Canuxican

So today I had wonderful lunch with Amy (www.amyrtw.com) and her boyfriend Greg. They’re going to Peru at the end of the month and I filled em in on some details about Peru and South America. We also checked out some photos from each other’s travels. Ended up being a really long lunch. I’m a sucker for talking travel and it’s hard to stop It was cool to sit down and chat with Amy after having followed her travel journal for a year. Some great stories. She and Greg seem psyched about Peru. Good times guaranteed!
So I started the trim today at the condo. Well… I damn well near finished it, but at 2:30am I had to call it a night. I’m helping Thomas with his floors tomorrow morning so I gotta get some shuteye. Basically I finished painting almost all of the upstairs. I still have to paint the master closet and bathroom trim, as well as the stairs, and the infamous railings from yesterday’s post. And response to the comments… I am using oil based enamel, so I can’t just wipe it up. And cutting the half-circles may save tape, but I don’t think it would save time. Taping piece after piece in a circle like a did is tedious, but you can do it fairly quickly. I’m still convinced there is a trick there to learn though.
So tomorrow.. helping Thomas with floors. Hopefully we will knock it out tomorrow. I gotta finish the painting on the condo by Sunday afternoon because it needs time to dry before the carpet people get there on Monday. I’m pretty sure I like how it came out, but I left the tape there just in case it needs a second coat. I may be regretting that when I try to pull the tape off, but it’s a chance I’m going to take. I don’t want to pull the tape off and then decide I need another coat and have to repaint.
Whew. ok. I’m beat. 3:21am. Shower then bed. G’nite.

Whiter!

Shiny new ledge

New sill

So today I got a lot done, but I was kidding myself when I thought I could paint all the trim in one day. I had no idea that taping off all the trim could take so long. Well I went through about 360 feet of tape! Insane, huh? I thought I had WAY overbought on tape, but it was just about right. So I spent all day taping up the condo. Well, I had lunch with some old coworkers first, at Chuy’s (thanks for lunch, Brad!) Mmmmm enchiladas. How does Chuy’s manage to hit the spot every time?
So anyway, yes.. LOTS of time spent on taping. And then I tore up the carpet. Why did I do that? Well I decided to go ahead with the carpet. At $1247? NO! at $667! Yes, I got my other quote today Awesome! Much more reasonable. Maybe not quite as nice carpet, but who’s being picky?
So all is taped off, carpet is pulled… tomorrow all I have to do is shopvac, and paint. Oh, and I bought another 14 ft baseboard for the downstairs closet. I’m just going to paint that on the wall. That way I don’t have to wait for it to dry, I can paint it when I paint everything else, and it’s in the closet, so doesn’t need to be perfect.
Tomorrow: Shopvac, install closet baseboard, wipe everything down with Windex, wipe everything down with deglosser/liquid sandpaper, paint. While paint dries, clean the doors with Windex, install the thresholds.
Also tomorrow.. I think I am going to grab lunch with Amy Hughes from http://www.amyrtw.com I ran into Amy at SXSW here 2 years ago, right before she headed out on her round the world journey, and I’ve been reading her journal from the trip over the past year. She is going to be going to Peru in a few weeks and I’m going to try to answer any questions she has about it. I’m also meeting with another friend NEXT week to talk about Peru because her and her husband are going there. AWESOME!
Ok. that’s all for now folks. Er… there are folks out there reading this, right? AHHAHA I haven’t told anyone. Maybe I’ll send out an email.

Pulling apart the stairs. They’re melting!

Dali stairs

Carpetless stairs.

Carpet stack #1 in master bedroom

No more carpet in here!

All gone

THIS is what took so long. Look at all that taping in the closet!

Details details details

Like the pinstriped look?

Carpet stack #2, and closet nightmare #2

Blue frames white

Ok, I put this in here as a joke for any painters looking at this.

See, this took a LOT of time.

And I am SURE there is a painter trick to doing this, but I couldn’t figure it out, so here you go. Laugh away painters!

So today was kinda a bummer. I had to go over to meet the carpet people at the condo. The quote? $1247 for 525 sq ft. I think that’s insane, personally. I am getting another quote tomorrow. Then after meeting her, I had to go back to the house to meet the plumber so we could work on the kitchen faucet. So I didn’t get to work at the condo all day like I wanted to. BUT… we found out that the kitchen faucet is not working (leaking) because it is missing a part. I called Kohler and they are shipping it to me for free. Should be here next week. So I have to get that part, buy a slimmer nut for the water purifier spout, and try to find a longer stem for the sprayer. Pain. Thick countertops. They definitely limit you. They look good though.
So I FINALLY got over to the condo. Thomas helped me and we knocked out the baseboards. I caulked them too, using the caulking tricks that the painter taught us the other night. And I puttied the nail holes. All ready to paint tomorrow.
When I got home, I wanted to get the dryer working so I could FINALLY FINALLY do laundry. I took the old 4 prong cord out, and put in a 3 prong. VOILA! Laundry! Woo hooo!! I did two loads tonight before bed.
So… tomorrow.. finish touching up the baseboards. Buy another baseboard (we forgot to measure the closet so we need another 14 feet). Tape off all the trim, remove the doors, wipe down the trim with liquid sandpaper. Paint the trim. If you look at the last pic down there.. you will see that they didn’t color match the trim very well. The original trim is more yellow. But too late now. Going to paint the trim the new color.. and the doors may be a shade off. We’ll see how that looks and if it’s too bad, I will have to paint the doors or get the painter to spray them.
Also have lunch with my old team from work at Chuy’s!

This is the plug in the wall

This is the plug…

Notice a difference between the plug, and the wall outlet?

Baseboards are finished!

Looks sharp huh?

The finished look

Notice the difference in color between the baseboard to the rigth and the trim around the door frame. We’ll see how this resolves.

So on Sunday night I got home, and I was going to put the washer in so I can get some clothes done. Well it had an old switch and so I wanted to replace it with a new one, and put copper wiring in, etc. I turned the circuit off, pulled the hot (black) wire. And then I was pulling the neutral (white) wire off and it started sparking like crazy and glowing orange like it was about to catch on fire. It scared the crap outta me. I decided to call it a night since it was like 1am. I shut the circuit down for the night.
Monday morning I got up, to fix that electrical and found a smorgasbord of problems. I dismantled a circuit and found that there were wires that were hot that should not be. Something was definitely WRONG. My friend, Ben came over to help out since he’s done a lot of electrical work at his house. We ended up spening almost all day on this. Thomas came over mid-day because we were going to go put the baseboards up at the condo. Well we never made it over there on Monday because the electrical took too long. We DID figure it out though. Check out the picture of the one box that was causing the problem!
Today I wanted to finish replacing two switches that we didnt get to on Monday, wanted to get the baseboards put up at the condo, get the faucets pulled, and hook up the washer and dryer. Well I got two and a half out of three done. I did the electrical work on the switches. It wasn’t too bad. Had to fix 2 sets of three-way switches, and got a timer switch installed for the front light. I got the washer hooked up, but when I went to hook up the dryer, I found that the outlet in the wall is a 3-prong 240 volt, and the plug from the dryer is a newer 4 prong. I have to buy either an adapter, or a new cord for the dryer. Bummer.
Then I went to work on the condo baseboards. I started doing them and got a couple done and then Ben came over and we went to a seminar by a real estate attorney. It was pretty good. All about how to protect your assets. Good info. Need to do that eventually/soon.
The seminar lasted longer than I thought and it was too late to run the saw. I had wanted to finish the baseboards tonight but no luck. I decided to pull the faucets instead since that was quiet. Not too bad.
I stopped to buy some claw clippers for the cats since their claws are out of control!! I bought some and apparently Sundae doesn’t like them because she was hissing up a fit! I finally got her to lay still and I finished her claws. And NO it wasn’t because I was cutting them too short. I cut them all the time. She was just being pissy.
So tomorrow… I have a doctor appt at 10am. Then team lunch at 11:45ish… and then it’s KNOCK OUT THE CONDO time. I am going to finish the baseboards, install the thresholds, wipe down and paint the trim throughout the condo. That should leave just general cleanup over there. Oh, and I need to buy that dryer cord. Yeah, being able to do laundry would be nice!
I’m out! It’s LATE!

This is what we dealt with Monday. This one box had like 24 wires inside it. It took some figuring out to get it right, that’s for sure.

The baseboards!

A wider shot.

The sink, without the fancy faucets.

The new bulbs I put in the chandelier. They are the natural light kind. They make the whole place look brighter.

I replaced the showerhead and took our fancy one for the house.

And a shot of the other sink sans faucet.