in need of a Nate Berkus rescue

We love Eddie Izzard. Charles Darwin wrote a very famous book called MonkeyMonkeyMonkeyMonkeyMonkey…and you

And it’s a good thing I had a break to see Eddie at the Paramount on Saturday because I am living in home improvement hell. No, we haven’t knocked down any walls or gutted the kitchen (I wish!). Just a couple of projects that I figured would only take a couple of weekends.

I am now on Month Two.

Big Project #1 – Re-painting the kitchen cabinets. The previous owners clearly did not watch HGTV or DIY, as they painted the cabinets without removing the doors and drawers. Painted over hinges. Painted over pulls. And painted with some hideous high gloss that turned into a nasty, sticky, uncleanable mess.

This was my only motivation for painting the cabinets, as they would never come clean, no matter how many of my brain cells died from copious amounts of Goo Gone.

Magic Erasers? Love them. But they completely shredded on the cabinets.

In my head, it was a very easy project. Remove, paint, re-attach.

What my happy la-la imagination did not consider was:
Remove cabinet doors. Remove painted-on hinges. Break painted-on hinges while using profane language. Remove pulls. Remove pulls with leveraging action of large screwdriver while trying not to stab self. Sand. Sand. Sand. Prime this side. Dry. Prime this side again. Dry. Flip. Prime other side. Dry. Prime other side again. Dry. Paint other side. Dry. Re-sand grime that paint couldn’t cover. Re-prime. Re-paint. Buy shiny new pulls at Lowe’s. Discover that screws are too short for cabinet doors. Return to Lowe’s with sample screw and pull to find new match. Discover that new screws are too long for drawer. Discover that stock screws work just fine in drawer. Discover that doors are thicker than drawers. Discover that mounting screws for kitchen light (next story) would actually work in doors. Go to McLendon’s for door screws. Get confused over eleventy billion different sizes of screws on workbench and call it a day.


Big Project #2 – Replace “dining room” light. This isn’t necessarily a big project in concrete terms, but it’s big in my mind because the previous owners fancied that they could turn a 1969 split-level into a Victorian tea room. The light was a level of cheap frippery beyond anything I imagined could actually be sold in stores. What should have been a quick 20-minute change out, turned into an hour-plus ordeal since the mounting fixture that came with our new, modern light fixture didn’t not work in any way, shape, or form. The screws that were supposed to be bolted to the cap absolutely would not do what they were supposed to do. Luckily, I have a very patient husband who figured out how to make it work. And the upside being that the mounting screws that didn’t work did work for my cabinet pulls.

Big Project #3 – Re-paint bathrooms. I had no illusions that I would have time to finish this task before August, but I decided to get a start by scrubbing the doors with my Magic Erasers. I knew that the master bath had previously been gold. Yes, gold. One can see the streaks of gold through the white paint since the previous owners did not bother to prime over the gold. So revealing more gold while Magic Erasering came as no surprise. However, whilst Magic Erasering the door in the guest bathroom, I discovered purple. So even the bathroom used to be purple. It wasn’t enough the floors, kitchen, and spare bedroom were purple (the floors and spare bedroom still are, much to my dismay). Upon discovering a purple corner on the guest bath door, I threw away the Magic Eraser and had a cookie.

Actually, I had four cookies. But they’re small Trader Joe’s chocolate chip cookies, so it really only counted as two normal cookies.

Big Project #4 – Clean the deck. This I did want to complete quickly since we have company this week. I know my company doesn’t care if my deck is dirty, but it’s more important that I care that the deck is dirty. Cost Plus (I supposed non-West Coast people call it World Market) was having a huge clearance sale, so I picked up summery things for my deck. Cheery bamboo mats for the table to replace the BBQ-dust covered tablecloth. Candle laterns for tealights. Cushions for extra folding chairs, if need be since we only have two deck chairs. Nobody ever wants to come to our house, and husband doesn’t sit, so I’m pretty much the only one in need of sitting out there. So on the rare occasion that we have company, there’s no place to sit. I cleaned out the IKEA drawer set that’s out there, which is totally empty but something we don’t want to get rid of since it comes it handy when we do need it. But, in doing so, I unleashed Mothra. Mothra is now residing in my kitchen. I kept trying to think of Mothra as a butterfly, but Mothra was freaking me out too bad so I went out to my clean deck and watched a movie on my portable DVD player.

Oh, and bonus deal at Cost Plus. For buying all that sale crap, they gave me a free Cost Plus canvas back so I can be an eco-friendly shopper the next time I visit (which is likely never since husband saw how much crap I bought).

Big Project #5 – Replace purple carpet and old kitchen appliances. This one will be happening any day now as soon as I win the HGTV Design Star $5000 giveaway, the Food Network Star new kitchen appliances giveaway, and Lumber Liquidators $5000 flooring giveaway. Oh, and the DIY Network’s $100,000 new tools giveaway (which I obviously will NOT be using for tools).