omd

Yes, that's right OMD not OMG! The Eightes were calling us last Tuesday when we saw OMD play at Terminal 5 in NYC. Great show and some songs brought back long lost memories...But this is should not be a review of the concert.

After the show we bought an OMD poster. It actually seems to be a limited edition print, it has "109/200" (109 of 200?) written at the bottom. Framed it Friday night while waiting for Fringe to start.

Also framed these two little posters I bought at 20x200 . The left one is a map of L.A., the right one is a map of New York by Aaron Straup Cope.

peek-a-boo

Let there be light! At least a little bit in the hallway...

This is the door leading from the entry vestibule into the hallway. I was always curious if the small panels above the door are glass. They are painted and when I tapped them they sounded like glass but there was only one way to find out. Before I started working on the fireplace last Saturday I put some stripper on one panel and let it sit for a couple of hours. And it is glass underneath the paint. Why would somebody paint it? It made the hallway look so dark. Can't wait to start making that door pretty again. Right now it is quite beat up although you can't really see that in the pictures. And the hallway needs to be painted too...

I was also able to finish some other little things in the living room on Saturday. There was a big area that had been patched on the ceiling and wasn't painted yet. Also there were some smaller water stains on the ceiling of the bay window that needed some touch up paint. The source of the water coming in had been fixed a while back and I already primed the stains with oil based primer. It is official now that every surface in the living room has been painted.

finished fireplace

The fireplace is finally finished! We're not sure yet what to hang above it and what we'll put on top of the mantel.

Quite a difference from what it looked like when we bought the house.

fireplace door

Back in September I bought a fireplace door/summer cover on ebay for only $30. Although it was white in the ebay pictures it arrived spray painted gold. P picked it up and when he brought it home I immediately told him that he got the wrong fireplace cover. Upon further inspection, comparing the pictures from the auction to the real thing and the obvious paint smell we came to the conclusion that someone painted it before we picked it up. Just one more layer of paint that needed to be stripped off. Luckily a layer of spray paint is nothing compared to what felt like 100 layers of paint underneath. I worked on stripping the cover for months. Ok it was only a handful of weekends with a big break in between because I got so sick of standing in the basement and scraping gunk of that thing. Everything was treated various times with stripper and I always let it work its magic overnight. The bigger pieces were fairly easy to work with. The small detailed piece took some time because I had to scrape out every nook and cranny.

This is how the cover looked when I finally stripped off all the paint. After that I used heavy duty scour pads to take off all the excess paint and stripper that was still on it. I tried to sand it as well but didn't like that the sanding paper took away the nice texture of the cast iron.

On the pictures from the ebay auction you could already see that one corner of the frame was chipped off but I thought I could repair it and once it would be spray painted it would not be visible anymore. I bought a self adhesive body patch at my local Autozone. The adhesive would not stick to the back of the frame so I had to glue it on with liquid nails and used three clamps to keep it in place until it dried.

A friend gave me a package of Bondo Glass fiberglass filler to start rebuilding the shape of the frame.The texture was kind of hard to work with so I took another trip the Autozone and bought some lightweight body filler which I knew would get the job done. In 2001 I did a similar project with mesh, body filler and spray paint to repair the roof of my very first car, a golden 1989 Honda Civic which I drove around LA while I was doing an internship in Santa Monica Ah, the memories...

I used the lightweight body filler to build up the shape so that it will match the existing. It actually took a couple of steps to get it right. Apply body filler, let it dry, sand and then repeat until you're happy with the result. After that I primed the fireplace door/cover and spray painted it black.

The whole project cost less than $50. Yay!

- fireplace door $30
-adhesive body patch $6*
-lightweight body filler $7*
-Krylon Indoor/Outdoor primer in black $1.25**
-Krylon Indoor/Outdoor spray paint in black satin finish $1.75**

*no sales tax added
**got the paint with a 75% discount because the store I bought the paint from closed down

The cover has not been mounted yet. Hopefully I will accomplish it the coming weekend. Stay tuned for pictures of the finished fireplace...

it's miller time

Finally some progress on my February to-do list

- finish fireplace - almost there, cast iron fireplace door is spray painted, still needs to be put in place
- cover panel for island and finish painting trim in kitchen - done!
- prepare the hallway to get painted - first floor hallway is done, we even painted the baseboards and most of the doorframes already, second floor hallway, most baseboards have been caulked
- assemble bekväm step stool and decided what color to paint or stain it - decision on color has been made

I addition to above mentioned items I also cleared the area around the workbench in the basement in order to be able to actually work on it. The beer stickers I already noticed a while back because they are prominently displayed above the work area. While sweeping under the workbench I found numerous hooks for fishing, doe urine (yuck) and a bullet. It's like being on one of those crime shows where I get to puzzle all the clues together who lived in this house before us...

presidents day weekend to-do list

In anticipation of the upcoming three day weekend and all the little projects we could cross off our list we already bought the supplies we need last weekend.We got numerous bottles of caulk, a piece of plywood cut to size to become the kitchen island cover panel, oil based primer and a can of black behandla glazing paint from Ikea for Bekväm. Hopefully we will finish all the little things in the kitchen like the cover panel for the island, painting the trim, crown moulding, window and door frames. We also want to prep the hallway so it can be painted one of these days.

To get a head start I already taped off the baseboards and window/door frames in the kitchen yesterday so Peter can paint them. I will paint the crown moulding and do not need to tape the edges off. Also I cleared out an (still unfinished after 1.5 years) cabinet that is standing in the kitchen and was used a dumping ground for all kinds of stuff. It will be stored it in the basement until I come around painting it.

Let the weekend begin...

revisting january's to-do list

This was my January to-do list

- finish the fireplace
- cover panel for kitchen island
- prepare the hallway to get painted
- assemble Bekväm step stool and decide on what color to paint or stain it

and I got exactly nothing done!

I have worked on the fireplace door though. It's almost ready to be spray painted. Already got the spray paint and primer. But I have organized our office which was a dumping ground for all kind of stuff and now you can almost recognize it as habitable which wasn't even on the list but the mess drove me insane.

Well that leaves me with my to-do list for February

- finish the fireplace
- cover panel for kitchen island and finish painting trim in kitchen
- prepare the hallway to get painted
- assemble Bekväm step stool and decide on what color to paint or stain it