More interiors

We've come a long way with the interior --shortly after I posted the last update, we went on a "shakedown trip" - usually these are a short camping trip of a weekend to see how things work - ours ended up being 1024 miles with friends.  But Stardust performed beautifully, and we found out a few things that we know we want to do.

First of all, we took the camper to get it weighed. We wanted to be sure we weren't overloading it - it came in at 1520#.  I was hoping for 1200#, so a little heavier than I wanted. But I was also thinking that we had a limit of 1720, which our camper payload is listed at.  Then I got reading, and realized that the trailer itself weighs around 270#, and our total can be closer to 2000# when you combine the payload + trailer weight.  So we are closer to our 1200# than I thought. So all is good.  Which was nice, because I still had things to add --

So in the time since we returned, I've wallpapered:

this was some 1990s wallpaper I got in Indiana at a thrift store.  It's a dark hunter green, which works well with our general theme.  It also keeps it from being overly bright inside -- since all the woodwork is a creamy off-white.

Then I built in some more cabinets.  We realized that it's nice to have things back near the door, and the refrigerator counter was becoming a catch-all.  Building in a shallower shelf there made sense, so I added that.  When it came time to put the door on, I was concerned that it would: a. hit the curtain rod (that I haven't put up yet) and b. cause us to clear off the counter every time we needed to open the cabinet door.  Dale suggested using a slide, which was a great idea.  So that's what I did:

We had just changed out all the drawer slides under the sink - the wooden ones were not working well, even though we waxed them, they kept sticking, so we replaced them with drawer slides.  So we were happy with the slide action, and the new cabinet door works great.





I also picked up some small shelves - one from my friend Stacy, pictured above -- that will hold small bottles of paint -- and the one  over the sink, from a thrift store in Utah.




The sink area looks good - the shelf will hold hand soap, washcloths, other 'sink stuff" or anything else I can think of. I like the hooks also, for holding a variety of hats, towels, etc.






We also added a hook inside the door to hold keys for all the locks - the battery box, the "bee box" lock, the lock for the hitch, etc. This way, they're all right there inside the door.  The door itself needs some detailing - I'm thinking of adding a couple of shallow long bins for misc. things that we can just reach over and get -- putting our phones in, things we don't want to climb all the way in for.


I got the doors under the bed made finally -- and now the cabinetry is pretty much complete.  I still need to add knobs and touch up the paint.  The benches are dirty from us climbing on them to get various bits painted, patched, nailed  - they need another coat of paint.  I picked up some foam to make seat cushions, and I got fabric this week so I can get those sewed up. The lids on both seats lift for more storage underneath.  Under the bed we will be putting in our water tank - it's small, I think only 5 gallons, and then we'll run plumbing.  Mostly, it will be used to store our major large items, like chairs, blankets, canopy, etc.  I want to get a piece of carpet to fit the floor under there so things won't slide around too much.  

The view from the doorway is looking good:

Still a bit to go. I have some shelves to make for over the back window and over each side of the bed, I need to paint the inside of the window frames and some trim around the back window  I need to add curtains on this window as well, as well as make screens for all the windows.  I also need to add a threshhold.



We also have more bits and pieces for the outside - I picked up bumper stickers at all of the places we've gone to so far, and they are above the electrical box outside.  I think that'll be fun to add to as we go.  I also picked up a carriage style lamp for the outside, and I have to get that wired for 12v.



And of course, I have a ton of flowers, butterflies, birds and other nature stuff to paint inside!  Now that everything is all clean and white, it's my perfect blank canvas.  The inside will get as decorated as the outside soon!

So the inside is coming along. I am looking forward to some trips with just Dale and I - it's really a great size for just the two of us!  Another thing we want to do is have an 'open house' - our neighbors have been wondering what the heck we have been working on in the backyard, and I think having it open for a tour would be a lot of fun!

Back to the vardo -- and back to the garden!

We are working on our vardo again - - now that the school year is finished, I am looking forward to summer and going out exploring, and I want our little vardo complete.  We got the truck lights installed the other day, and this week I've been working on the outside, hoping to get the paint job finished and a few more outside details.  But first, juts got this ladder done this morning:

This is where our name for the vardo - "Stardust" - comes from.  It's a line from Joni Mitchell's song 'Woodstock' - and this is the refrain.  I also have Hoagy Carmichael's song "Stardust" in mind, but this is the one I think of first.

Besides this little ladder that will help us get in, I also built a couple of pieces this week for storage, first, a battery box that looks like a barrel:

It has a shelf that you can't see, and the batteries fit inside easily.  I want to get a couple of leather belts to make straps across the ends, and I've still got to get this one painted with some flowers and stencils, but it's good to go.

The other thing I made was a box on the deck for cooking supplies:  it'll hold a propane camp stove, a couple of bottles of propane, and some skillets and utensils.  Here's how that looks:

That one was made with leftover furniture parts.  It will hold a lot.

After I got that done, I decided to work on the paint job on the outside, and also the back deck.  Got that done this morning (the deck, the sides needs a couple more days).  So it looks pretty spiffy from the back:

(Luna enjoys laying on the deck)

The sides still need work but they're getting there:

The green man on both sides looked a little stark, so I gave them a green glaze and now they fit in much better, but this picture I took before that.  

So today, we begin working on the inside!  I need to get us a nice comfy place to sleep!

Detail painting

This past couple of weeks I've been doing some small bits and pieces, but mostly doing detail painting on the vardo trim.  I got the top borders painted

along with the soffit underneath.  First, I made a set of stamps for the leaves:

so I went all around the vardo on my scaffolding, stamping the leaves arcross the black boards, then I added the rest of the flowers.

Finally, I gave it all a quick coat of clear acrylic.  I had done that on the roof, and it makes it so much easier just to brush dirt off.

Then this past week, I decided to do the black part under the ledges as well.  I started by stenciling in gold, then went through the same process with leaf stamps and flowers.

I finished this off with a quick coat of clear acrylic as well.  I'm really happy with the way these came out. Subtle but at least there's something going on down in this area.

We also got the top windows installed, and got catches to hold them closed.

We moved it off the driveway in front of the garage to the backyard, because this week, we're having Parker coming to visit!  He needs all that area for playing with his trucks, his train and his batman car!

Today, we went to the beach and went on a whale-watching cruise. We didn't see any whales, but we did have fun on the boat ride and also we saw a lot of dolphins!  We all have sunburns now that our day is over, but we had a good time.  Tomorrow it the San Diego Zoo!

Getting a new roof on the house -- and painting doors

The news has been full of predictions for a "godzilla el nino" this year - hopefully meaning that we'll catch up on rain to end this drought we've been in out here in California.  But that's also got a downside for us - we knew we needed a new roof, because we've got a leak right over the patio doors.  Being that it doens't rain but maybe twice a year in the past year, it wasn't a big rush. But if we're looking at a lot of rain.....

So this week the roofers came.  In preparation, we had to empty the garage (the slats on the roof have slight spaces between each slat, and when they take the roof off, it's gonna pour down a lot of dust and crumbs from the roof), and move the vardo. It's been in front of the garage, and that's where they need to dump all the roof they tear off.  So we packed everything up out of the garage, and prepared to roll the vardo into the larger part of the background - only to find that the lemon tree was blocking us.  So we had to cut that down.  It was something we were going to do anyway, but we got that started. 

In preparation for having no work to do on that for a week, I gave the door parts three coats of red paint. I bought a sample of a nice, vibrant red -- too red, actually, but I knew I'd be 'antiquing' it, so going a little bright is fine.  My plan was to learn how to do "one stroke" flowers, and also figure out some stencil patterns, along with adding some birds.  I love birds. 

So here it is!  This is after painting all the details, then giving it a coat of varnish to protect the paint, then giving it a coat of black paint, wiping off as I go so that it just collects in the corners and edges, and tones down the vibrant color.  This is both pieces laid out together on the concrete so I could see how they work together.

The blank space above the windows is going to have a mosaic embedded in it -- I'm thinking it'll be buttons, which I have a ton of.


I cut a few stencils from some blank stencil plastic, and I also purchased a few different stencils. I'm going to be covering this whole thing with a ton of embellishment, so having a lot of choices was important.

Like I said, I like birds. I gave Dale two choices, he chose blue jay and cardinal, and I chose crow and seagull.  The cardinal posed a little problem - the bird is about the same color red that I painted the doors, so I had to add a blue background.  My favorite is the blue jay, it came out nice, and I really love crows, so that one makes me happy, too.  Both of the stencils on this picture are ones I cut.

 

On the top, I practiced my flower skills. I have another large area that is going to have flowers, so I wanted to practice a bit on this. I watched some videos and looked at some how-tos online, and got painting.  One night, it was so incredibly hot while I was painting (we had a mini-heat wave), and I was trying to keep a fan on me, but it was drying the paint out so fast.  Anyway, I got that all done.  After I antiqued the red, I gave it two coats of clear poly to protect it against weather and wear.

 

So I still need to drill for a doorknob and get the hinges on -- the hinges will cover some of the flowers and paint, but that's OK -- I wanted it pretty busy so it'll all work out fine!

Boy, are we tired!

Well, we worked our butts off today, trying to get the living room near completion.  We actually hit almost all of our goals today, which is great.  We finished the coffered ceiling trim, we got the ceiling re-painted (we had done it in semi-gloss, and I hated it, so another coat of Swiss Coffee, this time flat), caulked, Dale skim coated the wall of the sliding glass window and I finished painting the shelves!  woo hoo!

The only thing we were thinking we might get to today was to install the TV/electronics, but we decided to go out for dinner and take a hot shower instead.  We figure we'll be ready to do something in the morning. 

I do love it with the pocket door closed!  We still have a stupid place holder light fixture in the middle of the room -- we want to put a ceiling fan in, but we have so many other things to worry about that we are going to wait on that for a bit.  Oh, and the recessed lights we had to pull down to paint around, I want to check out paint job in the morning.  Painting a flat coat on top of a gloss coat - hard to tell what's been painted and what got missed, especially with the lights glaring right in our eyes!























I am so ready to get my boxes of books unpacked and fill the shelves, but I want to let the paint cure for a week or so.  Books are heavy and I don't want them to mess up the paint job.  That was 1 coat of primer and 3 coats of topcoat -- I do NOT want to paint that again. 


I do still have some touch ups of the ceiling trim- I got 2 coats on today, but they could use a third.  So in the morning, we'll touch up and then get some stuff moved back in, although we still have walls to work on.

The biggest project in here that we still have left is doing something with this fireplace.  We are actually going to skim coat the top half and then plaster it so it is smooth, and then retile the bottom half with some ledger stone.  I would LOVE to find a really nice set of fireplace doors that fit the opening -- I'll have to keep my eyes out for those.  I've seen beautiful cast iron ones, but they're probably way outside what I'd like to pay.  Once we decide on what kind of stone to put on the fireplace, I'm also going to tile over the brick hearth.  Probably travertine or slate, but we'll see how that goes.

This spring we hope to get the french doors put in to replace the slider.  We removed most of the trim from the slider before Dale redid the wall, so it should be a pretty simple affair to take the slider out.  We are going to go ahead and trim out the doorway so it looks finished, it'll be pretty simple to take the trim down to replace the door when we're ready to do that.

Well, hot showers and putting our feet up.  I think tonight's the last night we'll have our giant TV at the foot of the bed!  I look forward to getting my bedroom back!

Here kitty, kitty

I was at the art supply store a couple of months ago, and I saw these little canvases for under a dollar each -- they are 4 x 4 inches, and I bought six of them.  I decided I wanted to paint a little series of portraits of Persephone for the kitchen - because she's black and white and she matches the tile!

 

When I lived in Indianapolis, I had a few favorite works at the IMA (the Indianapolis Museum of Art), and some of those were a couple of small portraits done by Cornielle de Lyon, a Dutch portrait  painter who worked in the 1500's.  This reproduction from the IMA's website is a bit dark:

But what I love about these -- apart from the size, they're fairly small -- is the lovely green background and finely painted details.  So that's my inspiration.  I captured the face of Miss Persephone in different views, and decided to do four of them.  Another thing I loved about the Cornielle deLyon portraits is the varnish, it makes the colors glow, so I put several coats of spar varnish on these, which will also help protect them since they're close to the stove.

 

The green is much more vivid than the walls, but goes wellwith them.  And I decided to make simple lath frames, nailed to the wooden stretchers.  That way they go well with the hanging wooden spoons.

I came home from class one night and just worked on them until I finished around midnight.  Varnished them and the next morning made frames.  They are really great, and I think they're the perfect addition.  However, Mercury is a little sulky, so it looks like I've got a portrait of him to paint in my future.

Finally....the hall way

I've been really busy this past month or two -- trips to Florida and Indiana and New York, and then having to get everything else all caught up after I returned, so home upgrades have had to take a back seat.  We are leaving this week for another trip as well, so this will be the last upgrade we'll be making in 2012!

Although we got the bathroom all finished way back in spring, we never quite finished the outside part of the wall where the pocket door fit.  To get the pocket door frame in, we ended up having to partly demolish the hall wall.  We also had to remove a light switch from that wall and relocate it across the hall, which actually was a great thing, since it was hard to get to the switch in the dark hall!

This is what it's been looking like for the past year:

 

obligatory cat pose

and with the pocket door closed:

 

I have to remind you that the whole house was painted this tan with creamy white trim.  They had paid professional painters to come in, so although I hated the color, it was nicely done.  But I can't take all this tan.....

So - to replace this section, we had to temporarily screw a board to the opening that matched the level of the existing hall wall on the other side of the massive hole.  Then it required 3 coats of plaster, the first brown coat over metal mesh:

 

That dried for about a week, then the next coat, the brown coat over that scratch coat:

 

 That took another week to cure (well, it probably didn't need a week in between each coat, but with the mess and all, we only worked on the weekends).  Luckily, Dale is a plasterer with over 20 years of experience, so he knows what he's doing.

Then this week, a finish plaster coat that brought it up level with the wall:

 

Then it's my turn to sand, prime and paint.  And also put in crown molding at the top and new baseboard at the bottom.  And now it looks like this:

so smooth and nice!

I painted this hall the same color as the front hall -- I really like how cheerful it is.  I added some silhouettes I had in a previous house onto the wall across from the bathroom:

But I have a large, blank wall to finish.  I had originally planned on putting this wall graphic I bought - it's a tree with birds in it -- but when I got it out to work with it, it is WAY too small.  I will probably move my Chinese checkerboards over here after the start of the new year, because we will be taking down the wall that has them on it.  So -- it will have to remain blank for a little bit!

I am so relieved to have this done!  It's been an eyesore for so long, and we have some friends coming to stay while we're out of town, and I was a little embarrassed that they'd see our unfinished wall!

So - January will begin with a trip to Hawaii (a conference, but really we're turning it into a vacation, too!), and then getting started on our biggest project, a complete kitchen remodel!