Restless Knitter

My daughter and her husband have started their marriage off with a bang. Literally. Yesterday morning, while on his way to work, a woman pulled out in front of him and he hit her. I am so thankful Daughter wasn’t with him. Under normal circumstances, she and her husband ride to work together. She doesn’t normally wear a seat belt in the truck because she says she can’t breathe when she wears it. Yesterday, they drove separate because she was going to stay late at work. He left for work, she a couple of minutes later. Imagine her surprise of finding her hubby laying in the road. He wasn’t thrown from the truck. He was trying to get out of the truck to give whoever pulled out in front of him a piece of his mind. When he got out, he fell flat to the ground because his kneecap was up in his thigh and a tendon was torn loose from his knee, so he couldn’t walk. He was taken to Large Town for surgery because everyone knows you really don’t want Small Town doctors doing serious surgery. His surgery went fine and he’s going home today. From what she told me, they had to wire his kneecap together instead of using screws because the pieces were too small for screws. He’ll have to go to rehab, no heavy lifting for 6 months, and wear a brace for awhile. The woman wasn’t seriously injured surprisingly, and neither was her granddaughter, who was sitting on the passenger side in the back seat. And it turns out that she is the mother of one of the women my other daughter works with.
Several of you asked for pics of the bathroom. I made a hearty effort to get it finished by the weekend but it isn’t going to happen. There was just too much patching to be done. I took pictures so The Man could see that I haven’t sat on my ass the whole time he was gone. “See honey? See how hard I worked?” Tee hee. I really have been working though.

So, we get the first layer of wallpaper off, sans backing. It’s hard to tell in the picture (clicky for bigger) but the color of the backing wasn’t half bad. It toned down the tile color. In real life, the color on the top right wall (not the white corner where there is no paper) is about what it looks like. If I were staying, I would consider matching that color. Heck, I still might if the paints I bought to try don’t make me happy.

Then I attempt to get the backing off and discover more butterflies and flowers. I also find where they’ve cut into the wall,grrr.

This is what I was left with. A LOT of patching to do.

Wet or dry, drywall came off with some of the paper. I got all the patching done yesterday, then had to quit because I had to wait for it to dry, then it was too dark to work. Today I have been sanding my little heart out. While sanding I find small patches that I’ve missed so I have to stick more crap on the wall and wait for it to dry. Then I sand again and find more little spots. I think I’m getting way too picky. No more patching unless it’s a huge glaring spot. One more round of sanding those last patches, then I can prime the walls and paint. That all comes next week though. The Man is going to be home tonight and leaving again Sunday so I’m choosing to spend time with him instead.

This is supposed to be a knitting blog and I sure as heck haven’t been doing much knitting. I’m 6 rows (on each end, so I guess it’s really 12 rows) from getting to the point of doing the borders on the stole. I am determined that I am NOT going to start something else until I finish this thing. This has been a hard thing to stick to since I received a few more things from Donna. I am now the owner of some Knitpicks Alpaca Cloud in color Peppermint, and Shadow in color Jewels, and Heirloom Knitting by Sharon Miller. I really really really want to start knitting with those yarns and do some more in depth reading of the book. Again, not until the stole is finished.

So what do I do since I’m not enjoying working on the stole? I work on the butterfly bathroom, that’s what. The people before us like butterflies a lot. I can tell because there’s another layer of wallpaper with pink and blue butterflies. The good news is there aren’t any superglued seams. The bad news is that there are now large chunks of drywall missing. Well, maybe not chunks. I have tried every trick I know to get the paper off smoothly and nothing is working. The top layer of the drywall is coming off with some of the paper, and there are other places where the paper isn’t even attached to the wall. At this point, I’m almost tempted to hire someone to just replace the drywall and start from scratch. Especially after I found clear silicone on the wall where it meets the tile, with a short and curly trapped in it. Yuck!

The wedding went well. The only downer was the rain, which meant daughter couldn’t get the outside pictures she wanted. She made a beautiful bride. She told me about the crib shopping she and her new husband had been doing. He was shaking the beds to see which would be the sturdiest. A long time ago, I never would have seen him worrying about the sturdiness of a baby bed. They’ve both grown up a lot and I’m much more confident in them both than I had been in the past.

Like I said, this is supposed to be a knitting blog and since I’m not doing much knitting, I’m going to go MIA for a bit. Maybe once I get this bathroom done, I’ll have a renewed desire to finish the stole and start something new. I’ll still be keeping an eye on a few of you though, so behave yourselves!

I need suggestions on what to do with a bathroom. I’d say 90% of the rooms in this house are covered in wallpaper. Not all of them are fully wallpapered, some are papered at the bottom with paint at the top or have at least wallpaper borders. I’m going to guess that they’ve been that way for years before we moved in. We’ve done one bathroom and the color choices were easy, but this next one not so much. If you read the old blog, you may remember me complaining about it, and how long it took to redo it. I still swear someone used superglue to get the edges to lay flat.

Now it’s time to tackle another bathroom. I’m sure orange butterflies were all the rage at some point, but now they are a bit outdated. So take a look at these and give me ideas. The wall tile looks like an orange-ish tan color in real life.

Here’s the view from the hall.

Here we have a close-up of a lovely orange-brown butterfly and the awful grout color. That’s not dirt, it’s the actual color. I guess it was meant to hide dirt?

Why did they take the tile so far out past the tub? To me, it looks weird when it only goes behind part of the tank. If they’d ended the wall tile at the tub edge, I think I could’ve hidden it with a shower curtain and had an easier time of selecting a paint color.

The color of the floor tile doesn’t actually match the wall tile.

I don’t really want to paint the room white because I don’t like white walls, but if that’s the only thing that will work that’s what I’ll do. I’d like to give it some color, but I don’t know what color is going to go with those tiles that isn’t orange or brown. If I were going to stay here, I’d rip all those tiles off the wall and replace them with white ones. However, since we’re going to be selling the house within a year, I want to make it look nicer with the least amount of work. So, give me suggestions on how to bring this room up to date, even if it is just ripping off the paper (please don’t let there be more superglue) and painting it white. Would it be worth it to take out those columns of tile that extend so far out or should I just leave well enough alone and let the new owners decide what to do with it? Will white make those tiles more of an eyesore?

I don’t have anything interesting but here I am posting anyway. Highlights since I last posted:

Daughter spent a week. We went shopping because I’m a bit of a procrastinator and still hadn’t bought something to wear to other daughter’s wedding.

The Man left on Saturday for 2 weeks at the new job. He’ll be flying to Small Town for the wedding this weekend so I won’t have to wait 2 weeks to see him. Frozen pizza has already been consumed.

My birthday was yesterday. The Man bought a new coat for me before he left. Donna sent birthday gifts my way which included some great candles, bath stuffs, and a knitting magazine.

My brother and his girlfriend have decided to get married 2 weeks after daughter. Another trip to Small Town. I may buck up and take a flight for that one. More likely, I’ll check into taking a bus.

I haven’t knit much. I’m still working on that darned mystery stole and I am SO sick of it. I want it done but I don’t want to work on it anymore. I’ve tried to stick to knitting 4 rows a day, 2 on each end, so it will eventually get done. I want to start something else but I don’t know what.