It Just Keeps Getting Better

This office "painting" project just keeps getting better. I'll see one little thing and think, "I'll do that while I'm here", in my mind, allowing 10 minutes for the job. Today's "10 minute job" turned into two plus hours!

I have wall plugs in my office that are so loose, when I plug something into them, the cord literally falls out. An electrician replaced one of them and I decided to do the other two. (First stupid thought.)

At lunch time today, I decided to replace the one plug that I looked at last night. Nobody else was home and my office was light enough to see with the lights off, so I flipped the breaker off and took the plug apart. I was expecting to see two white wires and two black wires. I as I pulled the plug out, I saw two white wires on one side and two black wires on the other. It's all good.

I loosened the four screws and...DOH! The plug came out and I noticed two wires had been shoved into the back of the plugs, thus making six wires instead of four. I was not able to shove the two wires into the back of my new plug, so 30 minutes later it was time to get back to work and I still was not done. I put wire plugs and electrical tape on the wires to make it "safe", flipped the breaker back on so everybody would have power when they came home, and I left.

When I came home from work, the kitchen light over the stove was on, but the one over the table was not. Amanda was doing homework in the living room. I knew something was not right. It seems the wires that were shoved into the back of that plug I took out were "hot" and the wires going out of the plug passed along that power to most of my office, the kitchen light over the table and all the electricity in Amanda's room. Now I had to get the plug fixed!

A brief call to an electrician friend helped me get the plug back in the wall, all wired correctly. Then I shut off ALL brain function and made the decision to change out the combination switch/plug in my bathroom while I had the electricty turned off. Rather than tell the story in real time (which would take an hour and a half, no exaggeration), let me give you the highlights:

• There were no brown switch/plug combinations at the hardware store so I got a white one knowing it would not look as good, but it would be ok. DUH! Look at the picture above. I forgot there was another brown switch on the same wall. Talk about looking stupid!!
• I took the switch/plug out of the wall and made a careful mental note how it was wired. It was not possible to wire the new one the same way.
• Wired the switch/plug and turned the breaker on. It IMMEDIATELY flipped back off. "Something must not be right".
• Rewired the switch/plug and turned the breaker on. The plug worked great. Turned the switch on to turn on the light and CLICK...threw the breaker again.
• Called electrician friend...not home. Left message.
• Short time later, Dad calls (had left message for him earlier).
• In just one hour and ten minutes he walked me through wiring the switch/plug over the phone. I had to get another piece of wire and connect two screws on opposite sides of the switch/plug thingy. There is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING intuitive about that. Who would know to do that?

So another "painting" night has been shot doing a ten minute job. It just keeps getting better. I could laugh, cry or cuss. Thought I'd blog about it so I could do the former...thanks for reading!

As My Daddy Always Said...

..."If I didn't have bad luck, I'd have no luck at all!" And that IS how it goes every home improvement project I start, and my office painting is no exception.

One night in January, I got this wild hare idea to repaint the office. That first night, I had one whole wall painted with Kilz. That was the only thing that has has gone according to plan since I started. There was also the issue of the trim...it was that coated Styrofoam-type stuff that broke easily. I can't replace broken pieces because the trim was bought 20 years ago and at Payless Cashways and it is not made any more. That means I get to buy and paint more trim. And then there was the whole ceiling thing that held me up a week.

But now it's the bookshelf. I have a white book shelf that is not the fanciest, but it looked OK...until I put a fresh coat of white paint on the walls. Now my "white" bookshelf looks yellow! I knew better than to try and paint it with a brush since the paint would be way too thick (based on how the trim is looking that I'm painting with a brush). So I had the brilliant idea to spray paint the bookshelf...white bookshelf with black doors. Nobody told me that there is some kind of secret skill needed for spray painting. I don't know, perhaps every other guy on the planet is born with this skill, but if that's the case, I missed that line when it was being handed out. I took just the four shelves out and started with those. When I was "done", I could tell the paint had not dried evenly. No biggie...it takes a while for paint to dry. I figured out something was wrong when, two days later, the paint still had not "dried evenly". No matter how many coats of paint I spray, it never looks finished. It still looks like parts of it are wet and other parts need more paint. This leaves me with one other option...disassemble the bookshelf and roll each piece then reassemble it. There's at least another week added to my project (at the speed at which I work).

Since the bookshelf thing wasn't working out, I painted some trim tonight. I think the paint is about half an inch thick on that stuff, but because it's glossy black it still looks good (lucky me). After I had painted all the trim I had room for on my trim-painting shelf (which is now painted black, just like my trim), I decided I would change out the electrical sockets that need to be replaced (you plug something into it them the cord just falls out). I am no electrician (I know that comes as a SHOCK to many of my readers), but I know you gotta turn off the power to the plug before you go messing with it. What I did not know was that the breaker which turns off the sockets in my office also turns off all the lights AND THE TV in the living room. One little switch eliminated the lights AND eliminated the happy wife (who was watching TV).

So in an hour's time tonight, I have unsuccessfully sprayed four book shelves, painted four pieces of trim and NOT changed out the sockets in my office. I suppose I'll begin disassembling the book shelf so I can roll it tomorrow night.

What's not to love about home improvement projects?

Living in Chaos

The work on my "Three Month Office Remodeling" project continues. This afternoon I painted all of the trim (except what I have not taken off from behind the desks and from behind the big bookshelf). I really like the look of the black glossy trim. I think it will set off the white walls nicely. This evening, I caulked a few cracks where the paneling joins, put spackle on two ceiling spots and used a brush to cut out almost half of my ceiling. Until I get done, my office is in total chaos. I am not one of those people who can do well in chaos!

Sometime between homework and watching the next two hours of 24, I hope to paint the entire ceiling in my office tomorrow night. This week, I would also like to get the final coat of paint on my closet doors and the one wall that has white Kilz on it right now. That's my goal. Would I be surprised if I got nothing more than the ceiling painted this week? No.

No Arks for Me

There are MANY things the Lord does that my little mind cannot understand, but there is one thing I totally understand. I know why God did not arrange for me to be born back in Noah's time and task me with the responsibility of building the ark. The main reason is the time factor. Had I been born back then and given that responsibility, you never would have heard the story of the Flood because it would not be in the Bible...for the simple reason that I'd still be working on the ark today!

If you are wondering where I came up with this interesting take on this old Bible classic, I'll give you a hint...I've been working on my "three month office remodeling project" tonight. You could change the task, but this story is repeated OVER and OVER and OVER again every time I attempt a "home improvement" project.

I already blogged about my venture to repaint my office. Here's how it's going:

• I have ONE wall completely painted...with Kilz (which means I still have a top coat to go)
• All the trim is taken down
• I painted some of the trim only to find out the black paint I had was too flat, so along with the 600 other pieces of trim I have, I get to repaint that first batch
• I have water damage in a couple places on my ceiling. I have no experience (nor desire to gain experience) with taping and bedding. My solution: scrape off the damaged "popcorn" texture and paint from the ceiling thus exposing the UGLY sheet rock and cracks between the sheet rock, caulk the cracks between the sheet rock and spray some of this canned popcorn ceiling texture stuff on the ceiling; paint.
• I tried the above procedure tonight only to find out that the spray texture idea is a ABYSMAL failure! First of all, one can supposedly covers six square feet of ceiling. For some reason, in my mind, that meant six feet by six feet squared. (Thank you, I now realize that would have been 36 square feet so need to comment on that!). This miscalculation was fortunate for me because I would have WASTED so much more money buying enough to cover my bare spots. Anyway, I prepped the area (sorta) and sprayed. When I was done, everything but the ceiling had texture on it....my carpet, the couch, my bean bag chair, the paneling that was supposed to stay brown, my vacuum cleaner and, of course, ME.
• I also tried this procedure in my bathroom which has the worst water damage. Besides the texture being sprayed on everything in there, my ceiling now looks much worse. So, when I finally do get my office finished, I get to repaint the ceiling in my bathroom. How much fun is that?
• Oh yes, I almost forgot the primer coat I put on all the closet doors last week. For some really dumb reason, I thought taking the doors off the hinges would make it easier to paint them. WRONG! I guess if I had a workshop to put them/paint them in, it would have been OK. But it was NOT a good idea to lay them flat across the back of two chairs and try to paint them in my office. The doors took up too much space which made it a real pain to get to the bathroom to wet the washcloth and keep walking back and forth wiping up the paint I kept splattering on the carpet.
  

So, near as I can tell, here is all I have left to do:

• Put primer coat on three more walls
• Put top coat on all four walls
• Paint ceiling
• Paint trim
• Put trim (all 600 pieces) back on the walls
• Top coat on closet doors and put door knobs back on (except for the one door that had the door knob GLUED ON by the previous owner...no joke)
• Buy and hang blinds (to replace the towel now nailed to the window frame)
• Repaint bathroom

At this rate, I'm fairly certain I can be done by the end of March!