Weekend Project: Zip, Zero, Nada... Or whatever I find to do that's free...

Yep folks, it's that awful time of the month when I am stuck waiting for client's to pay so that I can pay my team... So no fun projects for us this weekend. Instead, we'll be laying low, pottering about the house and garden and dreaming up things to do next weekend. I don't like posts with no pictures on other blogs, so I thought I would sprinkle this post with a few fun snaps of the babies.


I am sure that I will find SOMETHING to occupy myself this weekend. There's a pillow I've been thinking of making with some scrap fabric I have. I COULD tackle the last of those boxes, or maybe I could reorganize our bedroom closets to allow maximum storage-ability. Who knows, I might even get back to operation popcorn, since I already have everything I need to tackle that project.... Hmmm...


Otherwise, the only thing I am planning on doing is re-reading the Twilight series as a refresher. I plan to do it yet again before the release of New Moon on November 20th. (Eeek!) Ahhhh yes, curled up in aurconditioned comfort with these two... bliss!


In some fun news my shades arrived yesterday and they are fab! I am a little unsure about the grey next to the beigey/brown of the shades. Here's a picture, although I should mention that they appear very blue in this photo -- they do not in person. Definitely a charcoal grey color in person.


I can't shake the feeling that I should have gone for the white curtains. What do you think?

Keepin' it Real...

Weekend Project: More Poppin'

On Friday evening we ran over to Home Depot to grab supplies for this weekend.

Today we picked up where we left off and are spending the weekend scraping more of our ceilings. The kitchen is now done, as is the entry way. All we have left are the bedrooms, one bathroom and the great room, but due to the steep ceilings, 15 feet at their highest point, there is no way for us to reach, even with our new ladder. We're going to have to come up with an alternative for this room... Typically, it's the popcorn-ed room that bugs me the most and it's the one room I cannot fix.


Now we have a decision to make... do we sand and paint them now, or do we smooth the walls and THEN paint? What do you think? Ultimately, you should paint ceilings before you paint walls, right? But what if you need to re-texture those walls before you can paint?



Honestly, while I don't like textured walls, they wouldn't bother me so much if they were uniformly textured throughout, but alas they are not. The previous owners did some AWFUL patch jobs on the drywall. The corners are just terrible, as is the peak of the arch in the kitchen. In fact... while removing popcorn, we also discovered that some walls had been "patched" using regular silicone caulk, meant for bathrooms!


I have a strong feeling that we need to leave the ceilings until we smooth the walls out.... trouble is, it's going to take us AGES to get them smooth. And it's going to involve a lot of sanding! Ugh... Part of me just wants to re-drywall the whole thing. LOL. Wishful thinking right!

Well I mean... how expensive is white ceiling paint going to be? I suppose we could just go ahead and paint them and if they get "dinged" during the wall smoothing process, we can just patch paint. Yeah... I think that's the best idea!

Somethin's Poppin'!

Here's your popcorn progress update:





So far the guest bathroom and passage ceilings are done... but we're not even half-way. Still the entryway, the great room (argh!), both bedrooms and the master bath to do.

We discovered some... uh... creative drywalling. In the passage, instead of taping the top edge of the wall, but we discovered that someone thought caulk would do the trick just as well. So of course, after scraping the caulk out of the gap, it looks like we're going to need to retape that wall-ceiling join. Not bad though.

The system we used tonight was just straight water and a scraper. It was effective enough on the unpainted popcorn, however the painted popcorn (in every room but the bathrooms) it required a lot more scraping than we were expecting.

This weekend, we're going to try something different:


Watch at about 2 minutes in. Keep your eye on the bubble. OMG!! We're trying warm water, vinegar and a proper sprayer in place of the pump action water misting bottle.

Anyway, the two "finished" rooms need a bit more work. We're nervous about getting the drywall too wet because we don't want any chance of mould. Looking at the various videos I've watched, I see most people wetting things MUCH more than we have. Going to get a bit more aggressive this weekend, but will put a fan on the area as soon as the popcorn has been removed.

Anyway... that's enough of adventures in popcorn country for one day.

Popcorn Be-Gone

We just sprayed a little water and grabbed a spoon to check if we can scrape the awful popcorn from our ceilings and whaddaya know... We CAN!!

We're so excited about this! Popcorn ceilings are just so unattractive and we're popcorned throughout the house. It will require a lot of patience, a lot of arms above the head, some scrapers and a spray bottle.

Here's what we're dealing with...
Oh... I know what you're thinking... WHAT THE HELL WITH THE CRACK!!
Looks bad huh? Well, never fear. We aren't that stupid. We bought the house knowing that it had had complete foundation makeovers twice in it's life, (and we have lifetime warranties on both). Once in the front, and once in the back. This caused the middle to show a few cracks. We have it on excellent authority that the cracks we are seeing are because of the split lift, and are nothing to worry about at all.

Bottom line... we KNOW there are going to be some surprises after we remove the popcorn. We KNOW we are going to have to have a Taper on speed dial.

And we KNOW we want that popcorn gone!

Shopping List:

- Pump spray bottle
- Two large paint scrapers
- Dust masks
- Step ladder
- Drop cloths

I can't wait for the weekend!