I hope they were the last ones, anyway. Seems there are always more lying in wait for me somewhere...
Several commenters jumped at the concept of Paint Camp the other day and even offered some other useful variations, such as laundry camp and housework camp and (my favorite) pooper-scooper camp. I admire your enthusiasm, ladies. I'm thinking we need to start a franchise.
Brian and I painted the kitchen cabinet frames and doors today in Paint Camp. Green Girl in Wisconsin pointed out in the comments that the problem with painting is that it never ends -- there's ALWAYS something else to paint. I'm here to affirm that she is correct. Today was supposed to be kitchen cabinets. But then I realized that we needed to do the baseboards and shoe-molding, too. AND I finally had a chance to paint the bare wood parts of the pantry that no one could see until the pantry door fell off a few years ago.
We have a problem with doors, by the way.
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| Don't be fooled - this door refuses to remain upright. |
Oh, well, I'll just add them to the list.
Although, really, the one in the front hall has taken after its predecessor and insists on falling out whenever it feels like it. So maybe I won't bother. Maybe I'll just get rid of it. I don't need no stinkin' door. How about a storage bench at the bottom of the open closet for shoes and umbrellas and all the other stuff instead? And I could tear out the closet rod and mount several hooks on the back wall for coats and such. Because heaven forbid ANYONE in this house learn how to use a hanger...
Hanging up clothes? Is that an activity for Laundry Camp?
Maybe you could just give up and hang some nice curtains there instead. We have a problem with faucet handles. At our last house we finally resorted to using vice grips to turn our tub on and off, in both bathrooms. We could just never find quite the right parts to fix it. At our new house the first thing I did was repair the leaking faucets, twice. Now they don't leak but they are so hard to turn that we have broken the handles, twice. Now I'm turning them on and off with, yep...pliers.
ReplyDeleteNo escaping destiny, I'm thinking...
DeleteDoors are a problem at our house, too, except our problem isn't so much painting as it is the fact that they won't CLOSE. Cabinet doors, closet doors, bedroom doors... all of the above tend to creak open at odd times around here. I'd blame the drought, because when the space under our house flooded all the doors magically started closing properly again, but that's really not a valid excuse when some doors don't even have latches...
ReplyDeleteHubby hired a painter to do the outside of the house last September. He is almost done. A carpenter had to replace a lot of the soffits and some of the other trim near the roof so the gutters that fell of previously could either be rehung or replaced... Almost doe, as soon as we decide what we want on the living room floor, we can have the carpenter replace the sheets of plywood screwed down there. Those darn termites, chewing up the floor joists and some of the wall joists in the NW corner of the room It's been 6 years since the floor joists were replaced and new studs were sistered next to the old wall studs. :P
ReplyDeleteWe have a hole in our dining room floor that we refuse to fix, as that would entail refinishing the floor in both the dining room and living room. No way we want a newly refinished floor for the children to wreck up! Better that we just nail a piece of plywood over the hole and wait 10 years.
DeleteI'm currently ignoring the peeling paint in our bathroom and the strange holes created by home-owning handymen (mine and the one who lived here before us). Our linen closet door was nailed shut about 2 years ago. I suppose you could try that technique if you were really desperate.
ReplyDeleteThe thing about "it never ends" unfortunately applies to more than paint. I remember a George Carlin routine I heard years ago called The Secret News where he whispered all these truths about the world, big and small, and one of them was "Your house will never be clean." Somehow that freaked me out and gave me comfort at the same time.
ReplyDeleteI like your idea for your hall closet. A few of my neighbors did exactly that. I can't guarantee that kids will get their coats on the hooks and shoes where they need to go, though. So that may not work if you like to close the door and hide the unruly coats, shoes and stuff. But my neighbors say it works for them.
ReplyDeleteSince I can't get the door to stay closed, the bench idea is the next best alternative. But, yeah, 20 years of parenting has effectively disabused me of the notion that shoes and such will actually end up where they are supposed to be.
DeleteI have those sort of bifold doors, too. Though my main problem is that they are not catproof and every so often in the middle of the night I am awoken by a rattle-rattle-sproing as the cat suddenly HAS TO KNOW what's inside. (It's always the same, but he wants to be sure.)
ReplyDeleteAre the doors popping open because there is too much crap in the closet pressing against the doors so are being pushed out? Or is it that the door comes out of it's track? For the second problem, the door may need adjustment (http://www.hometips.com/repair-fix/bifold-doors.html). For the first problem...well, if the closet is too shallow to hang things on hangars and still keep the door closed, then your hooks and bench idea is the way to go (maybe shelves, or cubbies for shoes and boots?). If the closet is deep enough but just overfull- well, hooks may still be the only way to prevent it getting over-full!
We had put folding doors for the kid's closet doors when we remodeled their rooms. They kept falling off and trying to kill the kids though so I had to just take them down.
ReplyDeleteI swear, everywhere I turn, it's Christmas in July--at my house, at your house and at the local mattress discount place (the sale flyer confirmed this).
ReplyDeleteIf you transform the closet, you could just put all the contents on the chair with the hand-me-down plastic containers.
Which is why I intend to retire to a yurt when the kids move out...all the dang work!
ReplyDelete