Absinthe
Living my life as an exclamation, not an explanation...

 

It should be noted by readers that Absinthe is not a lawyer, and anything posted in this blog should not be used as a substitute for professional advice from a lawyer













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  Monday, May 05, 2008



I was going to spend my summer taking some necessary courses to get my licensure to teach high school math and physics. But then the university cancelled all three courses I was going to take at the last minute. Suddenly I have a whole lot of free time on my hands.   

So, what better way to spend time than by tackling the never ending supply of home rehabbing projects our Victorian house affords.  Last year I spent part of the summer rehabbing the Worst Window In The House (see the window painted white in the picture below).  It is in our guest bedroom and it was all dry rotted, loose in its frame, etc etc.  I managed to fully rehab it (it works great now and is very weather tight) but also busted my left pinky knuckle in the process while removing trim with a crowbar.  I now have a condition called Boxer's Knuckle, and it still hurts.  I need surgery to fix it. Because of that I have come to fear the guest bedroom because rehabbing the other two windows in there (which are in similar condition) will also involve crowbar work.  In addition to the windows, the guest bedroom has a whole slew of other problems:

  1. It has nasty ugly brown vinyl wallpaper (the kind that has a wierd soft bubbly surface).  The wallpaper only goes about 3/4 of the way up the wall (why, I don't know), and is edged by an equally hideous paisley border.  The wallpaper isn't coming down without a serious fight.  Except for the parts where it already started to come down by itself....necessitating the need to remove it all...
  2. The trim apparently used to be painted Absinthe Green many decades ago.  Then someone about 30 years ago painted it the blue colour you see in the pictures.  What the pictures do not show very well is that the blue paint is chipped all over and the Absinthe Green is showing through in lots of places.  I hate the blue color of the trim (and hate even more the Absinthe Green showing through), but to repaint is going to be a serious hassle because there are already too many coats of paint on the trim. And at least some of those coats of paint are guaranteed to be lead based.
  3. All the 1/4 round baseboard trim is missing.
  4. Not shown is the light fixture, which was all too obviously added in the 1970's. 
  5. The bedroom has become a dumping ground for all the family's junk.  Every time someone doesn't know where to put something, they put it on the bed in there.  You can no longer see the surface of the bed.  I quake at the thought of having to sort through a year of everyone's "I don't know where else to put it" stuff.
  6. And don't even get me started on the topic of surface wiring in that room...

We have a bunch of family coming for the May long weekend, so I timorously ventured into the guest bedroom today to survey the problem(s) because we will need that room...so far we have been making do with a sleeper couch in one of our parlors when guests come to visit, but there are too many people coming in a few weeks for that to work this time around. 

So, as you can see, I spent the day documenting the problem. And now writing about it.  Progress has been made.

I guess if worst comes to worst, all I need to do in the next few weeks is clean off the bed.  The thing that bugs me though is that room is 16'x18' with three huge windows and it could be absolutely stunning.  After several hundred hours of work that is.  I have got to get over my fear of using the freaking crowbar...

 


3:41:44 PM    comment []




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