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Best find a surgeon, can’t cut me open…*

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*Lyrics from St. Vincent’s song Surgeon from their latest album Strange Mercy. I totally dig her voice, their strange and quirky sound, and the fact that this album is so new to me. Have I mentioned that I love music? I do. Can’t help it. Wouldn’t want to.

With the fall season officially upon us, and with rain seemingly never ending, I am just now getting around to noticing that my blog is woefully out of date. Perhaps due to the marathon of painting, prepping and coordinating that I’ve been doing for my mom’s new place. Yes, yes, that’s it. My neglect for my blog is due to the work that I’m doing that I should be blogging about. A vicious cycle.

But, over at ye old condo we’ve made quite a bit of headway. Since last you saw pictures, we’ve completed the following: painted living room; painted kitchen; patched sheetrock in laundry room; painted ceiling and walls in laundry room (after visit from plumber); painted trim in entire downstairs, including doors; sanded and prepped baseboards for painting and reinstall (thanks to a lot of help from my sister and a friend); stenciled and painted a bedroom; painted other bedroom; replaced toilet in main bathroom (extra thanks to sis’ bf); ordered and received (and stacked and acclimated) flooring; and, received new appliances. Phew.

It’s been a crazy, break-neck pace, with barely a moment to snap a picture, let alone dust myself off enough to actually feel good about taking the camera out of the bag. Between the driving around (mom’s place is about 30 miles away), the physical work of fixing the place up, the stress of neglected duties at home (and an insanely busy husband), and the coordinating of extremely busy (and behind the Irene 8-ball) subs, I’ve been feeling pretty overwhelmed. They don’t call it sweat equity for nothing. Don’t kid yourself – renovations are hard, stressful, and make everything in the world feel like they’re spinning out of control.

But, I did manage to take a few photos during the past few weeks, mainly of my stencil work. Stencils do not equal wallpaper – remember that when planning your own space. They are lovely, and can offer great visual interest and textural detail to an otherwise flat wall, but they are not crisp, can never be crisp, and should not be expected to be. (These are really point for me to remember.) The great thing is, though, that because the stencil isn’t wallpaper, it’s also low commitment. You can have it for a year or two, and when you tire of it, just lightly sand it and paint over it. Simple. So that’s the reason why it worked in this space. If my mom gets bored of it, or if we need to rent out the place, or whatever, we don’t have a huge headache on top of it all.

Some pictures of progress, at least some anyway. More to come! Enjoy! xoxo

We got a palette of bamboo flooring (which is solid, can float over both concrete AND plywood) that we decided we'd save money on by picking it up ourselves. A whopping 1.5 tons. No, I'm not kidding. This is half of the flooring, stacked so that air can circulate and the floor can get used to the climate in the condo. Jeff and Paul (of banoctopus.com fame) did a splendid job patching the actual drywall. Oh, and the plumber did a nice job getting the water switches fixed up, too. No more leaking, no more moldy wall, no more vent pumping sewer gases into the laundry room. The foyer with new trim paint, and new wall paints (though the darker one still needs to be second coated). I did the joint compound work. Too bad I didn't do it very well. Looks ok here, but I didn't really get the seal done properly. There are bubbles and seams everywhere. Brian would be so disappointed in me. :( The lighter wall color is Wish, the darker Granite. The inspiration was a sunset on Cape Cod, and the sand, rocks, colors in the sky and water, and peacefulness that surrounded us. Kind of a crap photo, but it's been raining for weeks, and we're still waiting on our new electrical (hence the dim lighting). Mid-tone strand carbonized bamboo. It's rather lovely, actually. Half of the flooring had to be placed upstairs to get acclimated. Thanks to Jeff and Paul for hauling it up there. My stencil, and accoutrements. Mom wanted an eclectic mix of styles, one of which being Moorish, northern African inspired. So, repetitive scrolly geometric shapes it is! Mom's bedroom color: Sanctuary, before stencil. (All colors are Benjamin Moore, Aura, in case you're inspired.) I sprayed the stencil with a little movable adhesive to help with crispness. It didn't, but it sure did help with the maneuvering, though the wall is a tiny bit sticky now. I may have used too much glue - the stencil never actually needed tape at all. Though the style of the stencil was what we were looking for, the actual design of the stencil left much to be desired - there was no register mark to check for level, and I could only stencil two objects at a time. Totally annoying. The color for the stencil: Amorous. Very pretty purple, which was one of the main colors in both the stones on the beach, and the clouds in the sky at sunset. Lovely, restful, and my mom's fave. I chose to use a little stippling brush instead of a foam roller. I think either would have turned out the same. I hoped that the stippling technique and the adhesive would make the lines appear sharp. Didn't. Because it's a stencil, not (say it with me) wallpaper. I only needed about 12 teaspoons of paint for the entire wall. Get the sample size if you're thinking of doing this at home. You barely need any paint to make it work. Ta-dah! Done. Ish. I had to touch up bleed marks, and finish out a few errant objects that were sticking in my craw (and to the gross but too expensive/extensive to fix textured ceiling). The last pictures I took were with my iPhone - I didn't even bother to bust out the real camera since my fingertips were paint and adhesive coated, and my hair was filled with joint compound dust. Still, looks snazzy, no? Here it is really done. I was happy with the overall effect, and I'm sure my mom will love it. She's easy like that. :) Oh, and the laundry room/powder room has no windows, so we thought a bright peach tone would make the space feel sunnier and more well lit. Plus, what sunset is complete without that little pinkish, peachish tint that just blushes the sky? Color: Jumel Peachtone in BM Aura.

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