huagl – Page 10 – Crafts, Cats, and Occasionally Cursing

Adventures in DIY-ing

When we realised we were going to move, Ben mentioned that he was probably going to get rid of the bookshelf he had inherited from his parents when they moved a few years ago. I may have busted out the puppy dog eyes when he said that and walked over to give it a consoling pat. I liked that bookshelf, and we’d actually be able to use the trunk at the bottom now that Max’s record player wasn’t resting on the lid.

It was looking a bit sad, though. We hadn’t given it the best treatment, and said record player had left some scratches on the lid of the trunk, which were pretty obvious because of the stained finish. But I am a hoarder by nature, and I was going to have to give up my computer desk, so I claimed the bookshelf as my own. It’s nothing a coat of paint (or many coats, which is more likely) won’t fix. Or at least the paint will cover up the little things. I’ve decided painting it all white, with a bright teal-y colour on the back of the inside of each shelf (or maybe a different colour on each shelf?) is what I am going to try and accomplish.

The thing is though, that I’ve never done any of this kind of stuff. Either my parents would take over these things, or I just didn’t care enough to want to paint any of my furniture. Besides, my bookshelf at home came from The Reject Shop and was made of chipboard, so it’s not like painting it was going to make it look any better than it already was. So I’m kind of making this up as I go along. I mean, I read a few home improvement blogs, so it shouldn’t be that hard to extrapolate from what I’ve read these people do. I mean, it’s not rocket science, right? I figured I’d sand the thing back first. I was tempted to just pant the thing straight away because I am an instant gratification kind of person, but then I figured if I’m going to do this then I’d do it properly. It’s not like I have anything other than free time during the days anyway. So I went to Mitre 10, got absolutely no help from the people working there, grabbed some sandpaper in varying degrees of coarseness, and today decided to get to work. So far I’ve sanded the back of the thing and the sides, and my arm hurts. Also there is dust everywhere and I probably should have gotten a mask to wear so I didn’t inhale it as much as I have now. Ah well, hindsight is 20/20, no use dwelling on the past and all those clichés.

Scout has been very unimpressed by the noise and mess of the sanding and subsequent vacuuming of the dust. She has been sleeping/hiding behind the boxes I put on the bed “just for the moment” and giving me sneaky glares when I look over at her. I worry about how she’s going to deal when I start painting. Hopefully she doesn’t try and walk on it, because it would be just my luck to have to explain paint tracked on the carpet.

So yes, I am on my way to being a person who actually makes things how I want them to be, rather than dealing with it our of fear that I’m going to mess things up. After this I want to repaint the big white cabinet and give it some punches of colour like the bookshelf, and also paint my new computer desk and cover the laminated chipboard parts with material. One day we might even go get some proper wood to replace those bits. For ages I have had the mindset that I don’t want to make changes to the furniture we have, or buy certain things, because we’re renting and it might not fit in when we inevitably move to a new place. But recently I realised how defeatist that attitude is, when it should be that big a deal. I should be seizing the moment rather than regretting giving away something because I didn’t like its colour or buying something I didn’t love because it was a safe choice. Life is too short for living in the middle ground.

I just went and looked at the main blog I read and they had a post specifically about painting furniture and what to do. It seems my sandpaper is a bit too fine, but I don’t know if it will make that much difference, really. I just didn’t realise there were so many steps in the process! Sanding, then primer, then paint (thin coats! lots of them!), perhaps some sort of sealant for extra protection, and leaving it for ages just in case before putting the stuff back on the shelves. It’s going to take forever! I probably should have looked at that first, huh? I’ll make sure to do a proper before and after post when it’s all done so I can show off my new skills, I promise.

Still Alive

Hello! Ben and I moved last Friday and the internet wasn’t connected up until today, so I’ve been trying to limit my internetting to social media through my phone and otherwise keeping myself entertained without being online. It was so hard. We both got bored; it got to the point that I searched for our tv cable to see if I could hook it up. Thankfully for our sanity the cable we had wasn’t the right one, or I’d have started watching Big Brother and Ben would have had to kill me. I would’ve understood. Hell, I’d probably have done the same thing to him. I have to try and organise the boxes and tidy up a bit before I can take photos of the place full of furniture, but that will probably be over the weekend. In the mean time you get to see the photos I took while it was still empty.

So this is our new place. We’re unit 1, so we have the front half of the bottom floor; my new computer desk is on the other side of those big windows.

This is from the lounge room, which shows the tiny little kitchen. We had to put the fridge on that wall next to the phone for the door buzzer which doesn’t work. You can also see the little dining nook and the weird light fittings that hopefully we’re going to change soon.

This is the bedroom. These photos makes it look tiny, but it’s actually huge, just with a weird layout. Both rooms are pretty dang big, really, but this one looks so much bigger with furniture in it. Scout tried to climb up the fireplace the day we moved in, so that got blocked quick smart. I thought it was blocked up, but we can hear the wind whistling down the chimney, so we put an old whiteboard over the opening and have it held in place by the top of the bed. The bed fits perfectly along that textured part of the wall, so it works quite well, really.

The bathroom is probably my least favourite part of the place, asthetically. It’s so brown. The tiny cabinet, the cream toilet and bath, with the beigey brown tiles and the brown glass shower screen makes it ridiculously dated. It’s big too, our last bathroom was smaller than this one, but it’s just so brown. Ben is happy because even though the bath is pretty small it’s deep enough that he can still kinda fit in it. He agrees that it’s an ugly bathroom, though.

I didn’t realise this earlier, but I just wanted to say sorry about all the wonky angles of the walls and all that, I took these photos quickly the day we signed the lease so I could notice anything to put on the condition report. I will make good use of my tripod’s spirit level so hopefully the place doesn’t look as wonky when I take proper photos of the place. I still think that there are a number of strange angles in the house that even a level isn’t going to help.

So that’s the place. I love the big windows (Ben doesn’t like that we’re on street level so people walking past can look in our house; I don’t care), the double glazing on the windows makes living right under the flight path not too bad, and we have an air conditioner unit in each of the main rooms. Summer is going to be glorious; at the moment I am enjoying that the bedroom aircon blows right on my computer desk, because it’s freezing in here and I need the heater. We’re super close to the train station, but on a nice wide quiet street, and there’s a good supermarket nearby. We’re one stop away from Newtown, Petersham is a short walk away and Marrickville is a quick bus ride away. It’s really well positioned, and I’m looking forward to settling in properly and making it our own. Now I just have to find a good place to take self portraits around here.

What I wore – Packing Chic

The last outfit post I did had me dressed up nicely, but this outfit is what I’m more likely to wear on a daily basis. In fact most people I have spent time with would have seen me in this exact outfit. Sorry for not being that adventurous with my clothes, guys. I took these photos for a few reasons, rather than just to show I am unimaginative with my clothes. I wanted to try out the tripod and camera remote I bought for my birthday, as well as show off my freshly dyed hair while it was still straight.

The tripod worked well enough, I mean there’s not much to it really, but the remote was a bit hit-and-miss. It was a cheapy to begin with, but I think that the battery that came with it was rubbish and almost flat as soon as I thought about using it. That meant most of my photos ended up looking like this:

Attractive, aren’t I? The outfit is nice and comfortable, which came in handy as I packed up our extra glasses and mugs. I don’t know why we have wine glasses when neither of us drink wine, but they’re all in boxes now. The extra mugs are still in the cupboard but wrapped up in newspaper. Packing is a process, ok? It was probably a bit too cold for short sleeves in our house, so most of the time I had a jumper on over my jumper, but I didn’t mind. This top is a bit nicer than a t-shirt and hoodie, so I feel less slobby when I wear something like this.

I managed to get some nice photos of the gradient in my hair, thankfully. I would have been annoyed if all that hard work resulted in those dumb photos. I got Anna (my hairdresser for colouring) to do my roots a bit darker and leave the orange a bit lighter so the change was more noticeable. I am really liking this effect at the moment, so I might keep it going for a while. That means keeping my hair long, though, so I might change my mind when the weather warms up. I might be able to keep the gradient on the longer bits when I get the angled bob I normally do, but if not it would mean going back to plain red, which I can probably deal with.

This is the longest my hair has been since I cut it short the first time, and I don’t know if I like it or not. This length when it’s curly, is ok, I can deal with it, but I don’t know if I want it any longer. I have always liked it when it was short, but the upkeep of it was much more effort, especially coupled with the red. With long hair I can get away without having a haircut for longer, although with my curls it starts to look funny without getting my layers fixed up so I can’t just let it go wild. Ben’s been pushing for me to keep growing it though, so I’ll humour him for the meantime.

Changes Abound.

It’s been pretty hectic around here lately, and it seems that it’s going to get worse before it gets better. Ally and Max (and Tiger) moved out on the weekend, into a little apartment for just the two (well, three) of them. They had let us know that they were looking around, but they got approved for a place quicker than expected, so we had to pick up our game to make sure we found somewhere to move in the same time frame. On Monday we got approved for an apartment above an office in Petersham. I put down the deposit that day, we sign the lease and get the keys on Saturday. I’ll definitely be taking photos of the place before we move everything in, because it’s an odd layout and photos will hopefully help me work out how we’re going to arrange all our stuff. Then it’s a week of frantically packing before we actually move. We tried to work out if we could move this weekend, but with Father’s Day stuff and not much packed up it didn’t really seem like a viable option.

Scout’s going to be a secret cat, at least for the moment. I guess she was a secret cat at this place, so it’s not that much of a change. After a few months we’ll just bring up the idea of taking in “my mum’s cat” and see if it would be ok with the landlord. If yes, then sweet. If not, then we’ll just keep on keeping her secret. We did try and find places that were ok with pets, but they are really hard to find. I spent a week ringing and asking if a cat would be ok, and the general consensus was “apply and see how you go”, which is ridiculously unhelpful. Real estate agents in general seemed pretty unhelpful from my experiences, so we figured screw it, she’d be a secret cat. I’m hoping that she’ll quieten down when she doesn’t have anyone to talk to. Pretty sure that’s wishful thinking on my part, but one can hope.

I’m gonna miss this place. I like that it’s a house, with a front and a back yard. I’ll miss the space a house has, even a small house feels bigger than an apartment. I’m going to miss the picture rails and I didn’t even have that many frames hung on them. I’m going to miss living so close to a good supermarket (we’ll have to plan meals ahead of time now!), or living so close to a good cafe. I’m going to miss our family dinners, and Pizza House Friday, and us all taking turns with meals and washing up. I’m going to miss the Vietnamese food I can get so easily around here.

I’m not going to miss the old oven that always burnt the bottoms of things. I’m not going to miss how cold the house was constantly, or the tiny bathroom that was always damp so the towels never dried properly. I’m not going to miss having to constantly stop the cats from eating each other’s food when they weren’t supposed to. I’m not going to miss the screaming neighbours down the road, or the planes that I swear have gotten louder since we moved in here. I’m not going to miss having our bedroom window look onto the neighbour’s front door. I’m not going to miss that weird lack of privacy from being able to be seen from the street.

So all in all a lot of conflicting feelings. I’m excited for the new place, but really don’t want to pack up and move. Then we have to unpack everything once we get there, and because Ben will be working, all that is up to me to do and it sucks. Scout’s been pretty smoochy since the others moved out; She got a bit confused about where the people and cat and stuff went, but I think she’s understanding it to a degree. I wonder if she thinks we’re leaving her too when we go out for a bit and shut her inside. I hope she doesn’t, because that would break my heat.

That Movie Book – Week Thirty Three

I know last week didn’t happen, but I felt a bit burnt out after Miyazaki Week and watched trash to compensate for it. This week I was back in business, though, and promised to watch at least one of the five suggestions. This week’s theme was “All Critics Are Wankers”

I ended up watching Ratatouille. A rat that loves to cook teams up with a guy who works in a kitchen who is a terrible cook, and together they make wonderful food and in turn help restore the reputation of the restaurant they work at.

This felt a bit too cutesy for me when it first came out, but I have heard a lot of positive things about it over the years so I figured I would give it a chance. It was pretty standard, story-wise; Remy the rat doesn’t fit in with his family, but can’t do what he wants to do (cook) without being persecuted. Linguine also doesn’t really fit in with his ‘family’ at the restaurant, but when the two of them work together they make something amazing. Or something like that. It wasn’t the most exciting or touching story that Pixar have done, but it did look pretty. The lights and atmosphere of Paris were gorgeous, and the food in the kitchens looked amazing. They obviously put a lot of effort into the details of the food, which makes sense seeing it’s a major aspect of the story, and it definitely makes a difference.

The main issue I had about this movie was the accents. For a film based in France, specifically in Paris, it really annoyed me that so many of the main characters were voiced by Americans. All the rats, Linguine, and most of the kitchen staff had American accents. Gusteau, Mustafa (the head waiter) and Colette were all voiced by Americans bunging on a clichéd French Accent. There were a few British voices in there, but that is still pretty pathetic for a film set in France. Why didn’t they get more French actors in to work on it? It’s not like there are no actors in France. It just felt really lazy and distracting, and while it didn’t ruin the film it did frustrate me a lot and if they had put a bit more effort into it I probably would have enjoyed it more.

After that I tried to watch All About Eve. A young lady meets her idol, an actress in the theatre. She works for the actress, studies everything about her, then becomes an actress herself and ends up overshining the original actress.

I wanted to enjoy this, I really did. The story sounded interesting, the actors were well known enough, it should have been easy enough to watch. I just really don’t like old films. This is from the 50’s and I got so sick of the breathy voice all the ladies had and while the story had potential it just felt Super Boring. I got about 50 minutes into it before deciding to give up. I feel a bit bad saying this, but if anyone decides to do a modern remake of it I would probably really enjoy it. I just couldn’t get interested in this version of it.

Also having never seen Bette Davis before, I was basing my opinion of her off half listened lyrics of Bette Davis Eyes. Now I’m not sure if having Bette Davis eyes is supposed to be a compliment like I thought it was, she has pretty sad looking eyes. Maybe I should actually listen to the song properly for once.

The other suggestions this week were Almost Famous, Inglourious Basterds (I’d already seen both of these), and Hamlet 2. Hamlet 2 sounds ridiculous, so I think it’s going on the list of movies to watch under my own steam at some point in the future. So this week wasn’t the most successful of weeks, but I’m happy enough that I watched something. Next Week is all about Wes Anderson, so that might be interesting!