popcorn belongs in bowls, not on ceilings

1994 called and it wants its popcorn ceilings back.

Every house we looked at had rounded corners on the walls and popcorn ceilings.  Ok, not every house.  We bought the only one we looked at that didn’t have rounded corners but it does have popcorn ceilings.

ICK.

First step – to the internet, of course. 

Where I found these 2 videos: Video 1 and Video 2.  The basic idea is prep the room with a ton of plastic sheeting, wet the ceiling down with a garden sprayer and scrape the popcorn texture off.  I didn’t follow the directions of either video to the letter, more or less combining the two for a method that worked for me but more on that in a bit.

Second step – buy crap.

I needed plastic sheeting, tape, the ceiling scraper suggested by the first video, face mask, safety glasses, and the garden sprayer.

Third step – prep.

OMG, prep took forever!  I started with our upstairs empty bedroom because I figured that it’s not in use, nor will it be for a while, so I might as well use it as my experimentation ground.  First off, we had to figure out which breaker killed the power to the room since, well, you know, water and electricity don’t play nice together.  It would have been nice if the breaker box a) wasn’t outside (who does that?!) and b) had more labels than a bracket covering almost half the switches labeled “lighting.” 

Then I just started with the plastic sheeting using the method suggested in the second video.

 
 
I’m not sure why I didn’t take any pictures after I mostly finished covering the floor (I didn’t actually finish all my prep until I was in progress oops)

So in essence I had made myself a giant plastic box.  YAY.  And also had my first lesson learned – open the blinds before covering the windows.  I did manage to get them open but it would have been a heck of a lot easier to do beforehand.

Fourth step – get to it.

First attempt: I started out using the fancy ceiling scraper tool that is supposed to catch the mess but it wasn’t doing crap or catching anything and I was gouging the ceiling so I quit that.

Second attempt: I moved on to the other corner using a regular 6” putty knife.  Better but not great.  At this point, I was still spraying the ceiling and letting it sit but it just wasn’t coming off in the nice clean manner that the guys in the second video show. So…

Third attempt: At this point I just put the sprayer on the top step of the step ladder and just started to go to town with the water on whatever was within reach and then immediately started to scrape it off.  If it didn’t come easy, spray more water.  This was my second lesson learned: Don’t be afraid of the water.

Spray on water.

Scrape off ceiling texture.

About this time, I sent Will to Lowes to get a bigger bladed something.  He came back with this 12” drywall something or other.  I was really cooking with gas with that thing.

And for some reason I could control that tool a lot better with my left hand which was a welcome relief for my poor overused right hand.

With breaks for lunch and feeding the baby (for which I had to strip and wipe down to do because the plaster stuff got into everything), I got it all off in about 7 hours (not including prep which I did a few days ago).

 
so pretty.

And of course was left with a gargantuan mess.


I’m not sure that our step ladder will ever fully recover.  

Fifth step – clean up.

All we did was roll all the plastic in on itself and toss it in the trash – should have taken a picture but the baby was upset at the time.

There is a final step of sanding it all down with a sanding sponge but eh, I was tired and we probably won’t get back around to priming and painting the ceiling anytime super soon so I just called it a day.

I will say that this is an “easy” DIY project.  Once you get over spraying water all over your ceiling, it’s mindlessly easy.  It is somewhat physically painful (I think my right thumb is trying to be one giant blister and my back/neck/legs hurt) and horrifically messy but, really, it’s easy.  I will say though that the mask and safety glasses are an absolute necessity.

Now that I’ve perfected my methods, my next victim is the front room (aka our dining/living room). 

Do we think I can do it before we head back East for the weekend?

crap, we have a house now…

um, so yeah, we have this huge, to us anyway, house now.  It’s literally 4 times as big as our old condo (which we are closing on week after next – yippee!) and it needs a little bit of help.

I’ve added a tab up there under the header called “house tour” in an attempt to corral the blog posts that I’m planning to write about all the projects I have planned of which there are many. 

We’ll see how I fare!

after 10 days on the road (this pic really is from the day we got the keys), you might notice that Sweet P and I are very much dressed down while Will is dressed up – well, kinda.

…

I will preface this by saying that I wish I was better at writing.

It’s 6:15 and I can’t get back to sleep (both hubs and the baby get up at 5) because all I can think is “he’s gone”

He’s gone.

As of yesterday morning, he’s gone.

He’s gone and it’s not fair.

It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.  We were supposed to get at least 5-10 more years.

I accepted a long time ago that he would never see my kids grow up like he was able to with my sister’s kids but I never imagined that not only would my kids not have a single memory of him, he wouldn’t even get to meet most of them.  She is my shield but it’s also hard to look at Miss P and not think about how he’s not going to be around to see her walk and talk or anything else.

I think that’s the worst part because my dad was (oh god it hurts to have to write “was”) so amazing with babies.  A little less tolerant of kids but amazing with babies.

The timing isn’t fair either.  (oh yes, time for self pity)

We literally *just* moved 1600 miles away.  I have a beautiful baby and a great new house.  This should be a wonderful happy time for us.  And they were going to follow us out to Colorado next year too.

This is not a curve ball that Life needed to throw my direction right now.  Not that there’s ever a good time.

I did get to see him last week but how was I supposed to say goodbye to the only man who loved me for the first 26 or so years of my life?  In trying to be hopeful and upbeat when we left (twice even since we didn’t make it out of Philly airport the first attempt), I feel a little like I robbed myself of the chance to tell him a few things and truly say goodbye.  But that’s my fault and no one else’s.

It all happened so quickly.  He only first went in the hospital on May 31st.  He only came home to hospice last week Tuesday.  14 weeks sick and 9 days at home, really?  That’s all the time we get to wrap our heads around this? 

And another thing… Why can’t we get some research money into other types of cancer?  I think breast cancer has been researched to death and I think everyone on the planet is aware (no offense to breast cancer sufferers).  How about some research on bile, liver and pancreatic cancers so that some day the diagnosis won’t be a death sentence?

Anyway sorry to those of you who are reading this and finding out my unhappy news but I can’t deal with having to talk about it just yet.  I probably wouldn’t even be doing this except I’ve been mentally drafting blog posts for a few days and I can’t really do any of the 13,000 things that need doing (first on the list trying to find the moving truck with the rest of our stuff since it is hauling around 50+ years of family photos some of which we want for the wake) because the babe gets upset if she wakes up and I’m not in bed with her.

This will ever and always be my favorite picture of us, Dad. I’ll never stop missing you.

the davenport trail – day 10 aka the last day!

Ok, so I’ll admit that we finished our drive over a week ago now.  Things have been a little busy.  But I’m feeling a little less than motivated to unpack boxes as I’ve been on the phone half the day (doctor’s appointments, trying to get plane tickets – actually need to make that call again, phone company since our phone line has clearly been crossed with someone else, and the car insurance people) so I’ll finish up our trek.

We had stopped in Colby, KS which is pretty far west in Kansas so we really didn’t have too terribly much farther to go before we hit Parker so we really took it easy.

 
 
Will thought taking pictures of her in “jail” was funny.

I’m not sure what she thought of it…

Our first stop was in Goodland, KS to visit the world’s largest easel.
 

Of course there was a cache…

I decided to document the 10 days in on my shellac manicure while waiting for Will to make the long walk out to the easel for some size perspective.  Pretty good though you can tell how fast my nails grow. 

Will and P for some perspective. 

He was doing this the whole time – trying to log that cache. 

I wanted my picture with it too but the perspective shots Will took came out better.

Next up Colorado!
 
Welcome to your new home P!
 
If you can find the upside down bird in that tree, you found the cache.  We annoyed a lot of folks who wanted their picture with the sign by looking for it.  Will was glad I spotted it.    

We eventually got off the interstate to take CO-83 which becomes Parker Road which goes through – you guessed it – Parker!  It was a scenic drive with Will snapping pics from the backseat.
 
Proof that I did drive some of the time!

Babe’s not so sure about me driving.

horses!

Rolling hills. 

Roadwork in the middle of nowhere. 



Snuffles watching from the back. 



The Parker Hampton Inn is, well, weird.  It’s a triangle for one which made the hallways confusing and then it’s all earth toned and fancy on the outside like no other Hampton Inn I’ve ever seen. 

We were greeted with quite the storm – but at least they look cool. 

We were in the car waiting for friends to arrive for dinner. 


She’s almost got that thumb.  Though this was about as calm as she ever was in that hotel – she DID NOT like it one bit.  We decided that she didn’t like that it echoed.

the davenport trail – day 9

We had decided the night before (last night in fact since I’ve finally caught up to myself and we are still experiencing Day 9 as I work on this post) that we wouldn’t try to push through to Colorado today.  The reasoning for this was twofold: 1) there are no Hampton Inns in Colorado until you hit the one in Parker that we’re going to stay in for a few days before our stuff arrives and 2) why should we drive a ton today and have a short drive tomorrow when we could just have 2 even days that wouldn’t be too rough.

As a result we probably took too much time getting out of the hotel and getting to the Kansas Cache Across America.  It unfortunately was nearly 11am and already over 90 degrees out when we went looking for it.  The complicating factor of CAAs is that you need a photo to document it so I couldn’t just send Will off on his own and hang out in the car.  So he put the babe in the Ergo and I dug out my running shoes and off we went.

Will’s checking the coordinates and then sets off.



A thistle. 

This part of our search was not fun.  Those grasses were high and sharpish. 

Yay! He found it!  All that heat was worth it… well, I guess so anyway. 

This was supposed to show all the sweat that was pooling in the sunshade of the Ergo.

After this we took a long lunch break at Panera for everyone to cool off so we didn’t end up actually leaving Manhattan until like 12:30.

The wind turbines along the side of the road were our excitement for awhile.
 
 

We stopped at a random rest area to feed the baby and from the behavior of others it would appear that it is perfectly acceptable to wander around rest stops without any shoes on.  GROSS!

But there was kind of a neat rundown house that I walked over to take pictures of.


Given the state of the rest stop, Will elected to use a somewhat secluded picnic bench as a diaper changing station. 

Her resting face is one of mild concern and/or befuddlement.

So… the interstate decided to be only one lane in either direction… at least it was only temporary for road construction but still odd.
Proof that Kansas is boring. 

We saw this guy twice.  If you can’t tell it’s a semi-trailer tow truck towing not 1 but 2 similar tow trucks AND a Jeep Liberty.  I found this highly amusing.  Clearly, I am overwhelmed by boredom. 

Nom, nom, hands taste yummy…

But this is more what I do. 

Will’s been doing most of the driving.  He’s my hero. 


We finally got smart and decided to use a cart.

Baby’s not supposed to look at screens… oh no!

Will’s running from the storm after finding a cache in the Wal-Mart parking lot. 

The storm approaching. 

The view from the hotel in one direction is just, you guessed it, more corn.  The other direction is the interstate.
Accommodations in the Hampton Inn in Colby, KS – an actual porta-crib.