Living room

Hola, amigos! I know it's been a long time since I rapped at ya'. I've been kind of involved with this flooring project.

Yesterday was a bit of a disappointment, as I looked through what I'd done and found a ton of mistakes—this polyurethane finish is way more finicky than the one that I used in the kitchen—but I only know that now. It seems to want ages to dry, and to be super-sensitive to having anything put on it (it does handle walking okay, though). Anyway, I didn't even take any photos yesterday—plus I had to go make Nancy a drink and brings snacks after her son went sleepwalking at camp, fell out of a bunk in the middle of the night, and got a concussion. And you were worried about the fumes affecting me!  Anyway, he's doing well, and recovering in spite of/because of the three metal staples in his head at the moment.

Today was dedicated to painting. I had done almost all the prep work the night before (masking, mostly), and after my obligatory Home Depot run and taking care of some financial stuff, I prepared my "kill room." If you've seen Dexter, you're familiar with his elaborate preparations with plastic tarps and whatnot before he does in his victims, and my living room looked pretty much the same by the time I was done.

But all I killed was the old paint. Hah! Take that, paint! Afterwards, we had walls that were bright and cheery instead of drab and putty-colored. Hooray!

 I plan on painting the inside of the niche a contrasting color. I'm thinking a red. Would that be too crazy? Maybe just a significantly more yellow shade?

Before removing all the masking, I ran to the store and picked up some wild, fresh Sockeye salmon. Getting decent seafood here, about 1,000 miles from the nearest sea, isn't easy. Finding anything fresh at Schmuck's—I mean Schnuck's—isn't particularly easy either. A lot of stuff is bad, or nearly so, when you buy it. But the Sockeye was legit, so I pan fried it with a reduction sauce of ginger liqueur, lime juice, sugar and soy; plus haricots verts, prepared the French way.

Finally, I took two photos of the living room at night with the orange lamps in it, so Lilya could see if it looks less cave like. Honestly, I'm not sure if anything short of an overhead light will do that, but I feel that this is a pretty decent improvement.

All right: that's all for tonight, cats and kittens. Tomorrow's plan is what I call "varnish and vanish." I put down the polyurethane coating and immediately leave the house for 8 hours (campus? work? guitar?), then varnish and leave again (I've already seen all the crappy movies!). I figure 10 AM and 7 PM should make for a bearable house by midnight. It probably won't happen, but it's a nice idea. (Keep in mind that after this is done, I still have to wait days before I even think about moving the two remaining furniture items, and then I have to varnish again—twice—where they were sitting. And then wait more before moving furniture again... well, you get the idea.)