Thursday, April 7, 2016

Random Projects

Our weather has been beautiful and the old wisteria is almost ready to burst forth.
In past years it always made more flowers when it was pruned heavily. It's going to be another beautiful year because Jeff hacked it way back a couple months ago.

I've been flitting around between projects like a butterfly between flowers. I haven't finished anything yet, which is why I haven't really posted anything. I've been fairly successful at getting stuff listed on craigslist. Now if only I would stop seeing things I wanted, we'd be in good shape. LOL

We bought an old secretary off craigslist that needs a bit of work and I've been debating about whether to show you all photos before it's fixed up. It came with shelves covered with paper. While it wasn't a terrible pattern, I didn't really like it. I started trying to pull up a corner, but it just separated the layers of paper and really didn't make much progress. Then it occurred to me to try our new steam cleaner.
I used the steamer and a putty knife to slowly work the paper loose. I had hoped the steamer would make it trivial to remove the paper and it didn't but it probably made it much easier. I don't know what kind of adhesive was used on the paper, but it was very difficult to remove. It probably took me 3 hours to remove the paper off 4 shelves and I had to stop and refill the steamer with water once.

Then I got distracted playing with the steam cleaner for a while. It worked pretty well for the things I tried to clean. It did a decent job shining up the chrome in our basement shower with little effort and it did a great job cleaning hardwood floors. I believe it will definitely be replacing our messy mop.

I've also been spending an hour or two a day sewing my sewing room curtains. I am getting much closer to being done with the 16 additional squares. Most of the problem at this point is my old Pfaff 7570 isn't working well. I think I've worn down the feed dogs as the fabric isn't feeding properly and I get annoyed after an hour or two of sewing. I really need to get a 1/4" quilting foot for the Bernina 1080S I inherited from Jeff's aunt so I can shift to sewing on that one and send the Pfaff into the shop for repair.

Oh, and Barrett, our tile guy finally reemerged. We have progress again. He says he'll finish the shower pan this week. By this week, I think he really means early next week unless he plans to work over the weekend.

6 comments:

  1. Hooray for more progress in the bathroom! (And all your other projects)

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  2. It is either raining or snowing. I wanted to burn some paperwork that would take me hours to shred and I thought I could add that to the branches that drop after every storm we seem to have every third day or so. But the spinkles turned to drops and put an end to that.

    Until then I'll watch all your progress.

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    1. Your house is looking fantastic. You'll have plenty of time to work this summer. Enjoy your spring.

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  3. Wow..bathroom floor looks great. I use my steamer quite a lot to fix my old house. One of my favorite uses is softening the old glazing around the windows. The moisture helps keep all that lead paint from getting airborne too.

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    1. Do you have any worries about breaking the glass when you use it on windows? I'd like to loosen some glued molding on a window, but I'm scared I'll heat up the glass too much and it will break.

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