Home Making

The boiling water wasn’t doing the trick with those last pieces of wallpaper. They were holding on for dear life (it was hard not to think of it that way, they were so damned stubborn!).

I ran over to the Home Depot on Old Country Road, to see if I could find a better scraper. A really nice guy there showed me some stuff that you can spread on the walls that helps the paper come loose. This is excellent to know about. And when I got it home, it worked great.

It’s fun walking around a Home Depot. Like a department store, except most of the things on sale I either don’t want or have no idea what you’d do with. Which meant I could walk around for more than an hour and not think much about wanting to spend money. I learned a lot while I was there. I’m especially excited about the reject paint. I had no idea about this, but there’s a whole shelf of paint cans that were custom mixed and didn’t get taken. They didn’t match the swatch they were supposed to? Or some decorator changed her mind? Whatever, the store ends up stuck with them, and they sell them for practically nothing. I found a chalky blue green that is exactly perfect for my new spa bathroom, and I got all I need for only $8! And it was really good paint, too. Okay, then I splurged on a teak mat that I think is supposed to be a doormat but I’m going to put it by the tub. Still, I did really well.


Also, did you know they give classes on how to do things? Some of them are billed as being for women, which is a little condescending, but since I don’t personally know how to wire a lamp or fix the tank in my toilet, I don’t have much of a leg to stand on. Next week is the lamp one, and I am definitely going to go. There’s a ceramic jar that would make a beautiful one. I bought it at a market in Turkey a few years ago and Gary hated it, so I left it here. Funny how Gary always talked about how much he loved what he called my “bohemian” side, but whenever I did something that was a little different from his idea of a banker’s wife, he would practically take my head off. Not that he was half as smart as he thought. Technically my “bohemian” things would have been the things I picked up in Prague. Even I know that, and I – as he never lost a chance to remind me – never finished college.

Oh yeah, my 3.
Finished stripping the bathroom.
Learned about bargain paint.
I held onto that jar.