shelly-bean.com

Home Improvement

So, the last time I painted a room was...well to be honest, I'm not sure I've ever painted a room. When I was younger we re-did my bedroom. But, while I started that, I think my mother actually did all the painting. I was going to do it, but then I just didn't. I helped her paint the hallway one weekend, but we did that smooshing thing, so it wasn't really like painting a room either.

When I moved into my new home everything had pretty much been freshly painted. The woman must've finished all the rooms before putting it on the market to sell. Which is fine. The main room and the bedrooms are both brown. They're not exactly the same, the bedrooms are slightly darker than the main room, but still brown. I don't mind the brown. I'm sure that eventually I'll tire of brown and will need to paint, but for now I can deal with the brown. (One of the shades is actually called Urban Putty, I don't know what the other is offhand)

The bathroom on the other hand I could not deal with. It was green. But, not a green that you'd want on your walls. More like a green you'd see on a golf course. Except with a little bit of blue in it. Actually, if you've got Windows XP look at your start button....See the lightish green at the top of the button which is supposed to denote roundness? That's pretty close to the colour green that was in my bathroom. I hate it.

My mom told me to just live with it for a while, because I'd grow to like it. I listened to her, but still when we moved I took the can of yellow paint that was left over from when she painted the bedroom I lived in there. (Not the same bedroom I mentioned previously) I really liked that yellow room. In fact, I miss my yellow room. It was always so bright and sunny in the morning, even when it wasn't bright and sunny outside. Of course, when it was, the room was like being inside a tennis ball, but still, I enjoyed the yellow.

There wasn't a whole can of paint, it was about half full I guess. And I was worried I wouldn't have enough. I forgot that my bathroom is absolutely tiny, so there was in fact tons of paint. But, because the hideous green was much darker I had to prime the walls first so that the yellow would cover.

I know about priming things from Trading Spaces, not because I've ever done it before. The thing I don't know about priming is exactly how well you need to have the wall covered before you can paint with your actual wall cover. While they show the homeowners priming the walls, they very rarely show the walls after the primer but before the paint.

I started with the ceiling. That much I do know how to do. It looked a bit patchy when I was finished, but it dried fine and it looks fabulous. I didn't realize before I painted it just how not white the ceiling actually was. Now it's lovely. :) Then I got down to the priming. I made a complete mess on one wall, and got a bit freaked out about it, so took a different approach on the second wall. I wasn't sure which was better, but I figured that as long as the paint was covered it really wouldn't matter.

It turns out that the messy wall worked the best when it came time for the yellow paint, who knew?

After the first coat of primer I wasn't sure if I had enough. I could still see the green. But, it wasn't nearly as bright as before. Did I need another coat? I have no idea, but I gave it a second one anyway. After that I could still see the green, but not nearly as much as before. I figured it'd be safe to paint the yellow overtop....tomorrow.

I went outside and sat in the sun for a while and started to feel guilty about the huge mess I had going on, so I went inside and got to the yellow paint. It took two coats (and I still have paint leftover!), but it looks pretty damn good. At least, I think it does. Considering it's the first time I've ever painted a room anyway. There are a few spots that need to be touched up at the ceiling where the yellow paint got on the ceiling, and also some places that are still green because the tape covered it up and it didn't get either ceiling paint or wall paint. And I need to paint the trim.

The lady who was here before painted latex paint overtop of the trim...which was previously painted with oil based paint. I really have no idea what she was thinking, maybe she'd never painted a room before either? So, not only do I have to paint the baseboards, I also have to sand them first. I know I should probably have done that before I painted the walls, but then I thought I'll just get paint all over the trim while I'm painting (which I did, despite the tape I put up to stop it), so I figured I'd leave that for last and just wipe up the dust from the sanding when I do that.

Really, there's not a whole lot of point to this, except that I'm proud of myself for doing such a good job. I know, it's a little thing, but it's a little thing I've never done before.

Please Stop Spamming Me

Pretty Please. I don't care about brutal torture, or latex handjobs, or child rape.

In fact, I think that you should probably be put in jail for even suggesting any of those things. But I'm willing to let it go, if you just LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE.

Thank you very much.

Uptown Charlotte

If I were to refer to this, I'd probably call it downtown. But the signs all said Uptown Charlotte. So that's what I'll call it. I didn't take my camera with me the day we went there and now i wish that I had, but my mom had her digital camera and took a few pictures, which are kind of interesting.

Everyone knows I'm a book nerd, so this particular park we found in the middle of the city was fabulous. For some reason it had a book theme. At the bottom of the park there were two statues made of some sort of metal which was stacks of books. Then inside there were signs set up like street corners, which made up authors names. But they were all names that were cities somewhere, so it said where the city was and how many miles it was from Charlotte. Plus supposedly lying randomly among the flower beds there were these brass things that were like pages of books. It was just incredibly fun.

The rest of the city reminded me a lot of Vancouver. We didn't take any pictures of anything outside that little book type park, which is a shame, but still it's a lovely little part of the city. So, pictures... (because I like posting pictures, it means I don't have to write as much)

The Biltmore Estate

Apparently almost everyone I know has seen a thing about this place on American Castles. I haven't. And before my mom told me about it, I had no idea what the hell 'Biltmore' was. And for those of you who are as clueless as me... It's the Vanderbilt estate.

And who are the Vanderbilts? Exactly ;) It seems they made their fortune in shipping, and then in the railroad.

Anyway, some photos of my visit.

And that's it! Beautiful isn't it? (They won't let you take photos of the inside, so there's none of there)