An End in Sight for the Chaos

Key Largo is my cleaning-day movie fare. Just starting. Bogey, Bacall, Lionel Barrymore, Edward G Robinson, and more! Wowzas. I've never seen it and it's been on the list a long time.

Anyhow, Gboy and I rocked this painting thing more than I thought. I'm able to spend time cleaning instead of painting. There's a bit of trim in obscure corners to tackle, and I'm leaving it to next week. I need real reward today, to feel like everything I've battled through these past weeks is worth it.

So cleaning assures me the rest of my painting may happen sooner than later. The long stretch of blue wall, my only long, straight wall in my apartment, is way more stained with the updraft of oil heat from the rad that stretches the length of it than I had thought. Ugh. Blah.

The thing about my place is, it's a really crazy 1952 floorplan with no straight walls save a couple. Everything's got neat corners, facade treatments, and even a really cool abutment that's the centre focus of the living room. There are a lot of options for where to end and begin painting projects. Got to love old school architecture, man.

And this red, man. Shazam. I'm thinking I'll add one more red wall. :) I can get it done in an evening sometime, but it'll punch the place up some more. Then I can do what remains over a couple weekends in the next few months.

I find myself grabbing more things to get rid of as I clean up here. I'm also changing my mind about one major accessorizing move I was going to do. Putting things back in place has me wanting to simplify a little more. A bold colour like this red wants a little more dominance and less clutter.

My heart broke a little about a couple hours ago. I was pushing my half-empty antique china cabinet to its new home and I heard a strange sound, a loud groaning crack. I looked down, and there was a fresh new vertical split the length of the bottom half. Broke my goddamn heart. But there's nothing I can do about it, so I've sort of moved on. Turns out eight years of living against a radiator might not be good for towering antiques. So, no more radiators near any of my valuable furnishings. (Which, it turns out, was the unconscious plan anyhow.)

I thought I was taking care of my wood, but always wondered in the back of my mind if maybe the rad was a bad thing. Guess I know now. Whatever. It's cosmetic, not structural, and is a clean split. There's possibly something to be done by a restorer one day. Me, I'm buying some almond oil to end the dryness before anything more dire should occur. Christ, it's 200 years old and has been in my family some 35 years or so. Something was bound to happen eventually.

A few hours of puttering and my place will be much improved and perhaps even liveable.

I'm proud of myself. I've stuck to my plan, accomplished things on a timeline, didn't give in to exhaustion, have even lost some weight. I've eaten like shit, and that's the only thing I'm not happy about this month, but fuck it. It happens when you're going full speed with these things.

Hey, my classic car photos series I did a couple years back looks awesome against the red. :) Wow. It likes photography, baby. All the colours I've chosen this month do. Can't wait to have it clean enough to post some pics.

(it's now 9:00pm. i've gotten so much done... wow. my final clean-up next weekend won't be too bad. i could even enjoy a bit of a life. it'd be nice to get a hike in. gotta go play outside now. i done good. :) must go die soon. guh.)