frenchtown fiber

Chris Mundy and Kate House try to make art while navigating the crap life throws at them.

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Projects

Joe and I have been trying all summer to get someone to lay a brick walk in our back yard. It is to replace the old cement path that leads from our deck to our garage. We always have a hard time getting contractors to do work, because we are a pain in the ass. We want them to do it the way we want them to do it. We are picky about the brick we want to use, and most contractors want to use their own material. We already have our brick. Long story short, we finally found someone to do it. Joe also bargained to tear up the old walk himself, saving a couple of hundred bucks. The day the guy agreed to do it, Joe came home from work and went nuts tearing up that cement. I could not believe it. I wanted to take a before picture, but I never got to it, because it was half gone by the time I got home. He put up with lights outside, so he could keep working. Oh, if he could put his mind to my attic studio that way! (This labor day weekend marks year 2 since it was started and no where near finished.) I believe the walk will be done when I get home today. I did manage to get a picture with the old walk torn out, before the new one was in.



In other news, our garage needs painting. You can see the garage in the picture. I bought scrapers and five gallons of outdoor primer. I will begin sometime this weekend.

   When I was buying the primer, I saw a bottle of that citrus stripper stuff. It reminded me that I want to strip this mantle piece we have. The mantle is not attached to a wall, there is no fireplace involved. It is just decorative. It is painted white now, the paint job is kinda shabby, which I know is chic, but I'm just not into it. I had a piece of tape stuck to it at one point, and the tape took the paint right off. I've been going at it with my fingernail, and in the space 2 days I have taken most of the paint off. A lot of it came off in big sheets.There are decorative parts of this mantle, and the paint is not coming off that so easy, so I will still use the stripper.

So, I have plenty to keep me busy this weekend! What are you doing?



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