Spackling - my new favorite hobby

I don't know what my problem is.  I had it in my head that spackling is only for the pros.  That I should hire a handyman to do these tiny little jobs.  I was wrong big time.  Spackling is so easy!   In fact, I love spacking - it's my new favorite hobby :-)  Part of the reason I thought spacking was hard is because we have several of these ugly little spots around the house (this one from the kids' bathroom).

I don't mean to knock Glenn's efforts since he definitely gave it the old college try.  Part of the reason his spackle jobs are a little homely I think, is because spackling requires patience and we're usually running around with a million things to do and not enough time in the day.  Just for fun, here's a close up of the spot in black and white - it's looks very arty?

Since we wanted to paint the kids' bathroom, I needed to take care of this blemish first.  I got some fresh spackle at Lowe's and a new sanding sponge.  

I wasn't paying much attention when I bought the spackle, so when I opened the jar up, I was surprised with pepto bismol pink colored putty.  It dries white so you know when your patch work is ready for sanding and painting - very clever!

Here's spackle trick from Glenn:  a credit card (or in my case an old unloaded gift card) works just as well as a putty knife for applying spackle (they're also easier to find around the house :-).

Apply spackle, dry, sand and you're ready to paint.

Glenn and I have a new deal now:  I take care of the spackling and he vacuums all the dust!  That's a great deal for us since I hate to clean up and Glenn is Felix from the odd couple.  Come to think of it I'm a little like Oscar.  We make a great team :-)

Purple Rain (or how I painted the kids' bathroom)

Since the weather hasn't been cooperating, we've been focusing in indoor projects.  I decided to spend our kid free Friday night painting the kids' bathroom (I'm easily entertained). 

The bathroom is pretty standard - tub, toilet, vanity, and mirror and it's sorely in need of a paint job.  After several years, the walls are scuffed and it's looking a little dingy.  Although I think the fake vampire teeth are a nice decorating touch.

I'm especially excited to try out our new paintbrush.  I don't have a picture of the new (aka clean) brush but here's the wrapper in case anyone is curious about which brush we used.  That's our furry toilet cover in the background.  It works pretty well for a photo back drop, doesn't it?

I've never in my life spent $14 on a paint brush and honestly I was a little shocked at the price at Duron.  Lowe's also sells the same brush at about the same price.  Turns out the brush is worth it though.  It made all the edging and detail work easier and the lines came out clean.  Since the most labor intensive part of painting is the edging and painting a bathroom is primarily an edging job, $14 seems worth it.

We decided on a light purple color called Rhapsody Lilac to match the shower curtain.  Seems like paint always looks darker on the wall than on the small swatch but we were very happy with the finished product.  The color complemented both the shower curtain and the print from Etsy nicely! 

My other favorite part of painting was watching Six Feet Under on DVD.  I'm happiest when multitasking and since the bathroom is small, I was able to leave the laptop on the floor as I worked my way around the bathroom.  My next project?  The powder room in Palm Breeze and Eat Pray Love with Julia Roberts (total chick flick that Glenn would never watch)!

The Best Laid Plans

This week is spring break for the kiddos and they're off at Disney with the grandparents so it's a spring break for us too.  We planned a week of sleeping through the night, sleeping in on weekends and spending our nights and weekends getting to all those things we don't normally have time to do such as sanding and painting the front door trim which is sorely in need of it.

The paint is peeling and we have these funky black spots all around the trim.  The manager at our local Duron paint store said that these spots are from the trees around the doorway.  We have to sand them all off, prime, and paint.  We left Duron armed with all the necessary supplies to tackle this project.  Since we were at Duron, we even bought the paintbrush Sherry at YHL recommended.  They actually didn't have the exact model brush (it was sold out), but the manager assured us that this is the same brush but nicer.  It also wasn't $5 (more like $14!).  I hope it's as good as it's supposed to be.

Mother Nature seems to have a different plan for us:

We're having a week of rain!  The only day it's not supposed to rain, we both have plans for that evening.  All this rain is great for the flowers but not so great for our plans to paint the house exterior. 

We really want to get the door painted before it gets too hot.  Washington summers can be miserably hot.  There might be a small window Sunday morning that we can try to squeeze in this project.  I'm crossing my fingers :-)