Seeking Advice: Painting, Dog Toys & Patio Sets
Painting: Yesterday I decided to paint a wall red. Loaded the kids up, bought the paint (which involved arguing with the paint guy at Lowes over whether or not I needed primer and I left without the primer) and waited for Addy’s nap. I figured I’d tape off, paint in a few minutes and be done. Ha. Hahahaha.
I should have bought the primer. Mental note: $17 is not too much to spend to save time!!!!!!!!!!
I finished my third coat last night at 1am. Which, can I just say, is annoying since each coat took roughly 20 minutes from set up to clean up. So most of my day was spent waiting for paint to dry. And now I remember why I hate painting so much. The project never ends! And I don’t mind painting but I HATE the cleanup.
Another lesson learned: taking pictures of a bare wall is HARD! I took probably 10 dumb pictures of my dumb painted wall and this is the only one that comes close to showing the true paint color. The rest are way brighter than the actual color. It is a brick red, the adjacent walls are beige/lt tan.
And can I just brag that I did not spill ANY paint on my carpet at all?!?! I also got pretty straight ceiling and floorboard lines, decent lines in the corner and pretty shitty lines on the outside edge (not shown! Haha) but I smudged paint on that bit of wall between the red and the door - do you see it? I DO!
Unfortunately, I don’t think I’m done despite the fact that this one wall took almost an entire gallon of paint. I like the one wall but think I need more. I can’t decide if I want to do the wall adjacent in red also or if I want to extend the current wall across the room and into my livingroom. Thoughts? And now that it has color, what else do I put on this wall?!?! Have I mentioned that interior decorating = NOT my forte?
Dog Toys: my dog LOVES them but lacks some fundamental retriever tendencies. She spends great amounts of time chewing them but little time fetching. That’s ok. What I need are indestructible dog toys. She seems to NOT lack a fundamental “kill and destroy” tendencies when it comes to toys and will literally sit and chew until a brand new toy is demolished. We bought a “solid core” toy this weekend and that is now shredded in pieces around my livingroom. What dog toys exist that keep the interest of the dog but are NOT single-use?!?!
Patio Set: Tony bought me an awesome one last year for my birthday and I love it but it is covered in algae from the “rainy season” here in Houston. This algae business is new to me. We didn’t have this issue in Michigan. I remember when we first moved here my neighbor was outside powerwashing her driveway and I thought she must be very yard-oriented to spent her day doing something like that. I had never even seen a power sprayer in use other than by contractors before that! Now I get it: power sprayers here are like snowplows in Michigan! You need them to spray the hell out of the crap that accumulates. Hm. So my question is: can you powerspray the algae off outdoor cushions too? I have tried Tilex on them, I have tried the Magic Eraser. They are squishy (think couch cushions) so I am at a loss for how to get them clean. PLEASE! I want to get out there and enjoy the weather before it’s 150 out again.
Today’s goals:
- Hammer up door trim in playhouse
- Finishing painting playhouse ceiling
- Get Noah a haircut and go meet some hedgehogs
- Purge my cookbooks and teas
- Work on Addy’s old clothes
- Do Addy’s laundry
- Read another few beads of Eat, Pray, Love
February 20th, 2008 at 10:48 am
The wall looks great! We love having a “red room” in all the houses we’ve lived in. It’s supposed to inspire passion, so we always save it for our bedroom (ever hopeful;) - hahaha! Just kidding. About the dog toys…definitely have advice there, since we always had to buy special indestructable bulldog toys. There’s a brand called “KONG” that are totally impossible to destroy, even for a bulldog. They’re thick rubber, and many have holes you can put peanut butter or treats inside that’ll keep the dog entertained for awhile, plus feel good on their gums to chew.
February 20th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
I second the Kong advice; they’re great and we’ve got a destroyer, too. These: http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2750604&cp=2767032.2767084&fbn=Taxonomy%7CToys&f=Taxonomy%2FPET%2F2767084&fbc=1&parentPage=family&keepsr=1
February 20th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
hmmmm….so, you need primer, hmmmm…man, had you heard that from anyone other than the Lowe’s person.? Just wondering of course…if anyone else had told you that you do need a primer. Primer, what a novel concept, I’ll have to remember that. Because, I never knew that…
February 20th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Hahaha! Shut up. Its ok, don’t hold back now Missy. You can say “I told you so!”
February 20th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
So we live in your same town, and get the black/green algae thing too, and we have always just power washed our patio furniture, but it isn’t like a cushion, they are just like sling chairs, but that was my first thought when you mentioned the algae. Gotta love the power sprayer and most of all the humidity.
February 20th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
I LOVE the wall! And our dogs cannot have squeek toys, one or two of them will get a hold of them and within an hour they no longer squeek! So I totally understand the whole dog toy dilema! Can’t help with the patio set but good luck there!
February 20th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
Hahahaa! I told you so I told you so I told you so!!!!
But it looks really good, honestly. And, btw, we LOVE our pressure washer. Green algae is the snot of hell. Seriously! We don’t have, nor have we ever, owned a snow blower. But, I’d truly devastated if something happened to my pressure washer! You live in the South now hon! You need a pressure washer. And not some wimpy one either! A brand new pressure washer is as purty as a speckled pup in a red wagon! (Just thought I throw that little bit of southern out there to spur you on!)
February 20th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
As to indestructable dog toys…we used to have a Bouvier who had what seemed like bionic jaws. We gave her a nylabone which the package said was indestructable, but she chewed through in a matter of days. So, we send the pieces back to the company, nicely pointing out that it wasn’t really indestructable. They sent back a new bone with a note about the strenth of our dog’s jaws. The new bone, also by nylabone, was called a Galileo bone…named after some of Galileo’s anatomical drawings, perhaps? Anyway, that bone was indestructable. It took her a good 7 years to gnaw it down to a point where we had to throw it away. We had to special order her a new one from our pet supply store, but it lasted the rest of her life. It was the ONLY bone that she didn’t destroy in days.
February 20th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
Love the red wall. I totally stink at decorating (usually paint the same room 3 times before we find a color we actually like!) so I’m no help there…
On the dog toys… our collie can check through anything (and pretty much chews everything in site, including our couch!) but she has one toy, a sheepskin “gingerbread man” like this one: http://www.petco.com/product/6060/Pooch-Pleasers-Sheepskin-Dog-Toys.aspx that she has never torn, even a little. It’s boring to look at but she loves the thing - even sleeps with it like a teddy bear!
February 20th, 2008 at 9:51 pm
If you would have asked before, I would have told you that red must have a primer. We painted our kitchen in Austin red and the primer was purple and I thought the Home Depot man was crazy, but turns out, he knew what he was talking about. I actually like the accent wall by itself. I think it would still look great with another wall red, but I think it stands out more on its own. Is the wall completely bare or is there some furniture against it?
February 20th, 2008 at 10:17 pm
Its completely bare. Its the wall that acts as the “hallway” sort of between our living room, past our dining rom and into our kitchen. So there is no way to put furniture on that wall or it would block the walkway into the kitchen. Ideas?
That’s crazy about the purple but it makes sense! By the way, purple is my next wall color (probably in my bedroom) - I wonder if I should use a red primer?!? lol
February 20th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
I love the red wall. It is hard to paint that color. We helped paint my brother & sister-in-laws bedroom red. I was glad when it was done.
I would put a black and white photo of the kids or one of Vietnam. Either one big one or maybe a few large photos. I love close up black and white shots in a 11×13 size. I just get mine printed from shutterfly.com I think it’s 7.99 for a 11×13 print.
February 23rd, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Kongs! They are the only ones Falcor can’t destroy.
Love the red!! Our front hallway is red and the dining room bottom half is going to be red. Its a Laura Ashley color called Summer Pudding. You would probably really like it.
Maybe Oxy Clean for the patio stuff???