Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been repairing earthquake cracks in the living room with mesh tape, Flex-All, and stucco. In the process, digging through previous generation’s layers of accreted paint, realized for the first time that our living room was once upon a time coated in gold glitter, top to bottom. Trying to visualize this former hey-day, and the shag rugs and chandeliers that must have accompanied it.
Friday moved everything to the center of the room (including 300 lbs. of LPs and a 1950s capiz shell console) and went at it with the orbital sander. A little detail work with Crawford’s spackling paste, then out for a couple of beers with a friend. Saturday up early, friends took Miles for the day, and Amy and I dug in on a long-overdue paint job (we’d never loved the chiffon yellow LR paint we inherited, but over the past year it had started to make both of us nauseous). Six hours later it was a more mature “Woodwind” (named, I think, for the color of the bamboo reeds in saxes and clarinets), and looks FABulous. We’re so stoked.
Saturday night, off with another friend for a mind-blowingly good sushi dinner, then off to see Martin, Medeski and Wood with John Scofield at the legendary Filmore Auditorium. Amazing 3-hour show (will write it up for Stuck if time permits) left me inspired and exhausted.
Today up early again to touch up the baseboards, then get ready for Miles‘ fifth birthday, at Head Over Heels gym, where circus performers train. M’s friends had full access to trampolines, trapezes, a deep foam pit, balance beams and an obstacle course of misc. gymnastic equipment. This is the third year running we’ve had his birthday party at the same gym. The kids dig it, why mess with a good thing?
One of his friends, whose mother is way into letterboxing, put together a multi-stage geocache for Miles, so after an afternoon wrangling tiny Playmobil parts, he and I took off to discover it. Such a cool, thoughtful present, with hand-drawn maps and clues, and plenty of places to play along the way. Amazing.
Returned home in time to start putting the LR back together, do some grilling for dinner, and get the DVR hooked up in time to record the start of Ken Burns’ The War.
Life is rich.
I’m assuming that somewhere along the line you’ve tested for lead based paint.
Flex-all, huh? Have to look that stuff up. :)
-Jim
Yes, we do have some lead on one of those lower layers. For this particular job, I wasn’t sanding down into that layer – just sanding the flexall and stucco off the top – so it was very low risk.
Flex-all is da bomb :)