Forecast for the Future

"Every individual without exception bears a potential writer within himself. The reason is that everyone has trouble accepting the fact that he will disappear unheard of and unnoticed in an indifferent universe, and everyone wants to make himself into a universe of words before it's too late. 

Once the writer in every individual comes to life (and that time is not that far off), we are in for an age of universal deafness and lack of understanding."

- Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

Monday, June 2, 2008

Week 21 No. 73 Home Improvement: Painting

Home Improvement week went well, though admittedly most of it was centered around my efforts to paint three rooms of the apartment: the kitchen, my bedroom and the living room. However, I did a great job going through the house and ridding myself of junk and detritus of past lives, including two full garbage bags of recyclable e-waste. I also cleaned the bathroom (twice), replaced some new furniture including bedside tables, and emptied off the stairwell in my apartment that goes into the upstairs of the building (I have two other separate entrances).

But certainly painting was the focus, and I'd have to say that the results were exciting, as you can see below. A general challenge for me is that the apartment is a half-basement with low light levels much of the time, and so I needed to choose light colors that would maximize what I get. I ended up going with a semi-gloss yellow for the kitchen, an eggshell light pastel blue ("Ionic Sky") for the living room and an eggshell light pastel green ("Cabbage Green"). I used Behr paints, and needed one liter for the kitchen, one for the living and two for the bedroom (my bedroom is pretty huge).

I'd never in my life done a home improvement project of this sort, so I just sort of learned as I went along. Thankfully, Miss Sweeetheart, E-Bad and Ben D all pitched in at various points to help me out. The total process took parts of four days, including buying paint and doing each of the three rooms, with me wrapping up finishing touches on Saturday about an hour before guests began arriving for a party we were having.

Below are photos from over these few days--thanks again to Ben D for taking many of them.


The nearly cleaned off stairway, once home to much junk (and suitcases)

Kitchen, getting ready to be painted


Blue tape in action



Bedroom, getting ready to be painted and wayyy messy.


The walls are closing in on me...



Stretching out a bit before getting started.


1, 2, 3... and they're off.





Getting those hard-to-reach spots near the kitchen ceiling.


The bedroom is almost done...



Post-painting, post-footwashing.


And then, the finished rooms:

The Living Room


The Bedroom


And lastly,

The Kitchen




The week was concluded with the ridiculous celebration of the "Barkmitzvah", which included the creation and destruction of a pinata in the shape of a dachsund.


I can't convey enough the awesomeness of this moment or this photo

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