Ravings of a BiPolar Gothic Witch
     Occasional commentary, observations and tidbits as well as other random thoughts

Over the weekend we redecorated (see my previous post).  At the very end of painting my son’s room, we noticed that along one wall there was some blue smeared paint on the carpet.  Not a complete tragedy and if you read my previous post about replacing some of the carpet you’ll know why, but we realized we needed to clean it up.  Soap and water works fine for most things, we figured we’d use the steam cleaner I have.  As a side note this morning I checked in his room, and noticed that not all the paint had been sucked up, which showed that if there was some way to add a bit of paint to the carpet cleaner, we could actually turn the carpet back to looking a bit newer…

I went and dug my steam cleaner out of the storage closet, brought it in, started unwinding the cord and then remembered why you don’t let the cord sit under the unit while you are using it.  Last time I had done that by accident, and had dodged the bullet of electrocution some how in spite of the fact that the scrubbers had scrubbed right through to the copper on 4 separate places on the cord before I turned it off.  OOPS.  Anyway, I had meant to get electrical tape (and god knows we had gotten every other kind of tape yesterday and the day before) but had so far forgotten. 

So the cord has 4 approximately 1-2 inch sections of bare wire, but the rest is still completely insulated.  Just like if you picked the cord up to move it while using the steam cleaner insulated.  And electricity is a creature of habit.  As long as you follow it’s few simple rules, mostly in the form of not getting between it and the ground, then it is very safe.  There is no reason to think that even if the cleaner is turned on and working that electricity will jump into me from the wires if I am holding the cord in the insulated places.  Electricity is lazy; it follows the shortest, easiest path.  That would obviously be through the copper, not me, unless I was stupid enough to touch it, or to have two open places touch each other.  Knowing we really needed to get the paint up, and using my executive decision making power, I decided that I would hold the cord keeping away from the dangerous places and each other while Mel used the cleaner to get up the paint.

If I was a bit hesitant, Mel and my oldest son were quite terrified, sure that I was going to end up a smoking hull on the floor.  Talking about knowing how to call 911, what to do if it fried me, etc etc. I told them firmly that we were going to do this, I wasn’t in danger and that we just needed to get it done with.  There was some discussion and it was decided that even if my older son and Mel were equally incapacitated my youngest could call 911. 

The first step was to plug in the cord.  Mel actually tried 3 times and couldn’t do it.  To be honest I was even a little nervous, but I used my mind to overcome my fear and insisted SOMEONE plug in the damn cord.  I knew somewhere in the back of the reptilian part of my brain that were I not fried to a husk, that this would be an opportunity for scaring both of them to death.  One of those flash decisions that you just know you can’t ignore.  So I decided the minute the plug went in, when I didn’t feel the electricity, I would act like I did.

You know the rest.  Needless to say, after we cleaned up the messes they left on the floor, neither Mel nor my oldest were amused.  Me personally, it was the most fun I’d had in a long time.  And it was interesting to me that my 9 year old ran in, noticed immediately that I was laughing after 2 seconds, that there was no smoke, and started to laugh at the look on their faces.  At least he’s got my sense of humor.

Insulation stripped cord: $15
Paint stained carpet: $80
Medical Bills for counseling: $2000

Look on their faces:  PRICELESS

First of all, to the person who complained to me about long posts… I write.  I write A LOT when I’m in the mood.  You are always welcome to just skip some of what I write, or even my whole blog.  It’s just in my nature to be verbose.  So as a warning - this is a long post because it is a story and has a lot of details.

My best friend and I have the same sort of obsessive compulsive tendencies, in that once we get started on a project, we sort of keep finding new pieces and pretty soon that little job of just updating something turns into a full scale deal. 

We’re pretty good on our own, other than the compulsive must scrub the kitchen floor with a toothbrush, and oh yeah, move out the refrigerator and stove so I can get under there, and oh my look under the cupboards -ugg so much dirt, and the tops of the cabinets, and the refrigerator and oh my I might as well reorganize my pantry and the plastic containers…yeah that actually does happen with me. 

You’d not guess it if you come to my house on a regular basis.  I sort of use that as an excuse to NOT clean too deeply, just because that is exactly what ends up happening and before I know it I’ve spent 8 hours on cleaning the kitchen when I just meant to take 30 minutes to wash up the dishes.

I’ve had this place in the hallway (I rent just so you know), where before I moved in, a dog had apparently had an accident or two (or more for all I know).  It wasn’t bad, and had been pretty well taken care of before me, but my cat on the other hand, can smell stuff like that from a mile away, and seems to think that then is the litter box.  Well, we’ve lived here a year and a half, and in spite of numerous steam cleanings, that part of the carpet REEKED and now that it’s warm, the smell permeated the house.  So badly that I didn’t want to have anyone other than my closest friends who totally love me and accept me and my cats to come over.  It even bothered me when my older kids came because I knew it bothered THEM.  So in the last couple weeks I had been contemplating tearing up that section of carpet, pulling out the padding, doing a good steam cleaning on the carpet, and putting it back down. 

Saturday afternoon in a fit of "just can’t stand it anymore", I pulled up the carpet and pulled out the padding.  Then I took a good look at the carpet.  There wasn’t a chance in hell of cleaning that section of carpet with any sort of hope of recovery.  Gross doesn’t cover it.  I felt like disinfecting just handling it or the padding.  Suddenly, the job became twice as big.  Of course, as I’m pulling up the carpet, Mel, who had up until this point been comatose on the couch watching a movie with me came to see what I was doing.  Red lights should have gone off complete with sirens all around us.  You see, Mel has wanted to decorate my condo since we first met. 

She saw me with the carpet knife in hand ripping for all it was worth to get everything up, agreed that we now needed to replace the carpet (neither of us had actually ever DONE that, but of course we’ve both seen it done… and how hard could it be?).  HARD.  We were now on a quest.  We needed to find replacement carpet.  Of course, the carpet in my condo has probably been here for oh, 15 or 20 years, and because of that is matted down, darkened and stained.  Not exactly show room variety.  So we threw the old padding and carpet into the bin, and were off with a long list of needed items.  First to find the carpet, and the sealing tape, and we were going to need a staple gun and duct tape which required a stop at home depot, and gee if we went there, maybe we could paint the kitchen like she had always wanted, and if we were doing that we might as well do my youngest son’s room (we had planned all along on that I had just never gotten around to it).  You see this coming right?

Our first stop, with a sample of carpet taken from inside my closet in hand, we find what was very likely the original carpet, and the biggest clue was that it was cheap.  I mean really cheap.  Like the cheapest version in the store.  Works for me, we’re on a tight budget.  We ask for the amount we need, and lo and behold, we have to go to the warehouse for it, a good 20 miles on the other side of Denver.  And we have to get there in an hour.  So we’re again off.  Now Mel has recently gone from not driving on highways at all, to playing speed racer on them (just like she does on normal streets), and riding with her on the highway is an adventure.  She’s not a bad driver, it’s actually kind of fun as long as you have your seat belt securely fastened, and she’s not laughing hysterically (so I tend not to say much).  I also found out on yesterday, that even if she doesn’t know where she’s going, and you do, but she thinks she shouldn’t go a certain way, she will not listen to directions.  Even of the kind (when we were at the appropriate exit) of "here, turn here, THIS EXIT GO RIGHT MEL!" as we passed it.  She was arguing with me about how that went east.  We went to the next exit and turned around.

Off again in the right direction, we get to the warehouse, pick up the carpet, go and pick up my youngest who was at a friend’s house swimming, and off we go to the next stop.  Home depot.  Here we get the carpet laying supplies (mainly the seaming tape) but also razors for the carpet knife so we wouldn’t be sawing through it using a dull razor.  Then we decided we needed to go to Walmart for paint.  That required a whole new list of items.  Paint, painting supplies, border for the kitchen, and of course the decision of colors and themes.  (All I wanted to do was replace the carpet remember?)

On the way home we decided to forgo the staple gun and just use tape for the padding.  That is what they had done when I watched them lay replacement carpet in my last house.  I thought packing tape would work.  We got home.  We judiciously cut the padding, and I was wrong.  So another trip to the store, this time for duct tape and B&J’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream (we were out).  We lay the padding doing a very nice job (actually Mel really laid it, I just sort of handed her tools and nodded when she asked if it looked okay).  Then came the carpet.  We seemed the first edge (easy) but there were a couple of complications.  There are two doorways in the path.  One is at the end (easy since it is in line with what we were laying) but has the usual corners for trim, and then one on the side which was a little more difficult.  We realized that we weren’t capable by ourselves of stretching (by pulling of course) and doing the cutting in and seaming of the carpet.  So we decided to wait for my friend who was coming over to watch a movie.  Of course, it didn’t dawn on us that no matter how many we had, pulling, cutting and seaming actually couldn’t be accomplished all at the same time.  He suggested we rent a carpet stretcher.  We’re going to.  So the carpet is half laid, but should be finished this week and my house smells so much better it’s not even funny.  YEAH!

On to painting.  We moved everything out of the kitchen, pulled out the appliances, taped all the borders for woodwork and stuff, and started to paint.  We had picked out a pretty golden color with a top border that went with my original desire for a "cafe" look, coffee style.  Ironically, I don’t really drink coffee anymore, but it’s still really nice.  So we matched up the paint with the border and had it mixed.  It’s really pretty.  At first I thought that maybe we’d gone too dark.  It is very bold.  And there was the worry that the white cabinets would clash, because as we painted around the white trim and cabinets, it looked pretty bad at first.  Then we put up the border.  That was fun.  It went pretty well (this was the one thing I actually did while Mel helped since I actually like doing it).  The only problem was that Mel was standing next to me with the wet pasted border in a pan on tip toe to get it as high as she could, I was on a step stool with my arms outstretched as far as possible to get the border to the very top, and something funny happened early on.  We couldn’t stop laughing.  Do you have any idea how hard it is to stay on a step stool with arms completely stretched while laughing hysterically?  Try to add hanging wall paper border to that.  And of course the pan was shaking as Mel laughed just as hard.  Then she kept tipping the pan and showering herself with water.  Everything was great until she really dipped the pan as I turned my head and a swath of pasted wallpaper border slid across my face.  My mouth was open.  If you think soap tastes bad!!!  No only that, since the border has a "slight fungicide to prevent mold" incorporated in the paste, I imagine my tongue will be mold free for a while.  YUCK!  But we got it finished, and the border made the white look marvelous.  With the new black curtain and rod, we decided that black & white accessories will make the kitchen look absolutely perfect.  Mel got her wish.  The ugly hand painted dragon and butterflies are no longer on my kitchen wall, and the ugly 70’s flowered curtains are also gone. 

While I started to clean up and put things back in the kitchen, Mel started on Mark’s room.  He has a huge platform type bunk bed set, with desk on one end and moving it is pretty much impossible.   I actually don’t know how we’ll eventually move it when it’s time to move out of this condo, but it’s extremely close to the corner of his room (maybe 8 inches of clearance).  We got most of it done.  It’s all blue (a very nice shade that goes with his comforters that were Star Wars which he wanted and has had).  We still have to repaint the trim (white - some of it was lavender, some was pink, some was white or off white) and we need to do the border at the top.  It started out with black border with pretty Chinese characters, but we’re painting over the characters, and then I’m going to put up the glow in the dark stars, moons and planets on it.  We will need to finish that.  As it was we worked all day Saturday and all day yesterday just to get that far.  And it’s pretty cool. 

Tags: Redecorating, Painting, Funny stories, Obsessive/Compulsive