Plans

The bedroom floor is still not completed, due to a cold snap. I just can't bring myself to paint a floor that's this cold to the touch. By Thursday we should be back up in the high 60s, so Thursday night I'll put down the first-of-the-last-coats of poly.

I'm spending the night at Mom and Dad's tonight because I came over for dinner and just don't want to get back out into the cold. They don't seem to mind me hanging out, eating the Tostitos, and hogging the Internet, and just this minute I'd rather be here than alone. I bought some origami paper and have downloaded some diagrams off the Internet, so hopefully I can make a few additions for my origami canopy while wasting time here. I know the canopy sounds like the stupidest decorating idea ever, but my sisters like it, and the kids love it. Their faces lit up when they walked into my living room and saw it for the first time.

Friday Mom and I had our usual shopping day. Thrift Town didn't give me that much entertainment -- just an unpainted Paint-by-Number I can try out (I want to add one of my own to my collection) and a pair of cute shoes. But the Salvation Army had a wonderful abstract painting for a mere .99 cents, a high-quality tripod for $7.00, two Target Swell trays for $1, and (best of all) a heavy handblown yellow glass vase for $12.99. The painting and the vase were meant to be together. I put them on top of my buffet table (aka 60s dresser) and suddenly all the reasons I bought that piece came into focus. Sheer magic.

Starting to seriously think about the bathroom. I know I want it to look like the bathroom in Michael Graves' home, really not much more than a walk-in shower lined with a luxe expanse of blue glass tile. In order to afford this "dream bathroom" I'm going to have to start hunting for tile now. Mix and match is more than OK with me, but it will take several years to find the right tiles at the right price. This means I'll have to start paying regular visits to the building liquidators and Habitat for the Humanities. How sad.

I'm about to paint the entry way, as soon as I choose between light pink or citrus yellow. The walls are all spackled and taped. I even managed to do something about the totally ugly stained and grouted-into-place baseboards. They were in horrible condition. Dirty, dirty, dirty, and even stained ORANGE in places from the paint remover I used on the tile. I scraped at one of the orange places, and found the baseboards were actually painted MDF -- pure pristine white through and through. I gave a shout of joy, and ran for the paint remover and a paintbrush. One coat and thirty minutes later the baseboards looked wonderful.

Also feeling an urge to have something recovered. I have exactly five pieces of furniture I bought especially to have re-covered, and so far I haven't done anything with any of them. Too bad I don't have any money. The furniture will just have to wait until this summer. My next big purchases are a mattress, a light for the entry way, lights for the studio, and a new ceiling fans for the studio and bedroom.

The mattress will be the most difficult thing to purchase. I want a memory foam mattress, which hopefully won't crater under my weight the way a normal mattress does. They're an arm and a leg, though, which means I'll have to purchase it on credit when I'm already deeper in debt than I'm comfortable with.

The B family will come over the first or second week of March to help me again. If we can get the fans hung, the electricity sorted out, and me moved into the bedroom I'll be a very happy camper. (Only not camping -- I'll be back in my bedroom for the first time in over a year!!!)