Two Catmasses are better than one [UPDATED]

I was incredibly happy to have been invited to join Joel and his family for Thanksgiving this year.








Since I wouldn't be driving down again in a month, we also opened Christmas presents while I was there. The kids each got science stuff and Lego mugs, among other things. They seemed thrilled!

Landon, Wesley and Cale learned about the gyroscope

While Cale showed Grandma Mimi how fast he can get down the stairs

Before I left town the day after our celebrations, Landon read me a story.


Dec 25 happened at my place. Corbin and Nancy joined me and Steve, and Lydia who recently moved back in with us (yay!). I made a meal of chicken Marsala with wilted spinach and linguini, while Lydia made molasses crinkles and Nancy made lemon bars. It was really fun, all of us cooking together, tripping over each other (not sarcasm) in the kitchen.

I crocheted a brain cap for Corbin

Nancy was pleased with her Post Secret book

Lydia loves birds and got two books about owls

Steve got some comfy new slippers 

And an oddly appropriate custom coffee mug

I got warm, squishy socks

And Corbin made me The Most Beautiful cutting board!

Kashi slept through it all

Let the papering begin!

UPS brought my ginormous roll of butcher paper yesterday! Let the papering begin!


They really are everywhere







Moving right along...

I had previously purchased three six-panel doors at a deep discount from Habitat Restore. They are the right size for the three bedrooms. Corbin came and installed two of them.


In the near future I will buy matching doors for the hall bathroom and the hall pantry.

All door trim is now installed, painted and caulked, but that adventure was not without its setbacks. When I pulled the paint tape off, this happened.

Apologies for the crappy photography.


And this is how much paint I had left.

But I managed.

Next up is the floor. Not wishing to drive across town to buy the pure-white butcher paper that I used in the bathroom and kitchen (hey, it was cold and rainy outside!), I thought I'd give it a go with the inexpensive "packing paper" in stock at my local Failmart. The paper has a slight brown tinge to it and, after application, it looks rather like concrete. Or like the cat peed there again.

 Cue the jokes about installing a "faux concrete" floor over real concrete.

Then, just for shits and giggles, I tested another small area using some silver wrapping paper I had on hand.

Ugly.

This last test area was done with the remaining scraps of white butcher paper I had in the garage.

Test with butcher paper.

I'm obviously most happy with this last one. IMO, it comes the closest to looking like Carrara marble, which is my goal.
Real Carrara marble.

I may actually go back over it when all is said and done, and do a little marble faux painting on the seams. The goal will be to keep the expanses clean and whiter while highlighting the seams so they look more like the veins in real marble.

So, since that last test used my last scraps of butcher paper, I went a-shopping for more. Ended up ordering it from Amazon, which buys me approximately one week to recover from all the crouching, crawling and scootching I've been doing!

The devil is in the details

The walls are done. They have to be done. For the last coat of paint, I purchased another gallon of the ice blue and then toned it down a little at home by mixing in a wee bit o' gray. I love the new toned-down color, but knowing it would be difficult to recreate I had to call the painting quits (stop obsessing about tiny imperfections) when I ran out.

The different is indiscernible in the photo, I'm sure.

Next step is to finish up the door casings. I've painted one coat of white-white-white on those that remained in place; they need a second coat. I've purchased enough new casing material to replace the pieces that had to be removed to accomplish the remudding and repainting. But before I paint them, I needed to tame imperfections on the reveals.

Gunky door casings                           I love my MultiMax!                             Pretty in paint

Fast forward -- I finished painting/repainting all door casings. I was all excited to remove the paint tape...and then this happened.

FML