Bunk Area Painted

I'm tired.  The wind was really blowing again this morning, but at 1 p.m. almost on the dot it quit so I decided I'd try to complete the bunk area painting project.  I just finished and it's 8 p.m. 

I pulled down the piece of plywood...

...I had to take it out the end.  You can see this is the really awful side that's splintered and looks as if someone had used it as a work table for Spackling.  I had turned this side up as one of the first things I did when I started living here because I couldn't stand to look at it...and it wasn't even painted then. 

I managed, without breaking something, to get it outside even though it's very floppy and hard to control...

...then I rolled on two coats of the dark charcoal brown paint on both sides...

In between coats I worked on the springs...

I experimented by spraying them just with the glitter paint and could see it didn't have enough density, so knew I was going to have to paint them brown first.  These were really hard to paint.  I don't remember it being that big a deal when I painted them white.  Maybe I just sprayed them and because the walls were white I didn't have to worry about over-spray.   If I got enough paint on either brush or roller to get the brown paint into the nooks and crannies, the wires just scraped it off...

I had so much paint on my drop cloth that I used it as a source of paint!  I had on clothes that were already spattered with paint from previous painting sessions, but I got paint in my hair and even up the sleeves of my long-sleeved t-shirt.  It was a mess. 

Once the wires and springs dried, I sprayed them with the glitter paint.  Can any one tell me why some paint companies continue to use these blasted paint lids that you have to open with a screw driver?  I absolutely tore this one apart trying to get it off with the paint can opener.  My screw drivers were in my plastic storage box "tool box" under the mattress!

I had the door open and opened the north window to get some air circulating through the cabin because this stuff was potent.  I held my breath, sprayed and then ran outside and breathed.  The springs now have a definite sparkle, but it is very subtle, which probably is good...

I spent the next couple of hours putting things back to rights.  I feel as if things aren't ever very organized in this one-room space, but when they really get disorganized like they do during projects like this, I sure stress out.  So, I put the painted plywood back on top of the springs; horsed the mattress back on the lower bunk (I put on a clean sheet while I had it on the table so at least I didn't have to have my usual wrestling match getting the bed linens changed); put my clothes bins back on top of the plywood, finished making the bed, put my prints and bedside lamp back up and the little tray that serves as my bedside "table."

Cozy, no?  I see I need to do a little touch-up here and there, but I'm generally pleased.  And, boy, does that bed look good and I'm hitting it just as soon as I have some supper.

Did you achieve a goal today?  Teddee

Waiting with Guacamole

I feel as if I'm just waiting right now.  Waiting for the dough--the settlement check from Sears for the botched auto repairs and the reimbursement of the double-dipped payment from the IRS--waiting to determine if the few things I dropped off at The Wild West Mercantile Co today will be accepted, waiting for the weather to improve again so I can continue this painting project and get the mattress off the table and back onto the bed and get my clothing bins put back on the top bunk so I can move around in this one room.

I slept fine last night on the foam pad and two sleeping bags...

...I threw on the electric blanket and a woven throw for a little weight and didn't get cold until this morning when the electric blanket automatically went off.  It was chilly this morning.  My neighbor said she saw tiny snowflakes (she and her husband had been camping in Utah those two weeks they were gone, I found out).  According to NOAA it was supposed to get down to 33F degrees last night.  The wind came up making it too cool and windy this morning to drag things out on the deck to make enough elbow room to get the piece of plywood down off the top bunk and take it outside and paint it...
































...and I need to do that before I can paint these...

But I did get the paint for the above when I stopped at Ace today to get fire starters...

...now I'm really anxious to see what this looks like when applied.

It's supposed to be mostly sunny tomorrow with a high of 54F degrees so I should be able to use the deck as another room and move some things outside to make it easier to maneuver in here as well as get the piece of plywood outside so I can paint it.  I'll roll the same color of paint on it as I'm using on the cabin walls and ceiling and just use the bronze Glitter Blast on the springs and wires.

The owner of The Wild West Mercantile Co. was not in when I dropped off a few "test items" this afternoon.  His assistant said he didn't want anything he couldn't price for a least $50!  That seems pie-in-the-sky for Rollinsville.  I'll have to take some photos of "main street" Rollinsville the next time I'm there and post them!  The assistant did agree to keep the items and let the owner decide.

In the meantime, I'm on page 244 of Elizabeth George's Believing the Lie and I made guacamole tonight...

I make really good guac.  I sort of cook by the seat of my pants, so just take two ripe avocados, cut them in half, remove the pit, scoop out the pulp and mash it up with a fork.  I suppose you could use a food processor, but I've never owned one and I like my guac really chunky.  Slice a bunch of green onions including a little of the green top, chop up a couple of cloves of garlic and a couple of plum tomatoes--you can use more tomatoes if you're trying to stretch your avocado.  Add the onion, garlic and tomato to the mashed avocado.  Add salt, chili powder and powdered cumin to taste.  I like lots of cumin.  Serve with your favorite chips.  I've been liking Nash Brothers Yellow Corn & Flaxseed Tortilla Chips for the last several years.  They have a lot of uumph to them.

So how do you spend your time while you're waiting?  Teddee

A Matter of Perspective

Welcome to the Sistine Chapel...

This is the ceiling of the area of the cabin above the bunks.  I spent much of the day on my back either Spackling or painting this and the walls of the bunk area.

I had been procrastinating on this part of the painting project because I knew it was going to be a challenge.  All winter I had the excuse that the ceiling and walls were too cold.  Now that it has warmed up, that was no longer the case.  In fact, we had another beautiful day.  It's 60F degrees on my thermometer at 5 p.m.  My 80-year-old neighbor was starting to garden so I was challenged to get on with this project

I had to move some things out onto the deck to clear the way for the White Whale, this mattress with which I do battle on a regular basis.



I don't know what it's filled with, but it's heavy, really heavy.  I managed to wrestle it onto the table, but it was blocking the door so I wrestled it up onto the couch...

but it didn't stay there long, falling off when I tried to access the plastic storage bin that serves as my tool box that was on the couch.  I fought my way around it all day.

I also had to move my "closet."  These storage bins that I keep on the top bunk are my only clothing storage.

Once I got the decks cleared, I Spackled the deep cracks in the bead board on both the ceiling and walls, scraping off the excess with a small Spackle knife.  I got Spackle in my right eye and had to get down and irrigate my eye with artificial tears and then I put on my safety glasses.
 
When I was finished filling the cracks,  I opened the paint I had purchased on Christmas eve....

Yech!  I needed more Spackle anyway, so took this back to Ace and had them put it on the shaker again, came back and started painting.  Painting this bead board, especially since I am switching from a light to a dark color, is difficult.  Paint rolled on doesn't permeate the cracks in the bead board so you have to go back over everything with a brush.  If you get enough paint on your brush to fill the cracks, it starts running down the handle.  It was a pretty messy day, but I got most of it completed...

 ...but I need to remove this upper piece of plywood, take it outside and paint it and then paint these springs...

This is what is over my head when I sleep.  I've had the idea ever since I started living here that I'd like to hang short strands of mixed glass beads at random from these...Might as well have something interesting to stare at.  I was even thinking it would be fun to spray paint these wires and springs some metallic color.  I'll see what I feel like tomorrow.  If I spray paint I'm definitely going to have to go out to the woodshed and retrieve that huge drop cloth and drape everything in the immediate area.

I didn't want to move the mattress back until everything was done and dry, so I'll be sleeping on a piece of foam and two sleeping bags tonight...

...and hoping the White Whale doesn't flip over on me in the night.

Did you meet a challenge today?  Teddee

My Typical Mountain Day

Temperatures got up to a little more than 50F degrees today here in the mountains, but there has been a stiff breeze most of the day and it was only warm mid-day.  I finished that Walter Mosley book, She Only Shot Her Man, I started yesterday evening and had an e-mail alerting me that a book I had requested was in and being held, so decided I'd take Dixie on her daily ride and include a visit to the library. 

But first I drove to Rollinsville with the intent of taking a few items to The Wild West Mercantile Co. for resale.  There was a huge sign in one window announcing they were closed on Tuesdays, which I had not noticed when I was there on Friday, so I turned around and came back to Nederland, and went to the post office.  This time I did not anticipate a check from Sears.  I had e-mailed my contact at their claims company and had been told the check, which he had told me would be mailed March 21, had never been mailed, but would be now and I should receive it no later than April 3.  I'm not holding my breath. 

We then drove to the library and I returned the Mosley whodunnit, which I recommend, and picked up the latest Elizabeth George Inspector Thomas Lynley mystery, Believing the Lie.  It's a whopper, 608 pages, so should keep me occupied for a while.

On the way home I decided to veer off and drive up to the ski area. 

I couldn't see a thing in my viewfinder it was so bright out, but I managed to a get a few shots that weren't exactly what I thought I was aiming at but give some idea of what the area is like...

It apparently is spring break...I noticed there were no cars in the high school parking lot...but there were so few people on the slopes I thought at first they must have some of the runs closed. 

But eventually this one lone skier came into view.  The slopes did look very shiny, so perhaps were icy, but they had been grooming here...

It was such a gorgeous day, t-shirt weather...

it almost made me want to jump on the chairlift...

...to see if I could still ski.  Paradoxically, my skis, boots and poles are still in storage in the desert in Phoenix and they were not a priority when I was there winter before last sorting through things and trying to decide what to bring to Colorado with me, some indication of what an avid skier I am!

When we got back, Dixie did her thing and is still in the backseat of my car...

This is funny.  I went back out there to take her picture and she looks quite willful as if she thought I was going to make her get out and she was prepared to set her heels.

Apollo took advantage of her absence...

It would be ironic if he became my "office dog" after it took me a year to even get him to let me touch him.

Did you share your day with pleasant companions?  Teddee

Winds Have Returned

We've been blessedly free of wind for several days.  I've even lost track.  But it came back with a vengeance this afternoon.  NOAA predicts gusts as high as 55-60 mph right on through tonight.  But it's warm, about 52F degrees and sunny.  I washed dishes this morning--my usual major project because I had put it off--then I cleaned up and shampooed and took Dixie to get the mail (still no check from Sears), return a book to the library and pick one up they were holding for me (a Walter Mosley thriller), get water and groceries.  I tried to get a shot of the wind blowing the stream of water.  It's just starting to bend a little here.  It made it more difficult to fill the jugs.

When we got back, my neighbors, who have been gone for weeks, were back and obviously unpacking camping gear.  When I first moved here, they felt obligated to tell me every time they left town.  I guess they've decided after two winters here, I no longer require a heads up.  I'll have to find out what fun place they went.  They were gone for weeks to Antarctica around Thanksgiving.  I think last year about this time of  year they went to Big Bend National Park in Texas.  They look very tan.

Dixie stayed in the car while I unloaded and still showed no interest in getting out when I was finished, so I just left her in the back seat with the door open.  I was concerned with the winds this high the door might blow shut, so was checking on her regularly and looked out a bit ago and the door was shut.  I went out there to open it and when I did she was gone.  I guess her owner's boyfriend must have come by and picked her up.  With temperatures getting warmer, I'll have to start  putting something in the door so it doesn't shut with her in the car.

OK.  Here are some photos of some of the things I bought yesterday at the Golden Community Garage Sale.

I left the price tags on things intentionally.  Obviously the white basket was 50 cents.  The clock chair is a plant pot holder I think, but I can see various uses for it.   It was $2.50.  The two little white buckets were 50 cents each.  The balls of yard were unmarked and I paid $1 for the lot.  The linen dish towel, the big winner, was $2.  Here's a close-up of it:

This is one of my favorite colors and the towel is in pristine condition.  My friend Cindy in Phoenix commented once when shopping with me that I color-coded my shopping cart.  Looks as if I did it again!

I almost missed these neat boxes... 

I had found the sale so unfulfilling I thought I'd go back around clockwise and see if possibly I'd missed something or if they were still putting stuff out, although that didn't appear to be the case as it had been at past sales.  And here were these boxes.  I got all three for $4.  They had been individually priced at whatever retail outlet at which they'd been purchased.  The tag on the large box was obliterated but the small box was priced at...

 

and the medium at...

 

What do you suppose they were asking for the large one?  They seem pricey.   

I also got a whole bunch of these clear glass ornaments...

They came in two boxes like this...

There are about 30 of these and I especially like the three large blown-glass globes with the glass loop incorporated as part of the ornament.  

That's it for today.  Were you able to find the beautiful in the everyday recently?  Teddee

One of the Worst

I always enjoy editing my photos.  For one thing you can make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.  And, of course, it brings it all back, whatever the experience.  I drove to Golden, Colorado, yesterday for the twice-a-year community garage sale called the Beautiful Junk Sale.

It's held indoors at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds Exhibit Hall which is nice because it doesn't matter what the weather is like.  Yesterday, however, they could have had it outside.  It was an absolutely perfect day as you can see from the sky.  Perhaps a little hot for my taste--80F degrees in Denver, so probably the same in Golden--but who can complain after the temperatures I experienced here in Eldora all winter?  I was over-dressed, which is usually the case when I go down to the lower altitudes, but also because all of my summer clothes are still in storage.  Since I want to go down and get some "stuff" out of storage to take over to The Wild West Mercantile Co. in Rollinsville this coming week, I'll try to locate at least some of my lighter weight clothes at the same time.

But back to the sale.  I believe this is the third one of these I've attended and it was the worst.  Of course I found some things...I always can find something...but generally it was like the worst of Walmart ten years ago.  I wonder if the poor economy is keeping people from donating...Better hold onto the stuff, we may never be able to afford anything else....or maybe a lot of people paid the extra $20 to come in early on Friday and took everything worthwhile.

Or maybe I was just in a mood.  This one woman seemed to have been drafted to be my nemesis the entire time I was shopping...

Wherever I went, she and her little pink cart on wheels, tethered to a rope, went.  And her little pink cart would get caught in the wheels of my shopping cart, which one of the volunteers had nabbed for me after she saw I was kicking my purchases around in a box.  When I would try to get around the Pink Cart Woman she would race ahead as if we were at a high-end antique fair competing for true valuables...but we weren't. 

The highlight of the sale seemed to be this bed, which apparently had belonged to President Gerald Ford and First Lady Betty.

This sale has an emcee.  I don't know whether he's a volunteer or is hired, but he sees himself as a stand-up comic.  He kept announcing this bedding and telling us that, although it was sold, we could all go back and smell it because it smelled "presidential."  I tried to quell thoughts about Gerald and Betty's odors, individually or co-mingled.

Here are some shots of the operation.  Each table had a nice label and the merchandise was well-organized.  In fact, I think it was too well-organized.  At the previous sales, there were lots of boxes stuffed with merchandise under each table that were fun to dig through.  None of that here and most of what was out was similar to what you'd find at a neighborhood garage sale.  Your junk is my junk.

I'm really pining for two dozen mugs emblazoned with a company logo...

Uninteresting costume jewelry...

The contents of everyone's knife drawer...before they clean it out...

If you weren't sure what is "out" in interior decorating, this is the place to look...

They were over-loaded with books, but I don't have a place to store books and am finding the library the solution, so this was not a lure...

They always have a lot of Christmas stuff and this sale was no exception...except most of it was stuff I also would have given away...

Remember when these Santas first came on the scene at the craft stores and were so expensive?  Now they are inexpensive even when purchased new.  I didn't check the price on this one.  He's actually in pretty good condition...

 

...I think, based on the bar code and the internet address, that this packaging may be reproduction vintage.  If not, this might have been a collector's item. 

Bad or mediocre embroidery...

I have lots of keys like this...

I don't think so.  Someone's sexy lingerie got into the Vintage Linens.  They really were in this section.  I didn't stage it.  When I was taking this photo some up-tight woman came by and didn't see the humor.

So, that was it.  At lot of junk, very little beautiful. I'll photograph what I did buy this afternoon.  It's warm, but overcast, so I can take the photos outside and actually see what's in my viewfinder.

Did you find a good garage sale this weekend?  Teddee