August 27, 2012

Continuing the spray paint love affair.

I don't understand what goes on inside my head. I swear I remember standing in the bathroom with my camera out and taking photos of the bathroom wall. I swear it happened. Except my phone is telling me that it really didn't. I must have taken all that wall staring energy and used it to check out the cupboard under the stairs. I got photos of that bad boy, but not the bathroom massacre. Go figure. I'm really behind the times.

Yesterday I renewed my love affair with spray paint. Karl and I took the plunge and got some wall shelves from Canadian tire yesterday afternoon. I couldn't wait to get those ugly bad boys home and beautify them. They need decently large wall brackets so I decided that instead of putting plain, boring and kind of ugly white on white on light grey (that last part being our walls) I'd spray those shelves my favourite colour of blue and do the brackets "Ivy Leaf." The colour caught my eye in the spray paint section of the store but I have to say it ended up being a little bit more "puke yellow" than "ivy leaf." I'm still okay with it, but I'm just really glad I decided to do the shelves blue instead of the brackets. I'm fairly experienced in the pukey yellow colour world, considering I had to wear a slightly more green version of it at a wedding once. I rocked it.

One thing I'm learning in my love affair with spray paint is that if it doesn't have a built in primer (which it totally doesn't) I should probably try sanding it first. I'm referring specifically to my wall brackets. It never occurred to me that spray paint might run on smooth metal. Now I know. Tonight I'm going to bust out the sandpaper (if Karl shows me where it is because that's his realm, not mine) and sand those babies into obedience. I don't care if that sentence made any sense.

I also took a round two at some frames I'd sprayed white before that hadn't quite worked. Karl sanded them down to get rid of the drips and weirdness that was happening on them. One of the frames worked relatively well but I think it's going to need yet another coat of paint to beautify it if I don't want to see some wood grain below it. I figure if another coat doesn't do the trick the wood grain isn't too offensive so I'll just deal with it.

The other frame is a mystery to me. I got it from Value Village and for some reason it really doesn't like the spray paint. It goes all crackly and weird looking when I spray it. That happened before but Karl just sanded it all down and you'd think it would stop fighting me. Nope, still crackling. I'm not actually sure what to do with that picture frame. It was less than $3, the exact amount eluding me because it was a while ago, and I'm not sure how much of time it's worth. Will it ever decide to be my friend? Will there ever be a good amount of sanding and repainting to make it subservient to my decorating will? Can I, I don't know, cover it in fabric? Use acrylics? Scratch off the weirdness? So many questions and so few answers.

Now, I'd like to share my big cupboard under the stairs accomplishment in photos. Here's a reminder of what it looked like before:

A person could get lost in there and die.

And here's what it looks like now:


I can now tell you exactly what is in the cupboard and where to find it. Pillows in the "ottoman," sleeping bags in the duffels, car parts in the cardboard box, paper doll collection in the cross-body bag, an empty bass case, some vases, the hobby horse my mom made me, Mr Dog, and a never opened fan (which we're never giving away because we won't always live in a refrigerated cave and in this town when you desperately need a fan they're all sold out already). There is also a radiator hiding in the very back that I didn't even know existed until I cleaned out the space. It's a yucky hospital green. I have no idea where in the house it would ever have been.

That was a big accomplishment and one of the easiest ever. Now, if only our bedroom will turn out to be so simple and surprisingly spider free I'll be happy.

Oh. My relationship with the Twitter (I can't stop calling it that) is going okay so far. My third follower, aside from the two people I actually know on Twitter, was Meg Cabot. Suddenly, it all made sense to me why anyone would join. Meg Cabot. 12 year old me is dying right now. Just DYING. So, you know, if you want to hear more from me and don't believe that I can cut down on my word count check it out.

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