Charlie & The Kitchen
This week has been all about making progress on the kitchen walls. I know some of you guys have waited a LONG time for me to find the motivation to finish this room, and it’s finally come! After finishing off the dining room, I guess I just lost that part of my brain that thinks skim coating is at all fun. But I’m determined, so… I guess that’s enough?
From time to time, we all fall victim to the DIY slump. Skim coating used to be fun for me, but now that I’ve spent at least one part of each year fixing damage from ugly-ass wallpaper (1,2,3,4), I lost my skim coating mojo for a while. I am thrilled to be on the last room that I have to do this to, but I’m once again wishing for tiny DIY elves to come in and get it done for me while I sleep. (I know that I could hire someone to do it for me, but have you met me? I’m stubborn. And when you’ve got more time—and pride—than money, you do it yourself.)
The upside? I’ve gotten pretty good at it. And that means that each job has been finished faster and smoother. I’ve also discovered new and better products to use to help the job. Especially this:
This porous surface sealer/primer has been the best product I’ve found for for nixing air bubbles in torn paper and prepping the wall. I wasn’t sure if I would like it when I was fixing the dining room and still had a couple bubbles pop up (which were easily fixed), but now I’ve treated an entire wall with it before I begin a skim coat (last time I only found out about the product after the first skim coat was on), and it’s seriously amazing. I haven’t experienced a single air bubble in the kitchen thus far because it locks down the paper kind of like a coat of glue. (While there’s an affiliate link to the product listing that will make me a couple of cents if you clicked on it, the makers of the product are not paying me to say this and have no idea who I am. It’s basically a schoolgirl crush.)
In other news this week, my darling furball sidekick had to visit the vet. She was favoring one of her paws Monday night, and I soon realized that she split one of her dew claws (presumably at our most recent visit to the dog park) – ouch! She promptly freaked out in the vet’s office at anyone coming close to touching her foot (she has always been an anxious dog, but she turned it up to 11 and pretty much shed an entire coat of fur on the docs and nurses), and four of us had to hold her down while we clipped it off. She’s been on some light pain meds and antibiotics to help it heal over the next week or so, and then she’ll be fine. It’s basically the most expensive manicure I’ve ever purchased, and it wasn’t even for me. Figures.
Oh, and she also has to wear the cone of shame to keep her from licking at her wound whenever I’m not able to be at home. For the record, this is pretty much the meanest I’ve ever been to her—if you’re reading that guilt-trippy look in her eyes, that is.
I gave her some time to get used to it, and she seems to have gotten back to her old happy self, especially in the car.
While I keep working on the kitchen, there won’t be many interesting updates until the paint goes on. So I started thinking about it, and I realized that there are a number of things that I always meant to do a dedicated post on but simply never got back around to doing, such as info on poison ivy (a good lesson from my highly allergic dad), my stint on HomeStretch (the details on the laundry room and living room makeovers), and some family cookie recipes from this past winter. So, even if you’re spotting some things out of the archives, they won’t be re-runs but instead new details on older stuff I never found the time to share before—including full-fledged makeovers. Which, if you think about it, really is a new concept on this always-in-progress blog!
What have you been finishing this week?
The post Charlie & The Kitchen appeared first on The Ugly Duckling House.
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