Extra Bedroom

So along with the bathroom renovation that is heavily delayed but sort of in progress, we're planning to also complete the extra bedroom, which means when we're done the bedroom and bathroom the back of our house is "done". 

We don't really need the extra bedroom right now, but we figured we'd do it at the same time so we don't have an unusable room, and because some of the tasks just make sense to do at the same time.

One of those is drywalling the ceiling. In the master bedroom and office, we patched the air conditioning vent holes ourselves, but this bedroom has popcorn ceilings and so we decided a thin drywall ceiling over top will be easier and look better in the end than patching the circle shaped hole and then emulating some kind of popcorn effect over top of it. 

Since we'll be drywalling the bathroom, we figured we may as well do the third bedroom at the same time.

As this room doesn't really have a function, we'll be putting our guest bed in it, and a vanity desk I have, but we don't really anticipate any guests. All of our immediate family lives in the city, and so no one is really coming to visit over night...but if they do...we're ready. The other eventual function for this room will be a residence for future offspring. 

We wanted the color to be something that would work for all of those possible functions: guests, boy room, girl room. This way we won't have to repaint it anytime soon. Right now we're leaning towards a shade of mint - although by the time we're done the trend will probably be done too. I'm already totally digging 2013's Emerald...we'll have to see where we bring that into the house. 

Here are some mint shades we're currently crushing on, any other ideas? We're definitely open minded to other colors, this just seemed gender neutral enough and guest friendly, as well as just being a color we both really like. 

Definitely enjoying the blue/green of this fresh mint. This is also going to sound dumb, but if it has mint in the title, it is automatically in the favourites column. 

This is more of a pale green shade, but it definitely also tickles my fancy. I would like to bring green into the color palette, as we've already used primarily blue in our bedroom and office. It's nice to stay with some coordinating colors, but I'd really like to expand the horizons to some other colors that complement the blues we've already used.

Which is your favourite? Any other colors you'd suggest? I'd like something cheerful, but not too loud...and something we could definitely accessorize for a certain gendered child when the time comes.

Anyone else picking out paint colors right now? Using the mint trend anywhere in your house? Don't forget to answer the poll before tomorrow!

YHL Posers

At last I have the Young House Love book that I've been drooling over since it was released in November! I got it for Christmas...and this is ridiculous, but I for real almost cried.

Anyway...moving on from that.

Philip and I were reading it before bed each night and then we started post-it noting any projects we wanted to try. The hooks on page 145, idea #96 seemed manageable, and we were wanting to hang hooks behind our bedroom door for our robes anyway so we thought we'd try this project.

At first we were definitely at odds with our design concept. I had hoped for a cute patterned background (similar to what was shown in the book) and a solid letter, using white and green primarily. Our duvet is green so I thought bright green hooks or letters could be cute. Philip didn't like that idea at all, but I didn't like his ideas either, he wanted the canvas to stay mostly white. Eventually one of us suggested (I honestly don't remember who - I think it might have been a hybrid of me suggesting a stripe in the shape of an arrow and Philip taking the idea and running with it) painting silver arrow stripes downward (as the hooks will be hanging below) and then painting the letter green.

We started with using Frog Tape (best for crisp lines) to mark an arrow shape on our canvasses.

We painted between the tape with silver paint.

Love how the background looks, simple and pretty.

We painted the letters green with light green sides. They looked okay. In between you see the hooks we are going to recycle from downstairs, just need a little paint!

Halfway through painting the letter we also decided to lighten the green and paint the outsides of the letter the lighter shade. Cool right? Definitely cool, for a 16 year old girl or a college student's locker. Once it was finished, Philip pointed out how juvenile it looked, and now I can't stop seeing it that way either. I actually do still really like the arrows pointing down I think, I like the addition of the metallic, especially since our room turned out much more glam than our inspiration photo had suggested, the metallic would add to that vibe. So we'll see what we do now. We're either going to spray paint over the whole thing white and see how that looks - hoping it's nice like our white clock we bought on our honeymoon. Or, if we don't like that, at least we've got it back to square one and we can add color again if we want.

DIY Paintings (without any paint!)

Last week in your Friday Phil, I outlined some strategy to picking artwork from my in-laws, with the caveat that we had never really put it to the test. The reason was, for most of the significant pieces of art we've acquired, we made it ourselves. I promised then to let you in on our secret of how we do that.

Now, let's be clear: I love colour and art, but am by no means an expert on painting or photography. I've heard the names Ansel Adams and Annie Liebovitz. I could recognize Whistler's Mother and that one with the melted clocks by Salvador Dali. But I am by no means an art critic or could even consider myself an aficionado.

(Side note: have painters ever considered doing mash-ups like musicians sometimes do? If so, how do we not have the "Screaming Mona" or "An American Gothic in Paris"? Well, we do now! And somewhere an art historian is convulsing uncontrollably.)

Are these the only painting inspired by Linkin Park and Jay-Z's Collision Course mashup album? If so, you're welcome, art world!

But I love colour, I love art in so many forms, and I love being creative, and here's a few ways you can achieve interesting results that fit your space without breaking the bank.

Idea #1: Actually get good at painting

Watch a lot of Bob Ross. Practice with The Joy of Painting (maybe even buy the 10-DVD set!). Buy canvasses in bulk to save on per-unit costs and practice your happy little trees. (Bonus points if you get into it and grow a majestic afro.) As a result, you'll have gained a really cool new skill AND you'll have made a new friend, may he rest in peace.

Idea #2: Find somebody who's cheap and good

Commission a painting from a struggling artist or a friend who dabbles. This way allows you less control over the creative process, so make sure you have a solid discussion at the outset in which you lay out your requirements. The result is a little less DIY, but you'll get a real original piece of art and have supported the local economy and/or a friend in need.

Idea #3: Photoshop 'til you drop

The following is the strategy we promised, which we've used twice to results we're very happy with:

Step 1: Go through your art store and find an theme you like. Maybe it's a picture of a carousel, maybe it's a famous landmark in your hometown, or maybe it's morning light filtering through a hazy forest glen. 

Step 2: Search the Stock.Xchng or EveryStockPhoto for a free or cheap stock photo that suits the theme you're looking for. Pay close attention to your rights as a user of the photo, particularly if you are considering selling your work.

(Alternative to Step 1 and 2: Skip this whole bit and find a photo you've taken in the past that you love.)

Step 3: This step requires Photoshop or a comparable product, which could easily be the most expensive part of the whole process if you need to buy it. (I've seen great results for free out of GIMP, but have never used it myself.)  

Import the photo, resizing it so it's at least 300dpi and the dimensions you want for your final piece. Then, save this as a separate file to preserve your original in its pristine, untouched state. (Why do I recommend this so strongly? I couldn't provide you with the step by step instructions of what I did both times we used this process because I didn't follow this advice myself.)

Step 4: Copy the base layer and start experimenting! 
Want a painted look? Try working with the Watercolor and/or Paint Daubs. 
Want an ink drawing? There's a filter for that too.
Want to keep the photographic look, but isolate a specific colour? Photoshop's Magic Wand or Magnetic Lasso Tools are great for that. Or (spoiler alert) do what we did in the bedroom, and take a black and white photo and add colours to it that suit your room!
Be warned though; most filters don't immediately produce distinctive, original results; experiment with different foreground and background colours until you get results you like.

If you're really brave, create a new layer above your artwork, select an appropriately sized/shaped brush, and try to recreate the photo. It's a little like Paint By Numbers meets The Internet. (If you try this, I recommend creating a new layer for every colour you use.)

Step 5: Once you're happy with the look, find someone who will print "photos" on gallery-wrapped or framed canvas. Groupon used to sell coupons for a bunch of these kind of printers, but for our money, we always used Costco Photo because they were very competitively priced, offer a 36"x24" size that we wanted (most don't go that big), and we can pick it up at our local store 10 minutes away.

Show and Tell

Now, this is useless unless we show you what we did. Unfortunately we don't have the original photos we used, nor a snapshot of the "paintings" in progress; at the same time, the process of experimenting with what looks good doesn't always yield linear progress conducive to step-by-step instructions. That said, here are the final products"

Our first fake-painting using this method.

For the first piece, we were inspired by the aforementioned idea of dark tree trunks in a vivid forest. I was hoping for more of a Monet-ish painted look (i.e. a natural landscape or image but not aiming for photographic realism) so I used the Paint Daubs filter a bit, and because we wanted it to fit in our living room, I worked in the espresso browns of our living room furniture as well as the blue of our condo's living room's feature wall (now the darker blue in our office). The result hung in our dining room at our condo; we haven't decided where it'll end up in Grandpa Joe's House.

Our second, calmer fake-painting. (Actually, more of a faux-tograph perhaps?)

The second piece we did we wanted to have a more calming influence. Inspired by a photo of the aforementioned forest glen, we filtered the photo (that was originally black and white) less heavily. I added in extra mist, but apart from that, the most I did to adjust the photo was add some blurring (as much to hide pixellation of a smaller photo as anything) and added the colour to the grass and tree. The finished result will hung over the espresso fireplace in our bedroom in the condo, and when we picture that in our house, we still like that idea.

One Way to take it to a whole. 'Nother. Level.

As a final note, if there's something a gallery-wrapped canvas print lacks, it's--no, not a soul, although some "real artists" might argue that point (and who am I to refute them?). It's texture. But I saw a Thomas Kinkade 60 Minutes feature (that you can watch online) once that showed the Painter of Light in a whole new, well, light. His was a very commercial enterprise that offended many art critics who felt that art should be about creativity, not formulaic cash cow exploitation, while Kinkade's defenders used a variation of the "subjective nature of taste" argument to justify the value of his endlessly-reproduced work; I'll let you decide where you stand on that.

But one thing I saw that I've been reminded of recently is that he had a crew of people who would take prints of his work and add spots of real paint to various sections (maybe highlight the snowcapped trees with some real white paint) to add texture and increase the value of the works when sold.

Thinking about it now, why couldn't I do that to some of the prints I've made? Not to add to their monetary value per se, but to add texture and make it feel more "real." I could match some real paints to the colours in the print, grab a brush, and spread it on thick. I've stocked that idea away for a rainy day, but we'll be sure to let you know how it goes, for better or for disastrously worse!

How about you? Have you created a painting for your home and get any interesting (perhaps even Pinteresting) results?

Trim: Finishing Touches

The trick to getting trim to look great is all in the finishing. It requires a lot of patience and a keen eye for details - both of which I don't really have. Unfortunately I didn't take many pictures during this process, but I've tried to explain everything as best I can so hopefully that's still helpful to those of you who are tackling your own trim projects. 

When we last left our newly installed trim we had finished caulking, we still had some sanding, patching, priming, and painting to do. 

Sanding is probably the most important part of finishing trim, it helps to make miters perfect, as well as sanding the patchwork over nail holes. Once you've painted, it's harder to sand without paint flaking and it's definitely worth the legwork to get it right the first time. 

There are some spots I really wish I had sanded more, so I've learned my lesson for the rest of the rooms once we get to them. Sometimes when you run your hand over it, since you've sanded it you don't feel rough edges and think it's smooth, but when it still isn't perfectly level with the rest you can see it once you've painted over. 

Once the first sanding is done, you can patch with a filler, we used this product from Home Depot which is specifically meant for filling trim. It was located in the same aisle as the trim so it was convenient for us to quickly grab. You'll want to spread filler over every nail hole, as well as your miters and other gaps that you might see using a small putty knife. 

Trim Filler that we used to fill all the little nail holes. 

One tip that would help with my sanding issues above is putting the filler on very thin, scraping most of it off with your putty knife so that there is less sanding to do and the sanding will be much more effective too. Some nail holes can also be filled when you paint so that they aren't noticeable. 

Once you've patched and it dries, sand it all again! Patch, sand, repeat until you're happy with the result. 

Using a foam roller for a smooth effect and no brush strokes, prime any unfinished wood, and paint over that once it's dry. We purchased special self-leveling paint from Benjamin Moore, but it was crazy expensive so I have to admit that I would maybe try without it next time. When using a foam roller it turns out smooth anyway, and the spots where we did use a brush like in door jams we can see some brush strokes still (although who knows, maybe they'd be a lot worse without the special paint). If you're interested in self-leveling paint we used Benjamin Moore Advance paint which has great leveling properties. 

Self-leveling paint, it was about $75 for a gallon. 

Once it's all dry you can consider yourself done! I love our new white trim, it is beautiful. I'm a total sucker for white, as a kid my favourite colour was even white because you could colour on it. The same principles still apply, white allows the other colours to pop! 

We're almost done these two rooms, and they're looking beautiful! Anyone have any tips for finishing trim? What projects are you working on when you should be Christmas shopping (seriously - time is ticking and we have a lot of gifts left to buy)? 

The Art of Selecting, well, uh.. Art

For this week's Friday Phil, I want to talk about selecting artwork. Now, we're no experts on the matter; I'm not sure we've ever actually selected any artwork per se, which is why I want to talk about it.

See, my inlaws have a theory about this, and if they actually use it, it's worked for them. My father-in-law explains it something like this (not exact quotes): 

The thing you can't do is say "I like this," or "I don't like this." You need to say "This inspires me," or "This doesn't inspire me."

Well, you might say, isn't this just replacing one word, namely "like," with another, "inspire." And you're mostly right. But as far as I can tell, the primary difference is this:

Art is so subjective that what one person likes relative to another is often so inconsistent as to appear random. When we say "I like this," or "I don't like this," we pronounce personal judgment on a piece of art that, if your partner has an opposite opinion, represents your active disagreement.

However, if we put the responsibility on the piece of art to inspire us, then whether it does for one person or not is not their fault. If the Mona Lisa doesn't inspire me, my wife can't say "Oh, he's just disagreeable," she'll just have to blame ol' Mona's half-smile or Da Vinci's forgetting the eyebrows.

Or you can blame Dan Brown.
It's your call, really.

Now, that sounds like high-falutin' psychology. Truth be told, we have only halfheartedly tried to test this strategy in the past. I have to admit, the subtle distinction between liking and being inspired by art makes it seem almost laughable to put it into practice. That said, we haven't exactly been loading up on the art using our own methods. Maybe if we did put the theory to work, we'd be walking out of galleries and decor stores with so many paintings under our arms, you'd think we were auditioning for a part in Ocean's Twelve.
 
No, so far our strategy for selecting art and decor (primarily decor to this point) has been less evolved. To illustrate, we're going to do some mad-libbing, so need you to pick:

• a type of material (wood, stone, fabric, etc.)
• the name of an animal or religious figure (I guess in the case of the ancient Egyptians, this could be both)
• a verb meaning "love" or a word meaning "hate"
• an actor from the 1992 film Glengarry Glen Ross (or the original 1983 Broadway stage production, if you have to be different)
• a facial feature
  

Got yours all written down? Don't peek down before you have!

Good. So our strategy for selecting decor goes something like this:
 
Cass says "How about this [material] [animal/religious figure]?"
I say "I [verb for love or hate] it. Doesn't it look a little like [Glengarry actor]'s [facial feature]?"

 
I would say our method inverts the old 18th-century marriage proposal system, where "man has the advantage of choice, woman only the power of refusal," but this blog relies on Friday posts to bring the testosterone, and quoting Jane Austen doesn't exactly fit that bill.

Quick, gotta recapture the male audience's attention. Ummm, okay:
"Yo dudes, who's hotter, Jane Austen (above) or Mona Lisa?"
Okay, yeah, never mind.

I digress.
 
One thing that shopping for art has done is helped me realize how difficult it is to find art that both of us like that compliments the furniture and decor we already own. So my solution on a pair of occasions has been as DIY of me as I get: I make my own art (sort of).
 
Next Friday I'll share with you how I do it, but suffice it to say, if you've got Photoshop and a bit of a printing budget, you can make beautiful canvasses that you, your significant other, and your space will love.  

With or without eyebrows.  
 
Until then, do you guys have any strategies for selecting art and decor? How did your mad lib turn out? (Mine: Cass says "How about this Mahogany Platypus?" I say "I canonize it! Doesn't it look a little like Alan Arkin's jowls?")

In case you thought, hey, I'd buy a mahogany platypus.
Note: They're not mahogany, nor do they look much like George Aaronow, in case that impacts your buying decision. That said, they don't NOT look like Alan Arkin...

Trimming the Tree...erm Walls

We haven't put our tree up yet, but we did trim a couple of other things this weekend...the walls in our Master Bedroom and Office are now fully painted and beautifully adorned with white trim. 

Our condo had oak trim, and this new house had some kind of wood trim as well and so I was definitely ready for some refreshing white trim. It also made our paint colours look way better! 

We went to Home Depot on Wednesday night last week and purchased it, making sure to get it a couple days in advance of installation in order to allow it to acclimate as recommended. My dad came on Friday to do the installation as he has the tools such as a mitre saw and brad nailer. 

First up was measuring all the casings and baseboards, and making sure that we allowed enough width to cover any and all flaws that were hidden behind the previous trim. That made our decision for us because our previous trim was 4" wide and the options at Home Depot were 3 ½" and 5 ½" - 5 ½" it is! We were able to get away with 3 ½" window/door casings though.

My mom manned the mitre saw while my dad measured (without his glasses) and I ran in between them. I am a little low on pictures because neither of them wanted to be photographed in their painting clothes - have to keep up the image after all. 

We did the casings first, although we ran out of material partway through and had to go back for more (not sure how that happened - measure twice, cut once!). After they were all done we did the baseboards which were finished a lot faster! 

The windows look even bigger and brighter now! 

Casings done in the office.

Drooling over my white trim.

Master Bedroom getting trimmed out. 

Mm baseboards!

It already looks much more finished, even baseboards in the closet makes a big difference!

This might be my favourite, looks so sharp against the Silver Streak walls.

Is anyone else drooling over this as much as I am? I realize these photos are about the least exciting pictures in the world, but to me they are pure heaven. I am so excited. 

Next up: sand, putty, paint, and caulk these babies. Then we can move in! 

Check out our to-do list, we're pretty close to finishing our Fall section! I'll do a review of it at the end of the month and then we can move on to Winter and the Christmas shopping that needs to happen. 

5 Tips for Surviving The NeverEnding Story that is Painting

As Philip helped me out in writing yesterday's post, I thought I'd catch up on my four posts a week by filling in today.

In some ways this prepping and painting saga has reminded me of the movie The NeverEnding Story. It not only seemed to drag on forever and I was never sure if we'd finish, but it kind of terrified me. 

I feel like this is a memory from my childhood that has scarred me for life - as has this painting experience. The name of this character, Falkor the Love Dragon
doesn't really seem to be fitting in my mind.

I spent days and days prepping the ceiling and walls for painting, attempting to make the plaster walls as straight as drywall to no avail. It still doesn't look perfect, but we're okay with it for now. Once the light fixture is replaced (and we don't just have bare lightbulbs shining right on it creating terrible shadows) we're hoping things improve. You can read more about our experience with patching the ceiling in yesterday's post.

But things are looking up, people! Instead of just undoing what's already in place, we are now moving forward: we have colour on the walls, things are feeling a lot fresher, and after three months of living here it is beginning to feel a little more like home. And so we offer some tips for painting that you may or may not find helpful.

Tip #1: Practice, practice, practice your edging (or have a mom who's great at it already!)

Yesterday began at 8 am when my mom showed up to help me with painting. She's amazing at edging and doesn't need tape which is a huge time-saver. Katie Bower loves her some Frog Tape, and we've never tried it ourselves, but our experiences with taping haven't exactly been known for their speed or their ultimate quality. Edging is an art, and maybe one day we'll put together a how-to post where we pick my mom's brain; for now, know that if you can get good at cutting-in without tape, you're a big step ahead in the painting department.

Tip #2: Don't let good paint go to waste.
We went ahead with the plan to reuse leftover paint from the condo to both save us some money and prevent it from going to waste. Because we didn't have enough paint to do a full room in any of the colours we had on hand, we tried to choose complimentary colours and thus both rooms ended up with a two-tone look (spoiler alert).  At some point if we don't fall in love with the combinations of colours there might be some repainting going on, but for now it certainly looks okay. 

When my mom got here, we started out by sanding the air conditioning circles one more time and priming them. Since we had to wait for those to dry, we went ahead and started painting in the office. I had painted that ceiling on Wednesday with the help of a friend, and so we were ready to get going with the walls. Philip chose to use Benjamin Moore's West Coast (previously in our condo living room as a feature wall) as well as their Blue Stream (previously in our condo guest bathroom). It's interesting seeing this pair of very familiar colours in a totally new room, and right next to each other where before they were separated.

I took a few progress photos but there isn't much to see so I'm going to go ahead and skip right to the completed paint job. There are a couple of angles shown here, and next week as we put the furniture in and get the trim up over the weekend there will be a lot more completed photos to be seen!

This is the view you see when you walk into the room. Blue Stream covers the window wall and closet wall.

To the left of the Blue Stream window wall, the colour transitions to the darker West Coast.

This is the view of the closet corner, showing the transition from Blue Stream to the West Coast that covers the hallway door wall.

Next, we started work on the master bedroom. First up was the ceiling, which leads us to...

Tip #3: When painting ceilings, use a broom handle as a roller extension, but use a solid wooden broom handle.

My mom suggested attaching a broom handle to the roller so that I wouldn't have to stand on a stool and move it all the time, seemed like a great idea! I started with a plastic blue broom handle. It seemed a little bit flexible but worked pretty well... for one row across the ceiling, upon which it promptly broke, allowing the paint-soaked roller to fall from the heavens leaving my beautiful Mike Cameron Seattle Mariners t-shirt with a painted shoulder (might need to buy a new one!). 

So I tried again, this time with a metal broom handle. I got almost the whole ceiling done but then --SNAP-- it happened again! Oh boy. More paint on my head. More paint on the floor. More time spent cleaning up. So I'll go ahead and recommend you try with a wooden broom handle, or else just suck it up and do it with a step stool, as I did for the second coat. Or just tarp the floor like crazy, have backup t-shirts on hand and get the Herbal Essences variation that's good at getting latex paints out of hair ("More volume! Beautiful shine! Less house paint!").

After the ceiling was dry we painted the rest of the room, using Benjamin Moore again, in Smoke and Silver Streak. On this one, we were pretty uncertain how to proceed, so let's head straight into...

Tip #4: Decide on paint colours and don't second-guess yourself.

Based on the inspiration picture we posted two-and-a-half weeks ago, we were definitely going for a light, textured, layered, airy room with plenty of visual interest. Silver Streak is a darker shade (a "bold, saturated" colour "that brings spaces to life for those looking to illuminate their world with pure, extraordinary colour," according to Benny M!). Not exactly light and airy. So I phoned Philip at work to get his opinion. I'll let him describe what happened next, but know that this is his interpretation and it wasn't exactly like this:

Cass called me at work. She was agonizing over using Silver Streak in the bedroom. She wanted to know my opinion. I said I thought it would look okay. She said she didn't think so, could we get another can of the Smoke? I said, sure, if that will make you happy. She said no, we can't do that. We're going with the Silver Streak. I said no, go ahead, get the extra can and paint the room Smoke. But somehow--in a phone call that started with her complaining about the Silver Streak and asking if we could get more Smoke--she'd convinced herself that the Silver Streak was the way to go. Women.

Okay, he didn't add that last word, but he might as well have. And in my defense, saying that I could go get more Smoke if it made me happy wasn't exactly the same as saying "I like Smoke better than Silver Streak, please paint it that!"

Long story short, we're almost done, the first coat of Silver Streak is on the walls, but we have to do a second coat over the weekend before we put up the trim.

Silver Streak covers the Master Bedroom walls by the hallway door and the closet.

Smoke was the choice for the Master Bedroom's window wall and the wall to its left.

I cannot wait to see the white trim go up, and start putting some furniture into these rooms that have been storage rooms up until now! Which reminds me...

Tip #5: Don't tell Philip "I can't wait until the rooms are furnished."
...because he will start laughing, thinking you meant to say "finished" and had just let slip with a very weird accent. Then he will start trying that accent out himself: "Err carrn't wairt urntil the rooms arrre firnirshed..." And you will be laughing because he's really just making fun of himself... maybe you had to be there.

But yeah, the most exciting thing will be sleeping on a mattress that is not on the floor for the first time in months! It will also signify the third room we've slept in in this house in three months. Ay caramba.

You may have also noticed that we've extended the poll for over the weekend, we will write about the results on Monday after those Americans come back from their festivities and we're done a bit more around this place. 

Anyone else had a week they could barely get through? All I know is I'm lying in bed right now writing this (it's actually Thursday - woah this is a Back to the Future moment) with feet so sore I can barely walk. I am so ready to move into our new bedroom and put this project behind us. Anyone done any painting lately? Have terrible childhood memories of The NeverEnding Story? Maybe that's just me. (Philip had never seen it. He's also a little older so he's not quite as informed into what was cool when I was a kiddo.)

Discovering the Untold Joys of Patching a Ceiling

Philip here. First off, sorry about the delay in getting this post up. Cass was working hard all day with her Mom painting, so it was up to me to get it done and, boy, I have a newfound respect for bloggers!

Also, no, it's not Friday yet, but Cass is up to her eyeballs in paint (metaphorically speaking), so it fell to me to share Part 2 of our Patching adventure. Unlike LOST, today's post doesn't depend on you having seen any previous installment. (But like LOST, a working knowledge of the Valenzetti equation will open up a whole new level of meaning to this post.)

Without further ado, on to the patching of ceiling:

To give you an idea of our predicament, we had ducting running to vents in the ceiling as part of the old A/C system. The simple fact that the vents were so high up made four an interesting challenge when removing the vent covers, especially in light of the fact that we only had a short step-stool on hand and, while his genes blessed Philip in many ways, they didn't exactly make him eight feet tall. So--in what you'll soon find is the infomercial-like catchphrase of this post--we improvised!

Kids, go ahead and try this at home! [/BadAdviceGuy]

As you can see in the highly scientific drawing, below, because the ducting runs flush to the ceiling, it's impossible to slide and screw into place a board behind the hole that could hold a piece of drywall in place.

DRAMATIZATION: "I'm the Air Conditioning Duct, and I'm going to go right to the edge of the ceiling so you can't slide any backing into the hole above the ceiling to patch the hole with! Muahahahaha!"

Our attempts to bend the round ducts' edges inward to create space to slide a backing board in place proved futile.

One of the holes we needed to patch. As you can see, bending in the ducting didn't work as it was fastened to the rafters somehow.

So what did we do? (EVERYONE: "We improvised!") That's right! We ended up testing two methods for overcoming this, one of which worked better*, and one of which worked not as well.

The Way that Worked Not As Well (But We Thought Would Work When We Did It!)

We cut a circle of drywall out of a wall that is still up on in our basement but that had a hole punched in it during our basement gutting (we felt pretty resourceful). But we intentionally cut a circle about three inches bigger in diameter than the hole. Then we removed about 1.5" of gyprock around the edge of the cutout, leaving just the papery coating. (To remove the gyprock from the paper, we found it easier to X-acto carve some tabs out of the paper that we could peel away one by one so that, in case one tab ripped, it wouldn't necessarily affect the rest.)

Here you can see me scoring the gyprock under the paper tabs so that it would break off more easily.

All this resulted in a circle of drywall that can slide into the hole with some paper tabs surrounding it which hold everything in place by being adhered to the ceiling using some mud. (Once again, I've provided a to-scale drawing of what we were dealing with.)

DRAMATIZATION: "I'm the green-tabbed patch! I'm a great idea... in theory!"

The idea was good. The result was a minor disaster. The mud adhering the paper tabs to the ceiling, the paper tabs themselves, and the mud covering the whole works up made for a thick layer that we had a heck of a time trying to smooth out.

Here's the patch mudded over. We tried and tried to mud it and sand it smooth, but were unsatisfied with the results.

Only after a couple of incredibly frustrating and tear-inducing days does it look passably good enough. And we're still considering someday climbing up there, cutting the whole thing out, and starting over. (Perhaps once we remove all that old A/C ducting from the attic, a job for a day in spring or fall when it's not too hot or cold up there.)

The Way that Worked Better* (But We Only Realized It After We Had Tried the Previous Method)

Because we had two holes to patch, one in our Master Bedroom (see above)  and one in our future Office (aka the Second Bedroom if you've Taken the Tour), and since the first hole went so swimmingly, we decided to try something different. What did we do? (EVERYONE: "We improvised!") You guys are really good at that! I tried to apply some lessons I learned from the previous method, an old lesson I seem to need to relearn every so often: The KISS principle.

No, this is not the principle that says "Life's better when you wear crazy makeup, call yourself Starchild and desire to rock and roll all night (and party e-ver-ree-day!). No, no, this is the other KISS principle: Keep It Simple, Stupid. (See? I can't even keep an explanation of the KISS principle simple.)

Here's the process in its entirety:
A. Cut a circle of drywall approximately the size of the duct.
B. Attempt to wedge it into the duct hole.
C. Shave off the parts that are preventing it from fitting into the duct hole.
...repeat this last pair of steps a bunch of times...
15. Actually wedge it into the duct hole.
16. Mud over!

It's so simple I almost didn't provide a highly-scientific AutoCAD-enhanced drawing to explain it, but I'm a completionist (except when it comes to Prison Break, which got worse and worse as the seasons went on, becoming intolerably bad by Season 4), so here it is:

DRAMATIZATION: "I'm stuck! Lassy, run and tell the sheriff that a little green patch is stuck in a hole!"

If you've been following along, however, you'll know that I've asterisked every time I've said this method worked better*. (Okay I'll stop now.) That's because, as you can see here, even this method didn't work perfectly. Somehow, despite multiple coats of mud and sanding until the drywall dust piled up like snowdrifts, we could not get it smooth. (That said, it's not something that shows up real well in photos, so you'll just have to take our word for it.)

We blame it on the fact that the colour of the ceiling and mud were so different, it hid the shadows that become so apparent now that it's all painted. So what did we do? (EVERYONE: "We improvised!") Wrong! We left it. Yup. We're learning that being perfectionists while renovating is a good way to lose your sanity, especially when you're still learning (like us).

Once we have paint on the walls, a new light fixture, and some furniture in the room, I'm sure we'll forget about it. But for now... well, leave a comment to let us know if you have a third method that's worked for you? We'd really appreciate it.

And before we go, Cass wanted to share this anecdote:

In case you thought we loved renovating, I'll share this story from our trip to Home Depot this evening. I had the most frustrating day (if you're wondering why, you need to go back and re-read this post) and so I was already a little overwhelmed. We walked into Home Depot--usually my happy place--and promptly waited something like 23 mins for help with getting info about the trim and casings we needed. The whole time, the anxiety level is rising within me. This in turn makes me start to sweat--the whole place feels like 42°C! I tell Philip he's on his own and walk away. So how do I soothe myself? (EVERYONE: "WE improvised!") Stop that! But you're right. Sort of. I went over to the carpet and flooring area and started stroking the carpet samples. 

Stop looking at me like I'm a crazy person. Yes, I was petting 5"-square pieces of thick-piled rug! So what? It helped!

I admit it was a bit ridiculous. Philip stayed and talked to the employees there and I was just standing a few aisles over, staring into space, and literally rubbing carpet in order to calm down. Honestly, I recommend it for anyone who's in a home improvement store and feeling a little stressed. There are carpet samples somewhere nearby... go find them!

There you have it! Next time somebody's freaking out at you, you can tell them to "go stroke a rug!" Actually, maybe don't. That might be misinterpreted.

So, in the comments, leave your ceiling-duct vent patching advice, and if you have any other great hardware store relaxation methods (flicking switches in the electrical area? reorganizing paint chips by name instead of colour?), feel free to add those in too!