Painting is never as easy as it seems

Painting the kitchen and the downstairs bathroom.

Neither one is very big and shouldn't be a problem but, it's never as easy as you think it's going to be.

The walls in the kitchen need to be cleaned first. As I'm looking at what needs to be done, I know that the hood over the stove is disgusting and needs to go away. I went outside and turned the electricity to the kitchen off, at least I'm not a total moron. The hood looks easy enough to take down, so I loosen the four screws and wiggle it free. Damn, it's electrically wired. I know nothing about that so I guess I better put it back. Easier said then done. Of course I can't see well enough because my 53 yr. old eyes have betrayed me. I can't see where to line it up in all four corners at the same time. After about 20 mins of struggling and getting increasingly angry, I decided to ask Emily to help me. She comes downstairs and I tell her to put on gloves because the hood is gross and greasy. She lines it up and I hold it while she screws it back in.

As Emily heads back upstairs she says," by the way, the Internet is out." I said,"that's because I turned the electricity off when I took that hood down." She slumps her shoulders and says, "Ughhhhh." "Don't fret my dear, I will turn it back on now that the hood is back in place. You can chat away merrily in a minute."

I feel better now that I have sat here for a minute in front of a fan. Back to the cleaning of walls. I will do the hood another time when I find out how to do the electrical stuff.

More frustration awaits me I'm sure so stay tuned.

I moved the stove to clean the floor and wall behind it. Yeah, that took more than an hour to scrub that mess clean. I'm so totally frustrated at all of the work that's going into getting ready to paint, that I don't think I will even get paint on the wall before my vacation is over.

Sweat is pouring in my eyes and I have a big hatred for being sweaty. Every time I sit down to pout over my problem Misha jumps in my lap and wants to be snuggled.

more to come after I remove this kitty cat and take a shower.

Many days have passed since I last posted about my painting trails and tribulations. Little did I know that at that time things weren't as bad as they would be.
My first ambition was to get the kitchen and downstairs bathroom painted during my week off. HA, HA, HA! I must have lost my mind! I came no where near finishing either room while I was on my vacation. I decided to tile the wall that runs behind the stove. My cousin Mark thought it would be a good idea and would look nice. I agreed and went out to get the stuff needed to tile. I went to LOWE'S, the store is newer and nicer then Home Depot. I picked out tile and the tools I needed. The first few blocks of tile were simple. They were clean shots at the wall, nothing to go around or cause much trouble. Then I ran into a problem. A four plug outlet, this is where I wondered to myself why I let my cousin, who lives in OHIO, suggest that I tile a wall! Where was Mark when I needed him? In OHIO for God's sake! Too flippin far away for me. My brother Jeff then suggested that I go back to LOWE'S and ask them if they cut tile for their customers. Brilliant, yes! I called LOWE'S and I was assured that someone could cut it for me. I measured, marked the tile and headed for LOWE'S. A very nice young guy took the tile from me and cut it, for free no less. I was thrilled, not very often do things like this go my way. I finished that section of the wall and decided to tackle the wall to the right of the stove. That section of wall had another four plug outlet and a phone plate to deal with. I tiled as close as I could to the outlet. I measured and marked the tile that needed to go around the outlet and also the part that needed to go around the phone plate. Went to LOWE'S and started looking for the nice tile cutting kid. I didn't see him and I started to get a bad feeling. Another guy offered to help me. When I told him what to do he said, " I can only do eight cuts." "Pardon Me" actually I said "What?" Pardon me just sounds nicer. "Yeah, I can only do eight cuts". I told him the guy that did it the day before never mention anything about eight cuts. "Yeah, eight cuts and each cut is 25 cents". Another thing not mentioned to me when the first guy cut the tile. I argued a bit about the number of cuts. Kid #2 cuts some of the tile for me, but I could tell his heart wasn't in it. He handed me the cut tiles and a slip saying how much I owed. I was angry, he didn't do all the cuts I wanted. He stuck to his eight cuts so I thought screw you and I left with out paying for my eight cuts. I know, I'm evil! I decided at that point that I would buy a tile cutting contraption. They were many different ones to pick from. I of course chose the cheapest one. I took it home and followed the directions and it promptly ruined a sheet of tile. I took back the tile cutter and told them it ruined my tile so they gave me a new sheet. I went to the tile section hoping against hope that I would find my original tile cutting saint of a kid. Nope, no where in sight and I cursed myself for not noticing his name when he helped me that first day. I found another kid from the tile section and asked him if he could cut some tile for me. He looked at my marked tile and bugged his eyes out. "Wow, that's a lot of angles. I can't do all these angles". I asked him why it was a problem when the other kid cut them with no complaint or problem. "He shouldn't have cut the tile because we aren't supposed to do all these angles". Good Gravy kid, can you do it or not? I didn't say good gravy but I did ask him if he could cut it or what. He said he would try. He started cutting and then shows me that it isn't working very well. He was scoring into the tile past the mark for some reason. He claimed it was because he had a 4 inch blade and needed a bigger number blade. I don't remember the bigger number right now. When I left LOWE'S the kid had pretty much ruined the sheet of tile I gave him. There was no way I could use it. I called around to places in the yellow pages, trying to find some place that would cut this damn tile for me. After calling about ten places I found one that would do it. I dropped it off and they said I could get it the next day. I went to get the tile the next day and it was nicely cut just like I had marked it. The operative words are JUST LIKE I MARKED IT. When I got it home and held it up to the wall around the outlet, it didn't fit. I was a tiny bit off, just enough off to make it impossible to get the outlet cover to fit. My mind started scrambling. Why am I so stupid? Why can't I ever do anything the right way the first time?
After much agonizing over the tile and the outlet it was decided that the easiest way to fix it would be to cut the bottom of the outlet plate just a bit. So that is what was done. The toaster goes in front of that outlet anyway, no one will see it, and if you are ever at my house you are not allowed to look and see if it is noticeable or not.
I tiled the whole wall and was going to go over it with more grout like the instructions said to. I pulled out the stove, applied the grout and went to push the stove back in and it wouldn't fit. It was like I had entered the twilight zone or something. The stove was in its spot when I pulled it out, but it would physically not go back in its spot. I tried and I tried and got increaslingly angry and started to yell. Emily came down and thought she could magically make it fit. Nope, it just didn't line up anymore and the worst part is that my kitchen is so small that I couldnt even step back far enough to get a good look at it to see what was wrong. I had an idea that maybe the feet on the stove needed to be turned. I tilted the stove and had Emily try and turn the feet. "Ewww this is gross under here!" "Be Quiet and Turn the Feet Em!" I cleaned the floor under the stove, but I can't clean the underneath of the stove. The feet got turned and like a small miracle, the stove slid back in. Another crisis adverted.