A new place

We sold our house, put our possessions in storage and moved to a new home as the C19 pandemic began to unfold. We feel very lucky that people have been so kind and helpful to us when everything has undergone such a shift. We moved into our new residence after spending two weeks with relatives that were kind enough to give us and our pets a place to stay until we received our keys.

I think most people are finding the isolation from their friends and family to be the hardest part of the pandemic response. I am just starting to feel the lack of personal interaction as I have been so focused on just getting into a house. Being an introvert and a crafty person probably makes it easier for me to deal with the isolation than some people.

Projects, boy do I have project. This is a 1974 raised rancher. The first thing we did was tear out all the carpets. I think they may have been original. We are living with our sub-floors until we can put laminate down (which will be a while). Initially, I had lots of ideas for remodeling. I am scaling that back by a large percent because our remodel budget is pretty small. I am also finding, that as I live with the house, there are lots of things I am learning to live with and appreciate. Most of the makeover will have to be created by painting.

Current project: Living room

There is a lot of paneling. It makes rooms very dark. There were lovely heavy dark drapes but they too were quite dark and both the carpet and drapes had been despoiled by a bad kitty. It all had to go.

I had to treat some floors with odor remover and painted them with three layers of odor blocking primer. This stuff seems to work, thank goodness.

I did a fair amount of research on the internet on how to tackle painting the paneling. I washed them, lightly sanded them and washed them again with a safe tsp alternative. I then used Home Hardware's Beauti-tone Stick it, a super adhesive primer, followed by two coats of Zinsser 123 primer and then two coats of Beauti-tone eggshell paint. I like how the fireplace looks against the light walls. I stuck up some temporary drapes for privacy.

Eventually, I hope to make (or have made) drapes from this ikat material I found at Fabricland last year. It was on clearance and I really love the pattern.

Back to work I go.