Time Flies When You're at Salt Wall

It's Christmas at Salt Wall.



The (Pottery Barn kids) stockings (that the Greens inspired us to buy) were hung by the (new) gas-fireplace mantel with care...in hopes that a 40-inch wall-mounted flat screen (and a house full of furniture, not to mention an occupancy license) would soon be there.

Ah, time flies when you’re hanging at Salt Wall.

Seriously, is it already Friday (almost)? Yes, tomorrow is Christmas Eve eve day, and I plan to spend it, yet again, in painter's clothes.

Btw, I hope everyone on my Christmas list (this year, that extends only as far as parents, brother, pet and husband) is excited about receiving items purchasable at Lowes or Home Depot. Just kidding… But only sort of.

What I am not kidding about is how sore and tired I am from working at the house all (staycation) week. And the (not) funny thing is…I feel like I didn’t even do that much. I started today scrubbing the master bathroom wall tiles. For those who are unaware, tiling is not complete after it is grouted. There is a long “cleaning” process to remove the film created by remaining grout. I chiseled and wiped and cleaned and polished with a dry rag. I swear, there is still a faint white film over the wall tiles. I had hoped to clean up the tiles on the floor of the master bath, guest bath, half bath and breezeway/den…but I’m certain that task would have been an entire week’s work. The bathroom wall escapade took 2 hours alone!

In addition to washing walls, I spent the better part of today at Lowes designing some pretty intense closet systems. I know I have said this before, but I heart the Allen + Roth line at Lowes. It’s what Martha Stewart is to Home Depot – but so much better. It’s nice to have a line that you like and trust. In those moments when you say to yourself, “I’m not sure I have formed an opinion about what kind of XYZ I like,” you can look to the Allen + Roth line for guidance. It’s swell. For closet systems, we were adamant that we didn’t want a wire unit. And I just wanted to make the best use of space so that we could use the real estate in the bedrooms for fun furniture. In designing the closets, my mom was truly a Godsend today. She is so decisive and helpful for this type of project. So there were Mom and me…literally in Aisle 7 at Lowes in Danvers for THREE HOURS mapping out all the various closet options. Truth be told, I was working off of a pretty elaborate drawing that the California Closets guy (who made a house call to try to sell me $4000 worth of custom closet systems) drew for me. (It almost cost me my marriage, though...Chris felt so guilty that I had a guy come out to spend 4 hours with us desinging closet systems when I knew from the get-go I was only after his drawings.) Anyway, we didn't spend 4 grand on them, but we still paid a pretty penny for the Allen + Roth closet systems. Who cares - we’re getting a lot more bang for the buck…and it’s not nearly as much as the custom closets would have been...and having them installed means we have a place to hang clothes pronto...which means we're one step closer to LIVING AT SALT WALL.


So we left Lowes with a CRV full of about 600 pounds of closet STUFF…some of which is still in my car because it’s so heavy. Tomorrow, Steve Butcher, the handyman I found on Craigslist is doing the installation. Fingers crossed, he is quick, good, and not creepy.

What else did I do today, you ask? (Re-)stained the newel posts and rails. It’s amazing what a little sandpaper and stain can do. I was seriously thinking that our newel posts and railings on our stairs got ruined. Frayed wood, extra glue, a circular peg that was cut out so that the posts could be bolted in…and not to mention the hell these poor posts went through when the horrific floor guys installed them two times…cockeyed. But some 120 grain sandpaper and Zar ebony stain made them look gorgeous again. I can’t wait to do a coat of the Zar fruitwood water-based polyurethane tomorrow (well, I can…but it will look so good in the end). Waters and Brown in Salem gave us a 3-step process to match the stain of the kitchen island. So, the island, the wooden island brackets supporting the granite, the newel posts and rails on the stairs, and the double French doors hung by barndoor hardware (between living room and office) THAT WE FINALLY ORDERED THIS WEEK will all be the same warm chocolate brown. The staining went fairly well tonight. I’m just not very neat. I am not a good blue-taper. I love staining, but not when I have brand newly finished wood floors, perfectly painted walls, etc. Chris kept coming to wipe up my spills, but we had a fun night nonetheless. Listening to some good country music, talking about how we FINALLY feel like Salt Wall looks like a home. Chris installed door stops and ball catches on the closet doors while I stained. Then, we went home and my mom (aka Superwoman) had a warm and delicious dinner waiting for us and was all ears when I asked her to help me map out the EXACT specs for Steve ihopeyoudontBUTCHERourclosets.

Tomorrow I plan to babysit Steve and, if time permits, throw a coat of poly on the newels and rails and, again if time permits, wash all the tile floors. The Carrs are celebrating Christmas tomorrow night (before we fly out to VA to spend the holiday with Chris' fam) with Salem House of Pizza calzones and Mom’s famous salad…so it won’t be a late night at Salt Wall. I’ll do as much as I can and then it’s off to Rejoice the Coming of our Savior. We’ll be back on Tuesday…the day the electrician plans to finish ALL of his work, get the electric permit sign off…which will trigger the occupancy license. Bottom line: We’re hopefully a week out from sleeping at Salt Wall. Legally.

Thanks for following. Flip Flop Chardonnay made me a bit verbose this evening. It happens.

God, my hands are all chapped.