Jeff's New Toy!

We did a bunch of running around today to make sure we could have a left foot gas pedal installed (for me), but once we had that figured out, we wrote a check and brought home Jeff's new toy! It's the plug-in Ford Fusion Energi. It's a very comfortable ride. We got it in their yellow color, to match the house. :D

Jeff's going to have a lot of fun figuring out all the computer stuff in it. Cars have gotten very high tech these days.

Time for Stencils!

I am done painting! I'm doing the happy dance today.

It really helps to get an early start to get these projects done. It's been easier this week since I seem to be sleeping at night again. Probably the exercise helps. :D

I'm hoping to put up a stencil in the frieze on Friday. I'll be doing some tryouts for options tomorrow. These are the two stencils I'm considering. I'd obviously be changing colors.

Mission Pansy and Morning Glory

Mission Trout Lily

Both of these are from American Home Stencils, Craftsman/Mission collection.

My electrician FINALLY called back and he'll be coming out soon. Now this project is just being held up by the floor refinishing which may not happen until September, unless I can find another contractor. :(

Update on Thursday: We pulled up the floor masking and I took new pictures which I've now posted.

Almost Done

We finally had a bit of a break in the weather today. It was only in the 80s. So much better.

I am nearly done painting the sewing room. Today I finished masking and painting the first coat on the walls in the bedroom. Then, when I had some paint leftover in the tray, I did a bit of painting in the closet but I didn't finish it, mainly because I my feet were tired and I didn't feel like masking it all.

When Jeff and I dug through the paint in the garage I discovered I had bought two gallons of the arts & crafts version of peach for the sewing room, called portrait tone (SW0039). I vaguely preferred the peach from the 30s collection that was on there before because it was brighter, but I was sure once it was all painted, this color would be great. Besides, I already had the paint sitting out in the garage; better to use it up.

The coverage for this paint is amazing. I used less than half a gallon to paint all four walls in this room. I bought two gallons. LOL

I'll probably put on a second coat tomorrow and finish the closet as well. Yeah, it's sort of lame to take 3 days to paint a bedroom, but I'm way out of shape and I'll take what I can get. At least I'm making forward progress again.

Slowly Painting Sewing Room

Despite the heat, I am trying to slowly pick away at painting the sewing room. It's really not terrible with the air conditioning, but it does get pretty warm when you're working. Today I scraped and primed the bad spots on the walls.

Then I masked and painted the frieze and the ceiling

and also started masking the walls for painting them tomorrow (or maybe later tonight if it cools down enough).

The ceiling could use a second coat, but we ran out of the paint. Oh well. I'm not sure if I'll bother to go buy another can.

Car Shopping

There aren't many things worse than car shopping. Now throw in 90ºF+ heat. Yup, that's how our day went. Jeff has a friend who wants to buy our Toyota Highlander and we're happy to sell it to him. But at this point, we only have the one vehicle, so we're looking for a replacement.

We're looking for a plug-in hybrid. Our short list (in no particular order): Ford Fusion, Ford C-Max, and Chevy Volt. We aren't really considering the Toyota Prius given how dissatisfied we've been with Toyota.

Ford Fusion

Chevy Volt

Jeff also likes the Ford C-Max, but we didn't end up with a picture of it. Here is one from the Ford website.

Ford C-Max

It looks more like how you expect hybrids to look. I like the conventional car look of the Fusion and Volt better. That being said, Jeff is doing all the test driving and he'll probably end up picking which he likes driving best.

Closet Installed

Thanks to Jeff for installing our new brass closet rods. Apparently the new bracket was a little larger than the one in the closet before we refinished. There was exactly one size available in brass finish and I bought it. I can live with it.

I also FINALLY shellacked the doors in the guest bedroom. I stained these all the way back in late 2013, but after they were hung they required some repair in the staining. I have no idea why I didn't just get it done at the time...but I think I was already too busy goofing off in my video games. Now I need to figure out what happened to the door hardware. :D We have so much sifting to do.

Since the guest room is still full of my sewing room furniture I can't back up enough from the doors to get a good photo.

I'm hoping we get some cooler weather next week so I will be motivated to finish painting the sewing room. It's not terrible up there in the morning because of the AC, but it's pretty warm by the end of the day. And the heat has messed up my sleeping schedule again. Ugh. Insomnia sucks.

Hot Weather Whining

Not many projects are getting done this week. Portland is having a bit of a heat wave; at least compared to what we are acclimated to. Ugh. It has sucked. It's still in the 70s in the middle of the night and has been in the 90s during the day. It was over 100ºF the other day. Jeff is working this week with his friend building a patio roof, so he's been gone most of the day.

Unfortunately, I'm spending too much time in the basement, and I've been drawn to my stupid video game too much this week. Yuck. I hope this heat wave does NOT last all summer as I have a bunch of projects I am hoping to get done. I did finally get ahold of our floor refinisher and he isn't available until the second half of September. Now I'm really wishing I had called him as soon as we started stripping paint in that room. I might look for another floor refinisher, but I really like Perry from Reborn Floors (503-860-1930). He did a great job in the other rooms. I still haven't been able to talk to our fantastic electrician, Mike from B&H Electric (503-970-5730). Hopefully, he is available before September.

Last night we started dealing with resolving some of our long-neglected computer problems. We desperately need to retrieve files from our old computers, but none of them are in full working order. Jeff managed to get hooked up to his old backup drive and was delighted to find his huge collection of music! We both did a happy dance with that one because I had been remembering the weeks I spent feeding disks into the computer when we originally ripped the disks to the computer. I am SO glad I don't have to do that again.

Unfortunately, I have been unable to retrieve the files off my old computer. Until I do, I've lost all my historic house research and irreplaceable photos of our house purchase and remodel. The computer still turns on, but it hangs during startup. I also have a backup drive somewhere, but it got misplaced during the post-remodel clean up for the photoshoot. I don't need everything off the old computer, but it sure would be nice to retrieve all my stencil pattern files and old house books I'd downloaded.

We also received a new brass bracket for the sewing room closet to replace the white one that used to be in there. We've replaced all the rods in the house with stout brass closet rods and Jeff cut them to length for the sewing room last night. Hopefully, we'll get it all installed later today, once he's done with work.

We dug cans of paint out of the garage too, but I'm not sure when I'll be motivated to haul myself upstairs and start masking the sewing room. My motivation is definitely flagging with the floor finishing being so far in the future. We might try to wait out this heat.