids, the Family Boy-O has moved on up to our version of the deluxe apt in the sky (which is more like a 4bd/2ba 2 story, but whatever).

Despite the mass of boxes and crates and cables and the temporarily lost dog (Tom & Bel was just Bel for *several* days!) and the dying washing machine and the astonishing number of repair-type projects to be done --and the *endless* hours spent waiting for contractors to show up (who knew "between 11 and noon" meant 1:30?), we are all supremely happy with the new digs. We've got much more room to roam, better access to the sorts of stuff we like to do and are pleased as punch with our new 'hood.

More later...just now I've got to rescue Boy-O from the tot!