Eclipsing

Did you see the Eclipse last night?  My brother called me about 8:30 to remind me to go outside and catch a glimpse of it, but since I had neither proper viewing glasses or a welding helmet, I decided not to risk damaging my retinas and stay indoors to continue working on the painting project my wife and I were already engaged in when he called.  It sure would have been cool to go watch though, and hopefully we can get some solar viewing in during the Transit of Venus in a couple weeks. But even though we missed the eclipse, we did manage to eclipse a layer of primer with paint...so perhaps that counts for something.

We are almost done painting our dining room, and so far it looks fantastic.  Using spackle to fill in some nail holes in the wall worked very well, but for the little nicks and dings I mentioned before we just painted right over them.  They were too shallow for spackle, and with the new coat of paint they are barely noticeable even if you know where to look for them.  After that we applied an entire coat of primer, though I'm not exactly sure why.  The clerk at Lowe's kind of talked us into using primer, even though we have painted before without it.  I think it works best if you are painting a wall with no previous paint, like new wood or drywall, because the purpose of primer is to give the actual paint a good surface to which it can adhere.  After we had primed the wall we both agreed that it probably wasn't necessary, but I guess we can rest easy knowing we went the extra mile anyway even if it didn't actually help us out that much. It certainly didn't hurt things, so we've got that going for us :)

After the primer dried on we went over the whole thing with two coats of Olympic Premium One, because on textured walls like ours it's almost impossible to get everything covered in one coat (and yes we have tried, many times).  The trick with this room, as our friend Sarah explained, was getting a color that looked good but could also hold its own next to the very deep red of the living room walls.  And after looking at the results last night and this morning...so far so good.  The next step is to paint the trim above, which we started last night and hope to finish tonight.  After that we need to decide if we want to go ahead and do the bottom portion of the walls, since the white paint is somewhat faded and we already have the room prepared for painting anyway.  We'll see what happens on that front though, but in the meantime it's nice to at least have the major portion completed.  I'll see if I can post some photos in the next few days to show the before-and-after comparison.

2011...so far, so good

Christmas was a bit different this year, since we only visited one side of our family whereas in years past we have, as I recall, managed to visit both my side and my wife's side over the Christmas break. But this year we did things a little different, spending time only in Montana over the break with my wife's mother and stepfather. We had a very enjoyable visit, and helped them with several projects around the house too. It's cool to go from the relatively flat plains of the midwest to the mountains of the West, and seeing them covered in a blanket of brilliant white snow made the view even more impressive. It is probably the last visit we will make to Montana for quite some time, as her parents are hoping to move a little closer to home in the coming year. But life has a way of changing things when you least expect it, so as always, we'll just have to see how things pan out.

After we got back from the visit we managed to take care of one little project that has been on my wife's mind for a while: frosting over the bathroom window. We have a big window in the master bathroom that is almost always covered by (hideous) pink blinds (that were there when we moved in). But my wife found some information on covering existing windows with a pane of frost, similar to how one might get windows tinted in a car, without having to buy an entirely new window. So last Saturday we went to Lowe's and picked up a bunch of supplies to try our hand at adding a little privacy and lot of light to the bathroom.

Not pictured: ugly pink blinds fully extended.

The hardest part about the project was doing the initial measurements, as the bathroom window was pretty large which made cutting the piece of frosting kind of difficult.  After we had everything measured  we went into the bathroom and doused the window and frosting treatment with this adhesive solution and then set out to actually apply the whole mess to the window.  The only difficult part of this process was smoothing out all the bubbles in the frosting, which we did with a couple squeegies and a lot of elbow grease.  The final result actually looks halfway decent, and it's basically impossible to see in or out of the window but it still lets a ton of sunlight in.

We like this version much better.

While we were in Montana we helped my wife's parents change out four light fixtures and a chandelier, which gave us a bit of confidence in replacing the chandelier in our dining room too.  I'm not sure when we'll get around to that project, but like so many home improvement ideas, I'm sure it'll happen one of these days...

This weekend I took down our Christmas tree and all assorted decorations, which was kind of a bummer since I think the tree just adds a nice bit of decor to the living room.  But it's gotta come down sooner or later, and even though in college my buddies and I left the tree up until March (or whenever Evan's girlfriend took it down) I figure we might as well get it taken care of now rather than putting it off for months.  I should have taken a before and after picture of this too, but, well, the "before" picture is a Christmas tree.  I mean, there's not a whole lot of variety for an indoor fake evergreen tree.  I thought the "after" picture was kind of funny though.

When fully assembled it's actually pretty cool.
And yes that is a rack of VHS tapes.

Even though the tree is down, though, it's just a decoration to begin with and not that important in the grand scheme of things.  The real meaning of Christmas, the birth of our savior Jesus Christ, needs no tree or ornaments or neatly-wrapped presents to be felt throughout the year.  And so as we forge onward with all the new trials, challenges, joys, and celebrations of the new year, we must not forget the rebirth and renewal that comes now from a simple advancing of the calendar, but from the surpassing greatness of the grace of our Lord and His sacrifice for us.

So here's to 2011.

Boxing Up

One thing I've learned since we bought our first home last autumn is to never underestimate the complexity of what seems to be a simple household project.  For Exhibit A, allow me to submit our mailbox.  The one we had outside since moving in has been in a slow and steady state of decay for the past several months (probably years).  The box has been loose on its pole for quite some time, it has leaked as long as we've lived here, and a few weeks ago the door started falling off.  So we finally bit the bullet, went to Lowe's, and bought ourselves a shiny new mailbox.

End of story, eh?  Well, not so much.  The First Law of Home Improvement clearly states "The perceived simplicity of a project is inversely proportional to the number of trips to the hardware store required to complete it."  When we went to set up the new post receptacle we found out that the mailbox itself was too big to fit on the post.  So we made our way back to Lowe's and returned the post, only to leave empty-handed with more questions than answers.  Do we get a wooden post instead of a metal one?  What about polymer?  Do we mount the box with brackets or on a piece of wood?  Do we return our new mailbox and get a smaller one?  And what about those weird plastic mailboxes that look like they're made by Fisher-Price?  It was all getting rather out of control, and still our rusted old mailbox continued to waste away by the roadside, doing everything in its power to hold our alumni association solicitations and JASNA subscriptions without collapsing under its own sorry self.

So a few days later back to Lowe's we went, looking for a stout mailbox post the way our grandaddies used to make them:  from good old-fashioned wood.  Soon enough we settled on a nice cedar post that would look appropriately regal and surely be the envy of the neighbors (we're suburbanites, after all.  Isn't that the goal of every home improvement project?).  But then came a new set of problems:  removing the old mailbox pole, digging a new hole, mounting the box, securing the post in the ground, and all kinds of new complications that continued to turn what I thought would initially be a half-hour Saturday project into a weeks-long ordeal with government-style budget overruns.

But finally, after much digging, cementing, drilling, hammering, and sweating, we have a brand new mailbox sitting proudly by the curb performing its duties as admirably as one could hope for.  But, come to think of it, the cross-beam does seem a tad loose.  I bet I could find something to secure it just a little.  Oh, and it could a nice staining job too.  And perhaps a coat of sealer.  And maybe a little flowerbed....