Forget what they say - spackle is a girl's best friend

Hi all! I just spent the weekend at the farm and wanted to record my dirty doings. First of all, it was SCARY to be out there, because A) the cornfield is all pale and horror movie-ish now, B) there was a GIANT STORM while I was there, which was very cool during the day when the big gray thunderheads would move, all threatening, across the valley, and totally freaky at night when I could see absolutely nothing due to the fact that it is inconceivably dark out there once the sun goes down, and things were rattling and knocking around and I jumped when i saw my reflection in a window, and C) I left the CDs at home and had to listen to CLASSIC RAWK all weekend (Winger, Supertramp, Scorpions ARRRRRGHHHH!) because that and Lawrence Welk oldies are the only stations that come in well and Wisconsinites loooooooove their CLASSIC RAWK.

All that aside, I spent about 7 hours the first night finishing Jay's and my bedroom upstairs, making it look a bit like the one we did here in the Minneapolis house - it's kind of a deep red clay color called "spiced rum." Mmmm. Spiced rum. Mom says it looks like a womb in there (it's a very very small room. We'll be lucky if our bed fits. I'm not kidding). I, of course, did my signature copper wash, and i must say that although it is slightly "cavey" in there, I like it. What took about 6.5 of the hours was the *&#%@ trimming. I had to do two and a half coats because of the stupid blueberry-purple color that was on there before (which showed through the primer). At least we were able to get the wallpaper horse boarder off. I should say Mom did. Mom, by the way, is a painting WARRIOR. And she's happy the whole time. She did about twice the work that Bex and I did last weekend, and she was better off afterward, and brought gingerbread for all. I must learn her secret.

The next morning, after a fitful sleep (I had to open a window because of the paint fumes, but then my head got wet on account of the horizontal rain) I spackled, patched and primed the downstairs guestroom (crazy old wallpaper room) and the dining room so they'd be ready for paint for our giant family work weekend out there Nov 5 - 6 (my mom's sisters and their progeny will be on hand for outdoor and indoor projects of all kinds - WAHOO). I also rolled and edged one of the upstairs rooms with "raffia cream" - a lovely buttery color. The other two rooms are gray-blue "flint smoke" (B & C's) and a gorgeous siamese cat colored creamy/rosy brown. It's looking great up there. We've also decided on terra cotta walls and slate blue/terra cotta tiles in the kitchen with a bit of an italian theme (buh-bye stenciled pinecone hell!), and red for the dining room. The living room's still up for grabs and the bathroom - well we can't even think about that yet. It's too hard to envision anything beyond the NASTY grout holding things together in there now. We did score a very cool, very FREE clawfoot bathtub that will be perfect in there (Craigslist - go Bex!). The gutters are going to be up by the end of this month, and Chris is working on getting a woodstove. The hot tub, by the way, has been budgeted in, so that should be ready to go by mid-summer (potential visitors, take note!)

I have to echo a bit of what Chris said in the last post - it is a bit frustrating to have to work around some rather bad planning on the builder's part some 85 years ago. I know it always ends up being more than what you think. And even painting is a big task when ALL rooms have to be painted and trimmed. I still think that we're on target for getting most of the house work done by spring, so that we can start to concentrate on the ENORMOUS task of managing 37 acres. The curve will be very high, no doubt. I still can't wait to get my horses out there.

That's it for now. Time to tend to my aching bod. Perhaps a steamy bath.

Charis