A Painting Project

A number of years ago there was this really attractive Kleenex box. I loved the design, and when I had the choice, made sure I bought that package for home. I thought it would make a really neat jumping off point for a wall treatment.
 After I couldn't buy that box of Kleenex anymore, I still hung on to an old empty box, thinking to someday redecorate our bathroom, and jump off that jumping off point.  (Note: our bathroom was a good candidate for redecorating. The man had painted it in flat paint, and between that, and some unfinished edges slowly chipping away, and dirty blacksmith hands, it was getting kind of sad looking.)

 But somehow the renovation never seemed to happen.

 But I still had that empty box, and it came along with me to the new place, probably because something else was in it, but maybe just because the design has stuck with me all this time.

 And while I wasn't particularly planning on re-doing the bathroom here, the wall opposite the door had some obvious 'we have moved the towel rack' signs, with some scruffy patch marks. And I had purchased and built a cabinet behind the toilet that really wanted affixing to the wall. But because of the thick baseboards, was going to be sitting a ways from the wall, so simple ordinary attachment would look weird.

Well, somewhere I just decided Hey I always wanted to use this design, let's do it! So this weekend, I bought some paint and have started.

 (Even the completion of phase 1 alone is a difference in there....)

This is the start. I emptied some stuff out of the way, and taped off the perimeter. To do a really professional job, I need to move the cabinet, but part of the 'construction' of it involves a bar that runs behind the plumbing near the base, and when that strut isn't there, it's a remarkably flopsy sort of cabinet, and mammothly heavy. So I resigned myself to an only partially perfect job in that back corner, and if I move someday, and take the cabinet, I'll have to touch up or repaint. (I even tried to get a bit more space by wedging the cabinet away from the wall with the kleenex box. Not THAT kleenex box...)

It's a cramped little space. The ideal thing would have been to have done this at the beginning, before I started putting together cabinets. But I was way busy back then, and a bit unravelled, and hadn't even decided what decorating I wanted to do. (Story of my life. You mean it isn't the story of yours?) So every time I wanted to set up the step ladder, I needed to move something else. Fortunately the cat stayed a-nap and never noticed that I'd moved her box!

The colour is starting to show now. It's an interesting light grey-green called Forgotten. My points of reference in choosing a colour had to do with a small random tile in the bathroom floor in a greenish tone, and that I have two exciting shower curtains, one in purple, one in turquoise. (This will make more sense with the final design.) The aforementioned Kleenex box was a mosaic pattern, and I also felt that this colour might possibly work as a kind of cement or plaster background to the design. (I'll be doing a deconstructed partial mosaic pattern with some plain wall as well.)

All painted! Very exciting!

And here, after it had dried, and I could shove things back in their places, and attach the cabinet to the wall, and add a small shelf between the existing vanity and the new cabinet. (Because who can't use extra space? Not me!)
 So here ends phase 1.
  Now I need to decide on the other colours. And how small a quantity of paint I can buy at a time or in a single colour, or if I need to do some of my own tinting, and where I wanted the deconstructed mosaic to be placed.
 But even just this one hint of mild colour, and the fact that the cabinet is now attached to the wall will make a huge difference!

v

A Winter Wonderland?

So, it is a classic method of discussing winter, in my circle, by taking a picture of deck furniture slowly disappearing under its load of white stuff.Well, I do have a deck. But I don't have any deck furniture on it. AND... currently I can't really get to where I'd be able to take a telling photo anyhow.

 But I did feel that we seem to have had enough of a snowload so far this season that I ought to record it in some way. So yesterday I took a couple of pictures. Then for some reason I didn't get around to uploading them. And in the night we had even more snow. (This is well post-'December Ice Storm'. This is just boring old snow.) But there's enough of a change from yesterday to today that I thought I should try to duplicate the shots.

  This first picture is out my kitchen window. Yesterday's load of snow, sitting on top of a plant pot, and on top of the deck bench box.

  By this morning, the heights had increased somewhat. In fact, the snow cap on the bench box (which is only the height of a comfortable sitting surface) is now about as high as my breastbone. And the deck is the same level as the floor in my flat. (Actually the snow depth on the deck looks to be easily thigh deep everywhere!)

 The next angle is the deck railing outside the kitchen, where a previous photo showed my friend Squirrel, eating walnuts. Obviously, if Squirrel had been by recently, we'd know it!

Today...

   the snow is even deeper, and had formed even more of a wall along the one rail.

 But in the living room, the deep window well between the sloping sections of roof is rapidly disappearing!
Yesterday, it was impressively deep:

But you can still see the backyard trees beyond. By today I was hard put to replicate the angle and still show the level of snow so you could tell where it was.

(HINT: look *above* the shelf with the coloured glass!)

It's definitely getting deep out there...

 v

Really Random

  Was quickly doing some dishes this morning; I'd cooked for the theatre Christmas potluck yesterday, and had a mixing bowl and a casserole and some serving stuff...  And was musing about my dish washing liquid.
 Odd, I'd grown up, as much as I can recall, with Sunlight in our kitchen. And probably carried that thought forward through much of my life. It's just what I bought. It worked, I liked it.
 Somewhere during my married life, either paying attention to price, or because there actually were more options, I'd switched to the No Name version, and in Wareham, had been using the Our Compliments one for years and years.
 Then I'd discovered that the PC No Name one had been reformulated, and its scent, while still citrus, had taken on a subtle grapefruit note, which I found very pleasant.

[I can only bear a citrus scent in my dish soap. Maybe it's because I grew up with that, or maybe it's just because I'm a bit twitchy about perfumes. But definitely my brain will accept a lemony smell in connections with clean dishes, where none of the other scent (or descriptions of scents) seem acceptable.]

 Sadly, they reformulated again, and now I was finding it almost impossible to get the dishes rinsed adequately. Same with the Our Compliments version. The dishes still felt soapy and perfumey. I found I was rinsing things out of the cupboard before using, and suspiciously sniffing glassware. I was turning into a crazy old lady. [Editor's note. Crazier.]

 For some reason, one day I  tried using Palmolive. Now I have spent my life making fun of Palmolive. Not quite sure why, but definitely the old ads. Where Madge, the manicurist, would tell you "you're soaking in it!" Madge became a character in my life, for all situations. She became 'the other person' you could blame for things. (Well, Madge, and Beatrice the invisible seamstress.)

 But I'm still currently using it, and finding it doesn't overpower me with scent, and it does seem to rinse off.

[I have tried the 'unscented' products, and found that to me they smelled 'chemical-y'. So much so, I couldn't breathe while doing dishes. I sometimes buy unscented laundry soap for the theatre laundry, but at least you can walk away from the washing machine...]

 Incidently, I made the Champignons from Menagier for the potluck. That's a 14th century mushroom dish where the 'shrooms are tossed with olive oil and poudre fort, and cooked with brie and parmesan. I'd made a point of collecting a casserole dish and my spice powder from Wareham on my most recent packing trip. Pretty much a huge casserole's worth went away, except for a small bit at the bottom that I will repurpose into a pasta dish for supper tonight!