the last few days have to do with boxes and trash

In the evenings I find that I am just standing in a second floor room looking around lost. I am currently boxing good stuff to move across the way and tossing out bad stuff that needs to go to the dumpster. The problem is you see, I know what the GOOD stuff is, and I can tell what the BAD stuff is, the problem comes with the stuff that doesn't fit either title. It's not something I want to keep, but it's not bad enough to be trash. So is it worth keeping because it is still good, or should I toss it because I don't need it.

What I have decided to do is simple, box the stuff I know I want to keep and move it to the other room, Toss the stuff I don't want to keep, and everything left that I am not sure of, will go in "Special Boxes" the boxes are labeled "Stuff". In this way I can move it all across the hall to storage and get current the room sanded and ready for painting. Then when I get the time, or the inclination to, I can go through those boxes slowly and see what needs to be saved, or if it turns out I am not inclined to go through them, I can toss them down the stairs for junk.

It's sort of a systematic manner of procrastinating.

Weekend of feb 21,2015

The walls and trim in the dining room are finished, even though the trim is not the correct color, when we replace the east side window and sheetrock we will be repainting the trim. That ugly ceiling light has to go...

The ugly lamp is gone, 

This leaves the hardwood floors in all four 1st floor rooms to do, and the center island painting, finishing up the blue.

The center island is now finished, leaving the kitchen done except inside all the cabinets, the sink base repainting, the door and window replacement, and the countertop replacment.

Weekend of the 14th

The Dining room has received all the paint it is going to. I came home to find Nat had touched up the areas that needed touching and gave the place a second coat and painted all the trim.

Even the area we will be ripping out and replacing has been painted for the time being.

The stairway still needs to have the risers painted and the Dining room floor still needs scrubbing and resealing, but work has moved to the second floor. The Spare room has long been full of accumulated junk from years of collecting, Nat and I started digging it out, not to work on the room but to make an area for the old Bedroom across the hall to be packed and stored in.

With an area cleaned out it was time to start packing, emptying and moving.

Inside this box was material and clothe, but down at the bottom was a souvenir from an earlier time.

Nat was dressed for the occasion, It probably paid off pretty good considering the painting she did and the 20 or so Contractor bags of trash she hauled downstairs, through the house, out through the snow and emptied into the dumpster.

Oh yeah, the souvenir...

Dining Room

All four walls have received the first coat of paint. The damaged area beneath the east window has been patched and painted but only as a temporary move. Once Spring arrives the window will be replaced with a double pane window and the woodwork replaced. 

Years ago my parents had the vinyl siding installed and had some of the windows replaced with double pane windows but there are still some that need to be upgraded, these are:
All three windows on the east side (back) of the house, Bathroom, Kitchen, Dining Room, all the west side windows, Living room, Bedroom, Den, and both upstairs rooms. The problem at the time was they just didn't have the money to take care of all the windows and the vinyl siding so they had three north side windows done and both south side.

Did some painting and sanding

This weekend, since I worked half a day Saturday and the weather promised to be crappy, I had the chance to do some more dining room work. One and a half walls have received their first coat of Peachtree Paint, I am happy to say it goes pretty good with the Serene Blue ceiling. 

The corner and window areas still need sanding so this is a far as the first coat went.

After doing some sanding on the counter wall, (and covering the entire kitchen, dining, living room area with a yellow dust), I was able to do some trim painting.  The blue Kitchen counter wall still needs to be completed as do the counter end half round shelves.

The areas where the cabinets were required heavy sanding. It appears the cabinet interiors were painted by reaching it and brushing the paint while the cabinets were in place. This left a lot of built up paint runs that needed to be sanded. Applying a thin coat of ceiling blue over the area brought out the existing paint defects which needed cleaning up.

The main wall has a flaw in it, there was a crack and a depressed area where the sheet rock was pushed in, (probably something me or my brother did as kids). While repairing the crack was easy, the depressed area remains, (you can see the lighting difference in the wall photo below). The only way to correct this would be to cut out the entire area and place a new section of sheet rock in, plaster it, sand it and paint it. Since I am running short of funds and have a long way to go on the house, this is not currently an option.

Ceiling done

Wednesday evening brought the dining room ceiling painting to an end.

With the second coat done it is now time to edge the mouldings and paint the walls.

Dining Room Ceiling

The Ceiling received it's first coat of Behr Marquee Interior 1 Coat Semi Gloss Latex Serene Blue to match the kitchen ceiling. The paint does cover in 1 coat but due to the light on the ceiling two coats bring out the light blue so another will be added.

Once dry the roller direction marks will disappear as they did in the kitchen, Living Room and Bedroom.

saturday sanding and trim

filling and sanding

Trim work for the ceiling paint will require two coats, the ceiling itself,  two or three

The Dining Room

The Dining room has had issues with time,  Fifty six years of settling has left a few gaps and cracks.
For Spackle I use DAP DRY Dex which goes on Pink and dries white. 

For the gaps and seam cracks I used DAP Polyurethane. 

Both these products work well and clean up easy.

Starting to fill gaps cracks and holes means always finding a spot is more work than was first thought

As for applying Spackle my favorite tool is the "Five in One Painters tool". many companies offer this tool including Hyde, Purdy, Husky, and Wagner.

For masking areas I prefer Scotch Blue. Not because of the way it goes on but the way it comes off.