Heirloom Lace and Rick at HOME DEPOT

At HOME DEPOT I talked a little ‘resilient vinyl tile flooring’ with a worker and found that for today it is outside my scrawny sad budget. I plan on sending my three girls to look at the selection and maybe purchase the amount we need for our 5’x9’ basement bathroom. He also browsed toilets and sinks with me, the cheapest throne would suffice and I like the look of the pedestal type sinks. I walked away from it all today though hoping to at least afford paint, fingers crossed.

I did purchase a gallon of paint. With NANOGUARD technology - high performance - built in primer - ultra satin - durable - stain resistant - scuff resistant - mar resistant - easy clean - pearly sheen - ideal for high traffic areas (the can is pretty nifty too - has a handle on). My colour choice: Heirloom Lace (it sounds knitty, yeah?)

Although I won’t remember everything Rick had to say about my bathroom project, I appreciate the time he took with me, knowing that I’ve never done this kind of thing before. He enthusiastically familiarized me with all the details of each choice of paint ideal for my bathroom walls, their texture and reflective qualities, and whether they hide imperfections in their surface very well or not, and their cleaning and care, as well as how they are different from what was previously available.

He went over the steps for doing my walls and ceiling right. My gyp rock seams are taped and puttied already (if that’s what the white-over stuff is called - I don’t know) but need to be sanded; Rick explained the sanding process and demonstrated the angling of a flash light to best see the imperfections in the walls and how marking them with scotch tape helps to indicate areas for further smoothing out or filling in. Once the wall surfaces are perfect the best paint application method is to make a W in a small area and cover it over, make another W beside and cover it over - going over the same spot more than three times will result in a less than smooth surface because the paint is designed to dry so quickly. Leave it a day and do a second coat. He also gave me brochure of practical painting tips.

I had no idea there was so much to know about paint - I though I would walk in, choose a colour, wait while it shakes and voila homeward.

This evening we start with basic cleaning including shooing away my eight legged tenants. Maybe some sanding.

 

Adventures in Blog Creation Exploration

I've been at this for hours. I actually spent nearly an hour on another site creating a free blog only to discover after choosing the background, layout, font, title, the works that the first 31 days are free and then it's $20 for 3 month's subscription, or else it will all be deleted. I deleted that and explored a few profiles on Ravelry that linked here to their blogs. I hope I don't have an expiry date here - doesn't look like it.

It's been a fly by the seat of my pants learning experience for me this evening. I'm unfamiliar with the words on the links and all the vocabulary around this activity. Clicking on things in hopes of deciphering it's meaning and ending up entirely elsewhere from where I think I need to be - other windows opening; and then the 'back to' option landing me up with more than one window with the same thing in for my many attempts to get back to point A and figure it out from there. Still not certain what point A is quite yet.

I am off to see if I can figure out how to add my Blog ULR to my profile on Ravelry.com: CastOnCalamity although I may have to wait and consult my teenager-type peoples who are home for the summer from college. Onward with this adventure. Also, and most importantly: I would like to know if I can make a pdf or two or three available for downloading on my blog somewhere.