No more ceiling project!

Notwithstanding so much help from all sorts of people to whom we are really grateful, we still managed come in with a pretty amateurish painting job.

The edging, in particular, is apparently the work of someone who cannot, um, edge. But, it's allover now bar the cleanup. Thanks for everyone's help!

If only every day were like this...

The ceiling? Finished but for the drying. Christmas shopping? All done. The Arsenal? Back to winning ways. So, while you go visit Kate and Mayur's Christmas blog, I'm off to buy a lottery ticket!

Ceiling project: Now with less wasting time!

Believe it or not, we're a couple of days from getting our ceiling finished! We're helping our handyman do this, which is nice to keep it in-house. First was a coat of pink plaster weld. This is necessary because there is a different kind of plaster underneath what we're putting on now. As you can see from the picture, we almost got the ceiling completely covered with a first plaster coat today. Finish the plastering tomorrow, then repainting on Sunday! It could be a red letter day, because that's also when I think we'll unleash the greatly anticipated holiday mix. Fingers crossed...

Here it comes again

Evening folks! Most of you won't be reading this tonight but a short short recap of the weekend's events is called for. Saturday morning followed the usual routine: a walk, then settle in on the couch for the soccer. Two nice things about our match: one, we won with some super stylish goals and pretty decent defending, two, at halftime we firmed up some arrangements on getting the ceiling finally put right. More on that a little later.

Amy and I spent some time Saturday cooking for a pot luck dinner at Helen & Oren's house to watch the OU game. Splendid stuff, though Maddox and I were both unusually downbeat at the end: depressed at how we managed to throw away a great chance to play for the national championship. Ah well, we'll be looking forward to buying all the preseason magazines next year listing us as the number one team in the country.

Today I visited Laura and Corbett to preview this year's Christmas CD for them and to hear some of the songs he's blogging this week. We're going on a five-songs-per-week schedule through Christmas at least: too much good material!

Before that Amy and I attended Luke's first birthday party. Luke's arrival on the scene was one of the very first posts on this blog. Speaking of, we wouldn't be doing ourselves justice if we didn't note that this weekend marks the one year anniversary of the public debut of this here blog! Happy birthday to us!

Space is the place

We made a little progress with our ceiling today. Finally got our moisture meter and the plaster & concrete are bone dry. Yea! Now we finally have to make a decision on whether to re-plaster like it was or add a drop ceiling with lighting fixtures. And how much (if any) we'll do ourselves.

Last week we posted a youtube video of a dinner with the Grizzly Bear gang. Today we're sharing a video from later that night of Stu interviewing Of Montreal. Keep your eyes out (and ears open) for a (tired and emotional) appearance by Ed Grizzly, who in turn provokes an on-camera appearance from Stu. The Of Montreal boys look just as confused by it all as my description of it!

Maybe I know that

Just checking in. We're still waiting for a moisture meter something-or-other on the ceiling. It's getting annoying. Philip and I went to see a couple of shows the last two days. First we saw Andrew Vladeck play a little folk showcase. Mainly so we could congratulate him on finally finishing his album. But it turns out he's not finished! Give it a year or two... (Having said that, I listened to the mixes he does have and they sound fantastic. The last round I heard in June I thought were good, but these are even better. So Andrew, if you're reading this, you done good!)

Last night we went out to Williamsburg to see Alana Amram's CD release party. She was just as good as expected, but the real surprise was this band called Puddin' Tang. Very Nuggets-y, but very tight. You never think openers will be any good (especially with such a bad name, frankly), but we both thought they were brilliant.

The other day I was looking through old blog posts trying to get this year's Christmas CD started, and I came across my friend Chris's blog on building a prefab home in West Virginia. If that sounds even remotely interesting, definitely go check it out. He's a very good blogger, and the house looks like a dream already, You can only imagine all the work that's gone into it--Actually not true, because he's told you all the work that's gone into it. Add it to your RSS feed, or your bookmarks, or whatever you do.

Go away trick-or-treaters

I've got my hand over Martin's mouth so she doesn't bark at anyone coming by to trick-or-treat, as I don't want to get off the couch to hand out candy before Amy gets here. Feeling lazy here's my ceiling AND my Arsenal post for today. This is what the ceiling looks like from said couch as I'm watching Arsenal beat Sheffield United 3-0.

Paint the ceiling, part 3

I'm starting to figure out what we've gotten ourselves into with this ceiling, and it's putting me in a foul mood. Not really, but maybe it should. Today I finally got all of the paint removed from the ceiling, which means the hard part can start! We're left with a pretty dinged-up plaster ceiling over the concrete, which means I'll have to apply a skim coat. I obviously don't know how that's going to go, but I'm pretty sure it's going to be bad. The big question I have in my head is whether I'm going to have to do any sanding before I move on to the primer and the painting. Let's hope not, because XX hours holding a sander over one's head is not fun. So I'm pretty sure I will. (On the plus (?) side, our living room has never felt so large as it does at the moment!)

Mini-Ceiling Update.

Just a quick one. I got a sander from Brian & Caryn yesterday so I can finish prepping for the real stuff. The super finally came up this morning and said it's a big job, but he wants me to wait a few days so he can check on moisture levels in the concrete. He said I need to put one coat of pink something-or-other then two coats of primer and then I can paint. I'm gonna have to talk to him again because I don't remember exactly what he said, I was still a little dazed!

We're heading up to Woodstock in a couple of hours, where we're supposed to be staying in Big Pink, but some of us are suspicious that it's not Big Pink at all. No matter, should be fun. It'll be the first time the Rivals have been together since the wedding. We're getting back late on Sunday so the Liverpool match will have to be tape-delayed. No spoilers on Sunday please!

Paint the ceiling, part 2

Our first installment in this series left open the possibility that I would chicken out of the whole project. No longer. In metaphorical terms, I have crossed the Rubicon. In literal terms, I have destroyed our living room. That's a lot of paint chips!

Paint the ceiling, part 1

First of a series, hopefully, and hopefully one which doesn't end in tears.

We've been needing to repaint the ceiling in our living room for the longest time. Towards the front of the room, there are a constellation of ceiling cracks that have gotten progressively worse over time. They've long since driven Amy to distraction, whereas I've been pretty good at ignoring them (in part because I figured I would be the one to have to fix them. I was right).

With Google, a paint store down the block, some able friends and relatives, my resources are actually pretty good. Good enough to overcome my ineptitude? (We'll leave that question unanswered for the time being.)

Today we started our project in earnest. First I investigated. I climbed up onto a chair and felt one of the cracks. Snap! Is paint supposed to snap off in big tiles like that? This is going to be a mess. So after staring at the ceiling a while longer, Martin and I took one of the chips down to the paint store to find out what we'd need to fix the ceiling and to match colors.

So we walked into the store and found a salesmen. "What do I do about this?" I asked, handing him my chip. "Well you'll have to peel back all that paint, spackle it, sand it, prime it, and paint it." "Yeah I guess so huh." (I didn't promise there would be anything remotely interesting about this project, by the way, which is why it's hidden below the fold.) I looked through some paint colors (it's "true white"), browsed around the store a little bit, and didn't buy anything. Real effective.

Now I'm back home blogging instead of painting. This will probably end up being a 46 part series if every installment is as incremental as this one!