For sale

Cheap, one husband with moderate bad habits and a case of unstable Diabetes. Missing a few parts, nothing essential.  ten cents or best offer.  junk stash goes with, no exceptions

just one more

I have been assembling the laminate floor, something that would take a contractor about four hours to do and will take me the rest of the week because if you have only bits and pieces of time to devote to it it goes slowly.
Assembling laminate is actually fun.  You put the pieces together and get the row lined up. then you tilt it on edge and slide it into the gap. After carefully and gently tapping it as together as you can it will suddenly line up and slip into place and drop.  It takes three large whops with a rubber hammer to settle it in and you can't tell where the seams are.  Then you go off to get some more and to measure and cut the short one.  and then one more and ...
I am fortunate to have a wee power saw that is battery run and small enough for me to handle. I can cut the pieces to fit with it and I'm doing pretty well.   It usually runs out of juice the same time that I do.  So we recharge on approximately the same schedule.  Saw's recharging and I take a rest that I didn't know I needed.
I am up to the closet on the next set of cuts and that will be tomorrow. I'm too tired tonight. 

list revision

Pick up bits on floor(done)
vacuum floor (done)
haul out the floor machine(done)
run floor machine with red scrubber(done)
vacuum again(done)
roll out first layer of foam underlayment (done)
begin the laying process:
Charge battery for small saw(done)
turn truck to use tailgate(done) 
trim tongue off first row of laminate boards(done)
mess one up by trimming the wrong edge(done)
mark and cut the furnace hole (done)
start the second row (done)
mark the rest of the furnace hole (done)
stop and rest and eat (done)sort of, I'm still resting
cut the furnace hole
keep on laying this stuff down

painting in the zip lock age

The paint in the room is drying, a sort of leftover mint green on the south and vanilla ice cream on the east, north, and west.
My understanding of the art/slog of painting a room has added a few things to my cleanup technique and therefore my willingness to do the actual job itself.  My biggest piece of reluctance to do it has been the problem of needing to do things in bits and the nastiness of uncleaned up paint when you only have half an hour to devote to it.  Meet my new painting friend, the gigungus zip lock bag.  Ziplock now makes three gallon bags, almost big enough to put a body in prior to hiding it in the freezer for resurrection later.  They are actually big enough to put an entire roller pan of paint in.  You put the brush all wet with paint into the gallon one and the roller pan plus roller in the three gallon one and seal it all up.  Then when you have another half hour to spend, out it comes for the time you need and then back it goes.  The final cleanup is the only cleanup and you take the gallon zips and seal the rollers in them and throw the works away.  My next thought is using a bag in the roller pan itself....  I think I am on to something.
the to do list:
clean up floor
 put ladders away
vacuum floor
put down padding
find u tube on laying laminate flooring
study u tube
get batteries charged in small saw
set up sawing station
lay floor

The holiday that we all need

I have been in the middle of my compost time, grumpy and stressed due to the monster fire to the north and west of us.  I am thinking of declaring a holiday.
Today  I say is Panties in a Bunch day.  have an emotional touchy point?  Things not going well? annoyed due to stupid stuff?  let loose the tantrum of a life time!  scream, stomp and be unreasonable.
I'm in.

Standing at the wall of indecision

I spent a lot of time this past week standing in Home despot in front of the Wall of Indecision otherwise known as the paint section.  There are a thousand colors and a thousand shades of color and forty eleven billion hues of white.
You see people standing there in tears trying to match a white to a white and going into total meltdown.
Home Despot has a computerized helper that lets you choose a color and then will offer other colors that harmonize with it.  Then you can try the effect in rooms with various kinds of lighting to see what it might look like.  This makes things a little easier. or maybe not.
The reason for my meditations there is that I am beginning to renovate the smallest bedroom and make it into a guest/separate bedroom for others.
The boys chose a light blue when we painted.  I am repainting with mostly a cream color and an accent wall in the green that I used in my  present bedroom.  This is what I came to after many thoughtful hours.  The daisy chain of what comes before what looks like this.
remove stuff (Done)
Remove Carpet (done)
remove padding (done)
remove tack stripping (done)
remove base molding (done)
Paint cat pee with Kilz ( done)
Paint door frames with Kilz (done)
Paint new molding (done)
cut in walls and ceiling. with the cream paint (done)
spackle the walls and fill in the holes (done)
paint door frames with cream paint ( done)
remove wall lamp and plate covers (done)
paint three walls cream(done)
cut in the south wall with green(done)
paint the south wall green(done)
paint the switch plates to match.(done)
vacuum the floor
lay out the under padding
lay the laminate floor
trim the padding
cut the base molding to size
nail it in
 retouch the paint
sit and admire
it's going to take some slogging.