April 03rd, 2020

Improvising projects.  That's what it's come down to now.  Finding things to do to fill my days.

I've already cleaned lots of things that I rarely do.  Things like, all of the globes on all of the light fixtures, and chandelier crystals.   I cleaned off the top of the refrigerator and under the bedside tables (which requires moving them).  I even cleaned under the vanity in the bathroom. 

That doesn't sound like a big deal but it kind of was.  See, it's built to look like a piece of furniture...a bureau perhaps...with legs..which means that the front doesn't come all the way to the floor like, oh say, kitchen cabinets.  But it's such a narrow space that a vacuum cleaner doesn't fit under it.  Neither does a broom. (It's the inflexibility of the long handle of the broom that is the issue) Which means I had to lay down on the floor and reach underneath with one arm holding a garage rag - slightly dampened - and stretching as far as I could to wipe.  And then wipe again. And then wipe one more time.  And rescued a lost hair band (I wondered where that had disappeared to).  I couldn't reach all the way into the back corners, but it's much cleaner now but it was a wild ride.

I've dusted and polished every horizontal surface in the entire house, washed windows, inside and out (dodging wasps while outside the entire time!) and re-organized closets and drawers.   Tim and I did a major job of trimming palms in the yard. Well to be fair, Tim trimmed, I just hauled.  This was the pile afterward!

 And yesterday I was just kind of at a loss of what to do next.  And then I remembered.  When we first bought the house, one of the first things I did was to take down all of the old, filthy, nasty, gross heavy draperies.  And that was when I found out that someone had painted over every single window sill.  Which would be no big deal except the window sills are tiled.

Yup.  With the exception of the family room, every other window will in this house was originally tiled with a kind of creamy yellowish tile.  Perhaps that was  "thing" when the house was built way back in 1962.   Tiled window sills?  Regardless.  As it turns out, the only thing worse looking than tiled window sills is tiled window sills that have been painted over.   And not painted well.

So I began 4 years ago, to slowly scrape the scabby looking, cracked, dirty paint off the tiles.  It's a messy job but I got it done everywhere except two rooms.  Tim's office and our bedroom.  Tim's office got left out because it was the very first room that got set up.  Hey, the man had to work which means he needed a place to work.   There are two windows in that room.  His desk is in front of one of them.  A large book shelf surrounds the other.  I literally cannot get to the windows to work on them.  Fine.  That room also needs to be repainted (when we moved in it was a two tone purple - no joke) and that hasn't' been done either.

Why didn't I do our bedroom?  I don't know.  I guess that room just kept getting moved to the bottom of the priority list until the new draperies went up and I just didn't notice the window sills anymore and I just plain forgot about it.  Until yesterday.

I opened the drapes, lifted the blinds, cleaned off the windowsill and went searching for the scraper. I couldn't find it.   I didn't see it in the tool chest.  I didn't find it with the painting supplies (hey it could be there). I even looked in the cleaning supplies but nope. Nothin'.  Ratz.

Soooooo I improvised.  I took a pair of garage scissors  (hey, I'm not using my good scissors for this!  I keep those so well hidden!  Only I know where those are) and started scraping away. Slowly, Slowly, Slowly.  

It's a tedious job with the right tools.  With the improvised tools it becomes even slower and more boring. So boring in fact that at some point it moved over into soothing.  What?  That's crazy.  No, it true.  What started out aggravating the beejeebers out of me, those teeny tiny itty bitty scratch scratch scratches, somehow gave way to, well, almost a hypnotic state.    My heart rate (which lately has been in a constant state of panic mode) slowed, my blood pressure which was so high it was finally near normal (not joking) settled down to it's normal very low and I could feel the tension just melting away.  It was amazing.

At some point, Tim came in, wondering what that funny little noise was and saw what I was doing.  "Why aren't you using a scraper?" he asked, very logically.  "Couldn't find it" I answered with a weird dreamy smile.  He went out to the utility room and in an astoundingly short amount of time returned with it.  (where on earth was it??)  And he began scraping.   Kind of quickly at first, but then more and more slowly.  "It's kind of relaxing, isn't it?"  I said.  "Yes!" he answered, sounding a little surprised.  

After a few moments, he poured a tiny bit of water on the section he was working on and suggested that I let it set for a few moments to soften the paint up.  Great idea!  And then he mentally shook himself and stepped back into his office a little reluctantly, leaving me to resume.

The proper tool and the suggestion of softening it with water made quick work of the rest of the job.  And while the tile is not beautiful, it's better than the cracked nasty paint.

The clean up on the other hand almost erased my zen state.  As it turns out wetting the paint to soften it absolutely made the scraping easier.  But then as the wet paint chips fell to the floor, they adhered to the floor.  In order to clean up the mess, I had to scrape the floor with the paint scraper. Multiple times.  Scrape a little, sweep a little, scrape a little, sweep a little. Repeat.  And then vacuum.

So it looks much better :)  I still have one much larger window yet to do in our bedroom but I saved it for another day when I am desperate for something to do.  Probably next week.  At least this time I know where the scraper is.  AND I know to put newspaper down on the floor to catch the paint chips. Live and Learn eh?

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So there you have it.  Once I've gotten the paint off the last window sill, I'm not certain what sort of project I will find to do next.  I just know that I will find one.
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Happy time filling projects to you all!

​And hugs all 'round