Project Paint: Dumpity Dump Dump and Christmas

Scott and I still have a lot of final touches on the condo. (Painting the kitchen for one. Touching up the ceilings for two. And putting on the molding for three.) But we reached a milestone this weekend by taking a load of construction debris to the dump. And, even though we don’t have any shelves in our closets (that’s four), we retrieved all of our stuff that had been stored friend’s attics and sheds. We rented a Zipcar for 24 hours in order to get everything done.

Have you ever been to the dump? It is weird. Technically we were at a “transfer station” in Renton, and not the full on dump. We pulled our car up to the window (no line) and they weighed our car. Then we pulled forward and unloaded our stuff directly into the trailer of a big truck. The truck was underneath the platform where you unload the stuff, so you are literally throwing stuff into a big hole. I should have taken a picture. It felt really weird… Kind of like we were getting away with something. After unloading, our car was weighed again and we paid based on the unloaded weight. It came to something like $17. Not bad.

Have you ever had Christmas in August, without actually buying any gifts? Opening all of our boxes today was a treat. We didn’t have as much junk as I had expected. I found an entire suitcase full of shoes!! And none of my pants fit. So great.

Project Paint: Visio floor plans for my new study.

I’m taking it easy today. We got a lot done last night, thanks to the help of Casey and Kyle. Our gray wall is done, except for a few touch ups here and there. Tonight we’ll be tackling white again and moving things from the living room into the back rooms.

In the mean time, I’m messing around with floor plans and the furniture layout for my “study” on Visio. In previous years our back room was taken over by Luke (aka El Seis, Fatburger, Fatty McFat, Lukester, Lukey, or Leucos Anthony). Secondarily, it was also my craft room and office. Now that I’m going back to school, I’m going to call the room my “study”. Get it, I’m going to be studying back there. In theory anyway.

I bought a huge loveseat on Craigslist yesterday. And I’m planning on replacing the old built-in desk with something longer and skinnier from Ikea. The other two items in the room are the cabinets that distracted me from the real painting the other day. They are now painted gray and look pretty good.

Here are the some of the billions of layouts I’m considering. I like the top right one because it puts the desk over the baseboard heater, and I like to put my feet on that in the winter.

Project Paint: Still at it. Rocking the Peacock Blue.

We made a lot of progress over the weekend, but came no where close to finishing, as I’d hoped would happen! The scope crept a little more… we ripped out the built in shelves in our closet. It required some major spackling after that! Yay! We’re going to replace the old shelving with some Elfa goodness.I also got very distracted today painting two cabinets in the office today.

At this point, the walls in the office, laundry room, half of the hallway and half of the bedroom are complete. We’re very close to moving on to the gray, which is our last big color other than whatever we decide to do in the kitchen. I had been originally thinking green the kitchen, and then switched to purple, and now I’m thinking some kind of mustard yellow. Since we’re painting the cabinets white, I can do pretty much whatever I want.

Other than that, I want to say that I rocked the blue wall in our bedroom today. Two coats before lunch. One immediately after. The color was inspired by this beautiful guy, who woke us up almost every morning in Huanchaco, Perú by landing, awkwardly, on our tin roof…

Project Paint: Scope Creep and Spackle Lady

I definitely biting off more than I can chew with this one… I wanted to paint the entire condo before fully moving back in after coming back from Perú. I’ve been talking about doing it since even before we left. So now we’re back. Our stuff is still in storage. And our house is a huge mess.

The project started with the idea of just re-painting the walls. We’ve quickly added a few side projects. Here’s the punch list:

1. Rip out the shelves in the bedroom and office closets and replace them with modular storage shelves and drawers.
2. Take out sliding doors to office closet. Replace with curtains.
3. Get rid of the built in desk and weird storage box in office.
4. Remove built-in microwave and replace it with a shelf.
5. Replace blinds.
6. Rip up and replace the old baseboard moldings.
7. Paint the kitchen cupboards (in addition to the walls).
8. Take out the fluorescent lighting in the kitchen. (Scott is fighting this one. It would lift the ceiling up about 5 inches, which is greatly needed in our dinky kitchen.)

Since we’re doing a lot of ripping out of things, I’ve been spackling away at the walls. It’s highly addicting. And messy. Look closely, I have a thin layer of dust all over me.

These are a few before photos. Circles and arrows indicate things that are going bye-bye.

Project Arequipa apartment search complete!

As of yesterday afternoon I was feeling out of options for our apartment search…

My leads from online classifieds had run dry. The Your Peru travel agency needed another week to help me. And our current hotel wasn’t feeling like the right kind of atmosphere for us.

So, I picked up an El Pueblo paper from a vendor on the street and started scouring the noticias for these key words:

We’d been through Yanahuara on the Arequipa Bus Tour yesterday, and loved it’s plaza, and distance from the city center. So when one of the noticias said “cerca Plaza Yanahuara”, I called them immediately.

By the way, speaking Spanish over the phone is really difficult. It’s one thing to supplement your broken Spanish with hand gestures and facial expressions… The phone is intimidating.

So, I initially reached a Spanish speaker, who turned me over to her English speaking son, Ruben. We spoke for a bit about the apartment, but quickly realized they weren’t offering it with furniture, and we’d have to set up an internet connection.

Heart breaking. But not the end of the story.

About an hour later Ruben called me back. (Being completely intimidated by the phone, I jumped when it rang and then waited until the third ring to pick up for some mental preparation.)

After some negotiating and a visit this morning, we’re set up with an amazing, furnished apartment about a half block from the Plaza Yanahuara!

Exciting day. We move in tomorrow.

Peru Trip Demystified (Part IV)

Oh my, my. We have one week to go. And our schedule this last week is fully booked! When you leave town for 6 months, everyone wants to see you before you go. Which is very nice. I’m definitely going to miss Seattle!!

What are you taking with you?

This short answer is whatever we can fit into two large backpacking packs, our personal backpacks and one large duffle.

Clothes, some choice camping gear, our computers, the Wii and a few handheld gaming devices, art supplies, Peru travel books and a med kit. Yeah, that sounds so simple.

Do you speak Spanish?

We both speak enough Spanish to get by down there. I have a minor in Spanish, and Scott has been taking some classes at the Seattle Language Academy. We also both listen to Spanish podcasts, including Coffee Break Spanish and Showtime Spanish. We’re looking forward to being fully immersed so we can practice. We may even take some language classes once we’re settled.

p.s. This is just some of the mess in my condo right now. Hmm. Maybe I should get back to packing…

Roughing it in the living room.

We’ve been stocking up on light weight camping essentials for Peru. I do realize you can rent a lot of this down there. I’m expecting to use it a bunch both there and when we’re back. So I think it’s been a good investment.

Our tent and sleeping pads came in the mail yesterday. We decided to try out the whole setup in our living room. Technically the tent could fit out on our deck, but we opted for the additional carpet padding. (We left the door open to simulate being outside in the cold.)

Here’s the list of camping related stuff we’re bringing (because I love lists):

• REI Sub Kilo +15/+20 down sleeping bags (2lb each)
• Kelty Teton 2 person tent (4lb, 10oz)
• Thermarest pads (13oz each) Note: We went with the ’short’ ones to save on weight and cost. I think my super backpacker dad would have advised otherwise, because without padding under your feet they get cold.
• Thermarest Trekker lounge chairs (18oz)
• Thermarest Universal Couple Kit (2.4oz) Awesome little contraption that keeps the sleeping pads together. SO nice.
• Thermarest compressible travel pillows (12oz each) These guys have been with us all over. They’re great for long plane, train or bus rides.
• UV Water Filter (8oz) We haven’t purchased this yet… Still want to do some research to see if it’s ‘voo doo’. Seems too good to be true. Would be super handy to have.
• Packs Of course.

p.s. Other than the REI sleeping bags and packs, everything was purchased on Campmor.com. They’re awesome.