Lisa and The Glue Gun

Today we resume our work on the island. You may (or, if you have a LIFE, may NOT) recall that on our last visit we painted the new, post-Ike trash bin. Today, Lisa got out her glue gun - a deadly professional grade Aleene's Model 4376GR top-o'-the-line machine for use only by the fully trained - and created a sign board for the bin, with our address and some local seashells. I then mounted it on the bin, and voila. Not bad at all.

Lisa has a way with glue guns. Unfortunately, she is also a danger to anything in the neighborhood. I generally try to stay far away from her when she uses this machine, lest I find myself glued to some basket or frame. Better safe than sorry.

So, to occupy myself and stay out of range of the glue gun, I managed to finally - after a long 1 1/2 years - oil our kitchen counter tops - nice and shiny now. I'd post a photo of that, but I can't figure out how to make this thing put THAT photo at the bottom of this post instead of the top, so you'll just have to imagine how it looks.

Anyway, Harry is away with some friends, so it's just the two of us on the island. We can't cook since the countertops are . . . all oily. So, maybe the best treat of all: CMB - Cafe Michael Burger for dinner!!

Galveston - Tiling the Kitchen

Well today we managed to get the backsplash up for the kitchen. This was next (and last) on our list of projects on the island when Ike hit. Ike, of course, set us back a half a house, so it took us a year to recover from Ike. Now we have finished most of the pre-Ike projects. The only major project left? New deck. Anyway, photos are on Facebook or somewhere, but a few great examples are shown above.

More painting!

This time, at the bay.

We are on the island for Labor Day weekend. What was supposed to be rainy and dreary has in fact become beautiful, sunny, breezy and almost cool. And because of the weather forecast errors, not too many tourists. Great stuff.

Anyway, there is no rest for the weary so last night - about the time of my second (third?) glass of wine, when my defenses were down - I was somehow persuaded to paint our trash can bin. Lisa says it was entirely my idea, but I think there was some chicanery involved.

In any event, this is the wooden box which holds our trash cans, so the local dogs and whatever don't get into our trash; you get the idea. The one that was here when we bought the house washed out to New Orleans with Hurricane Ike. So, we had to have a new one built. The fellow who built it for us "forgot" to paint it, so it was bare wood. We would not want our neighbors in Louisiana to get our hurricane jetsom unpainted, so this was a task we needed to complete before the next storm came along and carried all of our possessions across the Sabine River.

Again, I normally would not be fooled into an undertaking of this nature, but as I have said, my defenses were down. It was totally unfair.

To get to the point, this morning we went off to the hardware store and loaded up with paint and rollers for this should-be-easy task. Three hours later, we were done. The results? See for yourself.

I think we are through with
projects for the weekend.

So, not too bad - one chore.
Sure, it's not like painting a HOUSE,
but it is a LOT more work than it looks like.
Promise.


More later.

Time to Change the Living Room

Last weekend I decided to paint the living room. I took off from work early on Friday and picked up all the essentials - paint, brushes, drop clothes. And on a whim -- a Wagner automatic paint roller. Perhaps, I thought, I would be able to entice my "I don't do paint" husband to help with the job. After all - what real guy can resist a gizmo (even if it is paint related).

The initial reaction from Brad was as expected -- "I doubt seriously that thing will work" -- "It will probably be a big mess" -- "Undoubtedly a piece of junk" -- and of course - "That thing is going to be hell to clean!" In response to all comments I simply nodded affirmatively and kept my mouth shut... biding my time. The hook had been baited -- just had to reel him in.

By Friday night, he had read the entire instruction manual. By Saturday morning, he had unpacked the gizmo. By Saturday afternoon, he offered to "set it up" for me. A few minutes later -- he was busily rolling paint onto the living room walls -- and refusing to relinquish the gizmo to me.

I never rolled on a single drop of paint... not one. The "I don't paint" husband was painting. And not because of my feminine wiles or an altruistic desire to help -- but because the gizmo was so irresistable.

By Sunday evening all the furniture was moved back into place, the art rehung and we enjoyed a glass of wine in our new and improved living room. Of course, Brad said that he really didn't see why we need to change the color in the first place. But he did like that power roller...

A WORD ABOUT THE TITLE OF THIS BLOG...

When Grant Wood painted American Gothic in 1930 -- it was the cottage in the background that he was obsessed with, not the couple in front of it. The small frame house in Eldon, Iowa was built in the Gothic Revival style. Wood decided to paint the house and the kind of people he imagined would live in it. To this end, he got his dentist and his sister to pose as the stern twosome.

When I first saw the house that Brad and I live in it was on an autumn morning almost 15 years ago. I spied the For Sale Sign as I drove down Main St. on my way to run errands. Moments later I was creeping through the overgrown yard to peer in the ground floor windows. The house was a red brick monstrosity in horrible repair. And it was love at first sight.

Over the years, we have restored the house with painstaking care -- a task that continues to this day. In doing so - we have tried to create the kind of home where people want to spend time - a warm, inviting and happy space. And hopefully we are a "match" for the house -- just as the couple in Iowa was so many years ago for the house Wood was enamored with.

Lisa

Painting Update

Note to those contemplating a power roller: When they say (as part of the cleaning instructions) to purge the system of water after you have backwashed all of the paint out of the pump and hoses, THEY REALLY MEAN IT. Do not be fooled into idly letting the silly thing pump itself "dry" for 2 or 3 minutes. No. Instead, you have to diligently coax every last little bit of water out of the system - you need to set the machine up high, and then - while it pumps at full bore - MAKE the water come through the tubes and exit at the nozzle attachment. If you do not do this, you will discover - as we did this morning - that instead of immediately applying paint when you turn on and prime the pump, you are applying the cup or so of water which remained in the system after you cleaned it last time. And, spread out through the wonders of a power roller, this "cup or so of water" has the coverage of a gallon - it ends up everywhere.

So, you are forwarned - take the "drying out" step very seriously indeed.

Now on to brighter moments. Once we recovered from the debacle of trying to paint our walls with water as it sprayed from the roller, things went well. Even though I used the wrong replacement roller, it looks great. And, with the mondern wonder of a power roller, we were able to finish the entry room, downstairs half of the stairs, and the entire living room today. So, with the exception of the "upstairs" portion of the stairs - which can wait for a LONG time as far as I'm concerned, we are done. Not so bad in two days, especially considering how we had to move everything (including the drapes) out of the rooms we were working on.

Lisa has asked me to confirm that the color she chose ("peanut"?) is great, and it is. If that kind of thing matters to you. Which it does not to me. I thought what we had was just fine. But then that's just me, I suppose.

What's next? Well, as one normally finds at the end of a project like this, this change has initiated the inevitable domino effect, and now we (that is the Royal "we" - Lisa) are hinting, suggesting, and bluntly stating that the drapes no longer look right. Duh. Of course they don't - they were made for the paint we had before, which is why we should have never changed the paint in the first place. Then, when we do the drapes, it will be the fixture, the furniture, and finally the cat and the dog. It is a vicious cycle and that sort of thing drove Lyndon Johnson out of office. It must be stopped and stopped now.

Lisa has also asked me to report that she did the lion's share of the work on this project, and indeed she did particularly if you don't consider the HOURS I spent in the hot sun cleaning the power roller both days while she painted inside in the air conditioning. Notwithstanding any of that, the areas we painted are rife with woodwork, windows, molding, and the stairway, which meant literally hours and hours of cutting in with a paint brush - a task which seems to suit her fine and which I abhor so I did not do. So yes, the overwhelming amount of painting was indeed done by Lisa. OK?

More as matters develop . . .

Painting

Since this blog is about our adventures, and since most of those adventures seem to revolve around remodeling projects, and since today involved that very type of adventure, in the form of painting, it only seems appropriate to talk about painting. First, I hate it. Second, Lisa (though she says he hates it) loves it. Or at least she likes it a lot. And she enjoys it even more if I can be bribed into participating. Unfortunately, the favored bribe in this house is good wine (or, truthfully, just about any kind of wine), and good wine and a steady hand for painting don't really work together, so she is usually forced to assign other tasks to me while she paints. Today, however, she reached for my jugular and got a new tool - a power roller.

As much as I hate painting, I hate using a roller even more - they splatter, the roller pans are crap, and generally I end up with paint everywhere BUT the wall. However, the thought of Lisa struggling with a power roller was too much for me, and besides: it looked like it might be cool. So, away I went. And away the painting went - three HUGE walls in about 20 minutes. Totally awesome. Of course, the next 90 minutes was devoted to cleaning the power roller, but THAT I could do with a glass of wine nearby.

So, maybe painting is not so bad after all.

As for basing this in reality and context: After having completely remodeled Harry's bedroom and bathroom this summer - while he was at camp - we were fresh out of projects. We started to get bids for redoing the master bath, but they were all out of reach, so that left us empty handed. An idle mind being the devil's workshop, Lisa's idle mind concocted the idea to repaint the living room. "Why" is beyond me. But once that sort of idea sets in, there is no stopping it. So, today the project began. What was slated to take a week, however, will be finished tomorrow. Thanks to the power roller.

Congratulations to technology indeed.

And thus starts this blog, our story of our almost-100-year old house in Houston Texas, and whatever else comes to mind.

Brad and Lisa.