Hot Patch

I am still here...just so busy with so many things, like all of you are!  I feel I wear so many hats and sometimes I have to remove a hat for a while.  I was staying up until 2 or 3 am, night after night, in a big push to finish the living room and I did it - almost!  I still have to prime and paint the spot where the water leak occurred.  Other than that, it is done.  The furniture is back in and I'm ready to shift my attention to painting some of the worn and outdated furniture in my house.  More about that in another post.

Before I tell you about hot patching, I will show you a picture of why you should use the right sized trowel, use lamps that point at the ceiling, and not rush through a mudding job.  Ahem.  Um, yeah, it's a stock photo I found online of someone ELSE that made these errors.  Not me of course.  Ahem.

To use a drywall hot patch, first you have to be sure that the area you are patching has straight and clean lines so that you can cut a piece of drywall in the easiest way to fit the hole.  So take out a knife or razor blade and cut your ceiling or wall, ensuring that you have an easy area to measure and fill with new drywall. 

Measure the area and then make two different marks on the replacement piece of drywall.  Don't forget to measure twice and cut once.  The first mark will be to the dimensions you need to fill the hole, the second mark will be an extra 2 inches on each side of the drywall.  Cut the drywall where the second markings are so you will have a giant piece that won't fit in the hole.

 

Cut the back of the drywall carefully around the first set of markings, gently pulling the excess drywall off of the drywall tape, keeping the drywall tape intact (we had to use a Stanley knife to help with this).  After you do this all around the drywall piece you will have a perfectly sized piece of drywall to fill the hole (if you measured properly), with tape already ready to go!  So much easier than using drywall tape and all of the mudding that goes along with that.  Put the piece into the hole that you need to patch and secure it to the underlying wood with drywall screws.  If you don't have wood to screw it into then you have to add shims...a post for another day.

Then be sure to use a nice lamp that will point at the ceiling or wall that you are repairing, a wide trowel, and take your time to do a nice mudding job so that you don't have to sand it down too much later.  Please take your time - nice clean lines, no excess mud.  It will save you a lot of anger and frustration later on.  Not that I know firsthand, of course.

After you have successfully mudded your patch, you can prime it and paint it.  It should just blend right in with the surrounding wall or ceiling.  I'm not there yet because of a little setback.

Dark Doors

Somehow along the living room journey, I really fell in love with idea of black doors.  Some family and friends pleaded with me not to go with black, and I am glad I didn't!  I went with a dark color - more like a deep charcoal grayish, brownish, blackish.  I am extremely happy with how this project turned out.  I am going to eventually paint every door in my house this color. 

When I first smeared the dark paint on my white doors, I had a panicked feeling.  What had I done?!?  I really wasn't sure it was a good idea but I went for it, assuring myself that I could definitely go back to white doors if I didn't like the look.  The first coat looked pretty bad, but I remember from my fireplace brass painting project that the first coat usually looks bad.  As it turned out, I needed THREE coats of paint to cover all of the white!  Each coat (of each side of the door) took me about 45 minutes to apply.




I have now completely finished my third door, but this is the only one that was photo ready, with hardware back on.  This is a standard 6 panel door.  I'll soon show the other two doors - one is a French door and the other is a louvered doubled door.

 This is seriously when I began to question my sanity!  I tried a couple different techniques, but ultimately decided that I liked brushing paint onto the panels first rather than using a roller to put the paint on (too drippy for me).  I made sure to get into the corners really well and make the paint as smooth as possible so I didn't have any dried up clumps later on.  After finishing the panels, I painted the long vertical line down the middle of the door and then I painted the horizontal lines.  Finally, I did the two long vertical lines on each side of the door.

After I finished the paneled door, I started painting the French and louvered doors.  Since I did it this way, I was constantly rotating between doors and didn't have to wait for any paint to dry.  This is after the first coat and would look great if you wanted a shabby chic kind of look.

This is after the second coat of paint was applied.

...and this is after the third and final coat of paint, with hardware back on the door.  I love them!  More door photos soon...

 

 

One more look at the before photo...

 

Meltdown

Within a day or two after we discovered the leak I had a meltdown.  Every room in my house was an absolute wreck.  I'm going to show you some of the rooms...

Who brought in that kid chair???

That is our living room sofa under the destruction!

What. the. heck.

Someone put a kid spoon in a crevice of our wall.  I tried to get it out and couldn't grasp it, so that spoon will live in our hall forever!

As if I needed one more thing to do.  Someone (cough, cough...the toddler) took a pen and a colored pencil to our back hallway.

 

 

My sweet family made this breakfast for me on Valentine's Day.  :-)

Painting a Perfectly Straight Line!

Note: The straight line technique is at the bottom of this post - with photos! 

Painting is so meditative for the soul...at least for me.  I notice that I have some really amazing thoughts while I paint.  If I am alone while I paint, I think up solutions to problems that have been plaguing me and I receive comforting thoughts from what could only be God.  Yesterday I was having a moment where I wondered if what I am doing to the living room is worth all the trouble and a few minutes later I noticed that my phone was lit up and I was amazed to find a bible verse right there on the screen!  Phillipians 4:13 - I can do all things through him who gives me strength.  WOW! Amazing timing and I couldn't even figure out why that verse had popped up on my phone.

If I am with someone else and we are both painting, I end up having some of the best conversations of my life!  Seriously.  My mom came over Sunday to help me paint and we found ourselves having really deep, heart-felt discussions that I know we never would have had if we were sitting down at a table and talking.   Recently the topic of personality types came up with a circle of friends and I had a lot of time while painting to think about how well my own Myers Briggs personality label INFJ really suits me.  As I painted, I was able to tap into some of the strong desires of my heart - some big dreams that are not nearly baked enough to share with anyone...yet.

Okay, so you are here because you want to know what I learned about making straight painting lines right?  Just a short background information on this: I am very precise when it comes to many things (some have used the term perfectionistic), and painting is one of those things.  There has always been this deep, meditative side to painting that I enjoy so much, yet there was always a darkness lurking in the corner.  How to make those corners straight?  You know, where the ceiling or trim meets the wall or trim?  Where the door trim meets the wall?  How to make straight lines?  My method up until today has been to do my best freehanded.  Oh yes, in the past I have tried taping those areas and more than once I have thrown the paintbrush down in complete disgust when I discovered that paint had bled through the tape and messed up my straight line.  Taping takes a lot of time!  So in an effort to save time and frustration, I've tried to freehand a straight line lately.  I did that with the living room, and while some have great success free-handing a straight line, I do not. 

While the freehanded technique I have used doesn't look awful, it doesn't look great either and I am spending a crazy amount of time trying to fix the many mistakes with a tiny kid paintbrush from one of my kids art sets.  Just when it almost looks perfect, I hit the other color and ugh!  I have something else to fix.  This is taking up so much time and let's just say I am not handling the frustration well! 

I am so disappointed that I did not learn of this method before I began painting the living room because if I had, it would most definitely be a near perfect paint job!  However, I did not discover this technique before I began painting, but I am now able to go back and fix the areas that need fixing.  Okay, be quiet and tell us the method, right?

Alright, here you go...scroll to the bottom for a pictorial description!

Let's say that you have a piece of doorway trim that you want white and you want the wall which meets the trim to be gray.  This is how you achieve a perfectly straight line.

1 - Paint your trim whatever color you desire and overlap that color slightly onto the adjoining wall (overlap by an inch or so).  Let it dry and apply a second coat if needed.  Let it dry again.

2 - When your trim coat is dry (I waited one hour - even set my timer so I didn't have to guess), carefully tape your doorway trim to protect it from the wall paint.  You need to use painters tape and make as straight of a line as you can right where you want your line to be.  The straight line will only be as good as your taping job.

3 - After you have a straight line with your painters tape and your trim is well protected you are going to paint a line using your trim color.  This line of paint will go right over the edge of your tape because inevitably it will bleed a little under the painters tape but get this - it will not matter because it is bleeding onto the trim with the trim's color!!!  This step is CRUCIAL as you have now sealed your painters tape. Wait one hour (set that timer if you need to).

4 - After one hour you will now use your wall paint to paint right along that tape line, overlapping onto the tape and covering the wall with your wall color.

5 - As soon as you have completed step 4 you will now pull off your painter's tape.  Pull at a slight angle and ENJOY your wonderful, perfect straight line!

Today I had to do this in reverse because we had overlapped wall paint onto the trim BEFORE I discovered this technique.  While it did work, I would recommend overlapping trim paint onto the wall paint as described above if the trim paint is lighter than the wall paint.  I had to do two coats for step 4 because the wall paint is darker.  However, I did the exact same technique, but taped the wall next to the doorway trim instead.  Here are the steps I took, in pictures...

STEP ONE:

STEP TWO:

STEP THREE:

STEP FOUR:

STEP FIVE:

STRAIGHT LINE!!!!

Water Leak!

Wow!  I don't even know where to begin.  On Monday morning, while I was at bible study, I received a text from Erich asking when I would be home.  He asked me to text him as soon as I got home so we could talk.  I was curious what he wanted to discuss - did he get a promotion?  a raise?  job transfer to Colorado?  Isn't it funny that I had visions of wonderful news?  Maybe I'm turning into an optimist.

I drove home happily, blissfully unaware of the news that awaited me.  I texted him as soon as I pulled into our driveway and he was outside before I could even get our little toddler out of the carseat.  This must be really good news!

As we walked inside the house together, me all smiles, I noticed he was not smiling so I thought 'uh oh...layoff?'  We've been there before and it was not fun at all.  He asked how bible study was and then he said he had something to show me in the living room.  What?  Why?  I walked into the living room, somehow believing that there was a pony or something waiting for me in the living room.

Once we arrived in the living room together, he asked me 'what looks different about this room?'  Ummmm...the fireplace, the ladder in the middle of the room, the drywall hanging out in the corner, the freshly finished and painted ceiling.  Nothing about this room looks normal.   As I looked up at the ceiling, my face fell.  Immediately my eyes caught sight of a sag in the ceiling that had not been there before.  Erich looked at me with a sympathetic, somber look and shook his head.  He said 'I'm so sorry but we have a water leak and as soon as we cut that ceiling open, water will pour out of it.' 

I am not exactly sure what I said next but I do remember him asking 'would you like to cut it open or do you want me to?'  I just hung my head and said 'please cut it open....I just can't do that' and then I walked out of the room.  The anger that pulsed through my veins was consuming me at first.  I felt like punching a hole in a wall (haha, I was about to have one).  I heard Erich cut into the ceiling and then the sound of water gushing as I dejectedly walked into the kitchen.  I literally could not speak for about 30 minutes.  I felt sorry for myself and wanted to curl into a ball and cry.

Well, that is really no way to live.  Not for a ceiling.  Not really for anything.  So I didn't let myself stay there for long.  I mourned the loss of my perfectly finished ceiling and then tried to look at the bright side.  No people were hurt.  One tiny area leaked and now I could learn about plumbing and drywall patching...and demonstrate perseverance to myself and to my children.  I was reaching for the positive and eventually my heart believed my brain and I was over it within a couple of days.  I felt a simmering anger for about 2 days whenever I stepped foot into the living room and saw the gaping hole.

Pretty soon I didn't even notice the hole anymore though.  In fact I was talking to my dad saying 'I'm almost finished with the living room' when he interrupted me with laughter and said 'what about that hole???'  Oh yeah. I'm almost finished except for that little thing.

Okay, so onto what in the heck leaked!!!  My dad came over on Monday night to help me and Erich figure out what was going on.  We couldn't figure it out without making another hole, so we cut a hole in the upstairs hall closet which is adjacent to the bathroom (another area to patch soon).  Here is what we found - a completely soaked wooden floorboard underneath the tub, very wet tile outside of the bathtub, and eventually water flow into the living room when we filled and emptied the tub.  It was tough to figure out at first, and I won't bore you with all the details.  It is safe to say that I had google up and running and was working hard to help diagnose the issue. 

At a very late evening hour we found 'Leak #1' which was caused by a faulty drainage pipe.  That pipe was underneath the soaked floor though so it did not cause the floorboards to be drenched.  It didn't take us long to realize that we were most likely dealing with not one, but two separate leaks.  It was late though and we were content to have found one of the leaks, so we stopped trying to figure out the second leak that night.  The kids did not use the shower in that bathroom at all (because we had completely removed pipes and that would have been a terrible mess.

We set up fans to dry out the soaked floorboards.  One fan was going in the hall closet and the other fan was set up in the living room, pointed up at the now exposed floorboards. We let the fans run for a little more than 72 hours and then I turned them off.  The floorboards were totally dry.  On Saturday I began to prep the living room for painting - I sanded the walls and trim, vacuumed, and then washed the walls and trim with soap and water.  Sidenote: would you believe that prepping the room for painting took me an entire day???  I couldn't believe how much work prepping the room was!

At some point I noticed a small pool of water on the piano which was so heavy to move so it has stayed in the room during renovations.  I looked up at the floorboards and saw moisture.  My dad came over and informed me that the floorboards under the tub were completely soaked again!  They had just been totally dry!  Leak #2 was presenting itself.  The guys triple checked the attic because one theory was that it was a leak from the recent rains.  Nope - there were no leaks in the roof at all.  Hmmm...

So, I just painted and focused on trying to get everything else done while my dad ran around and tried to figure out what was going on.  It turns out that leak #2 was coming from the toilet!  The wax ring wasn't on properly and the bolts were the wrong size!  Gross!  My caring dad spent hours today fixing the toilet, attaching new plumbing parts (from leak #1), and then helping me paint the living room!  It was an amazing display of love and kindness!  So we have a fan running tonight and will probably leave it on for a couple of days to try and dry everything out.  Then I am going to cover the living room hole with tissue paper and have the kids use the heck out of that bathroom!  Sink, toilet, shower.  Any leaks should be easily visible in the tissue paper (thanks dad for that tip).

Before patching the hole I have to make absolutely certain there are no other leaks.  I'm thinking about maybe putting a utility door in the hall closet rather than patching the drywall.  Would be nice to easily access the plumbing in case we ever have a situation like this again.

Ceiling is Done!

After running out of paint late last night, I had to make a quick visit to the paint store.  Tonight I was able to completely finish the living room ceiling!  Next up on the list is to paint the crown molding trim.  Earlier today I mudded a couple of extra little spots in between the two trim pieces we hung - places where the crow bar dug into the wall when we were removing the molding.  I also sanded and washed some of the walls and chair railing with soap and water. What a difference that made!  I am not sure if the paint that was used for the door trims and chair railing was latex or oil paint.  It looks and feels a little like oil paint.  When I painted a little test spot with latex paint tonight, it didn't smear but it didn't seem to soak in at all - stayed very surface level.  So, I have some primer designed for oil paint areas and that may be an extra step in my process.  I am not too pleased about the extra step because I am really ready to be done!  Who has a saw in their living room?!?!?

Before this project I had NO clue how to use one of these!  Now I use it frequently and consider it a friend...

 Hubby has asked that I do not do any more major projects like this (knocking down ceilings) in the next 6 months.  It has been really hard to live without the living room for so long.  He knows I'm eyeing the kitchen next and he is afraid of what life will be like without a kitchen for a month.  So am I.