Sometimes it seems like 2 steps forward and 3 steps back

It doesn't seem like I've been making much progress on the home projects recently. Life does sometimes get in the way! This past Saturday we had the Middleton's over for dinner to celebrate Wendy's 32nd birthday which was this past Monday.

Darvin said the haze in this picture was caused by the smoke of all those candles being blown out! lol

After dinner we drove together down to Sunnyside for the annual Farm Implement Light Parade. It was so nice to have some little people to go with to the parade!

We all enjoyed it very much and the parade was as awesome as usual!

Pops said this was the Mater float! It was actually decorated by a dentist's office.

Of course the sabbath was a day of rest. On Monday morning I decided to start putting the 23 cupboard doors back on. I got the new hinges out and brought up 2 of the glass doors. This was supposed to be a quick and easy project that would take a few minutes, then I was going to head off to do some shopping and bill paying and then head to Yakima Regional for my Dexascan (a bone density scan). They don't suspect I have osteoporosis, this is just to get a baseline reading.

I tried to hang the doors only to have them 'stick'. I was worried that maybe the double coats of primer and paint was causing the problem, but when I took the doors off the hinges and just did a 'dry fit' into the opening they were fine! So then I watched as I tightened the hinge screws and decided that maybe I needed to use some shims under the hinge. I cut out some cardboard. Tried one piece, nope...tried two pieces, nope. I decided maybe I should try a piece of wood, nope! Well of course by this time I'd wasted the whole morning and barely made it in time to check in for my 12:30 appointment. I was SO frustrated!

After the appointment I had lunch with Darvin in the cafeteria and then decided to do my shopping. On my stop at Home Depot I ran into Barney Zauss (one of my handymen), so I chatted with him about my problem. We concluded that I should try to use a set of the old hinges, to see if that would fix the problem. When I got home I looked for the old hinges. I looked and looked and had this sinking feeling that somehow they had been dropped off at the Restore on Friday evening with the rest of my extra building supplies. I was SICK about it. I did still have 2 old hinges on the cupboard in the hallway. So I took those off and put them on one of the dining room cupboard doors and voila! No problems whatsoever! So then I was stewing about whether I'd be able to get my old hinges back from the Restore or if they'd already been sold.

I called the Restore first thing this morning (they're closed on Mondays). Gladys indicated that Saturday is a super busy day for donations so there was no chance my hinges were in the store yet, phew! She said she'd look into it. After a while I became worried as she hadn't called me, so I called back and offered to come bring one of the two hinges I still had so they could see what they looked like and I offered to help look. Unfortunately, they don't let non-employees back in the yard, so I was left to wait. She said it would help if they knew what the hinges were brought in (a box, bag, etc). So I called Lindsey and left a message for her to see if maybe Thomas could remember. After I left her a message again in my mind I questioned whether or not those hinges had really been taken to the Restore because I still had all the screws for them. But I'd scoured the kitchen (the current home improvement staging area) earlier and couldn't find them. I wandered back into the kitchen and noticed a Home Depot shopping bag on the floor next to the pantry door and low and behold (or what to my wondering eyes did appear?!) when I opened it, there were all 50 of my missing hinges along with all the old door and drawer pulls! Boy was I embarrassed to call Gladys back to tell her to call off the search! Oh well, at least I found them.

Happy dance! Now it was on to painting the old hinges and screws. I'd patched the hole in the kitchen wall earlier today so I used a piece of leftover drywall as a board to screw the hinge screws in so I could more easily paint them.

After I got done visiting teaching Erin Jones I finished screwing the screws into the board and placed the hinges on a piece of cardboard on the dining room table

and went to work painting them with the aluminum colored Rustoleum I'd used on our big door hinges. I've since put a second coat on some of them and am waiting for them to dry.

Tomorrow I'll put the 23 painted doors up with the newly painted old cupboard hinges!

Also today I painted the dining room desk chair black. I never liked the color of the wood, it always looked like that phony fiberboard covered in wood plastic even though it was real wood.

I had two partial cans of black flat spray paint here, so I took the seat off and took the chair out to the garage. I got through the can of Rustoleum and it needed some touching up. The cheapo spray paint was clogged and I couldn't unclog it for the life of me. I just this second remembered a trick I'd heard in the past to use hairspray on the sprayer, but I didn't remember in time, so ended up heading down to Walmart to get another can of Rustoleum. I thought I got it all covered, but when I brought the chair in tonight I saw some spots that I'd missed (not enough light in the garage apparently). Anyway, the chair will stay in the house to dry tonight and then I'll take it back outside tomorrow for the final coat.

What a HUGE difference a coat of spray paint makes! Now this chair 'pops'! lol

Again, I don't feel like I made much progress today, but hopefully tomorrow after I take Grandpa for his doctor's appointment and his haircut I can get back home and get moving! I plan on getting all 23 cupboard doors hung, putting at least a first coat of primer on the remaining 19 cupboard doors and hopefully will get the living room door, bedroom closet doors and basement bathroom vanity painted as well, along with a second paint coat on the laundry room cupboard and the upper kitchen cupboards.

I also finally got the Pascual's studded snow tires posted on Craig's List along with the couch I'd still like to sell (although I'm hesitant about selling it in case we DO need it in Texas-I actually really like it!). I had taken pictures of the tires long ago and kept looking and looking for them on my computer. Today I finally just decided to take new pictures!

And on a final update note, I'm hoping that Sharon and Ray Smith will 'waffle' long enough about their home improvement projects that they won't have Barney Zauss start them this week and instead he'll put my kitchen backsplash up! Otherwise he won't be able to get over here until the end of next week and I want the backsplash up before I refinish the kitchen countertop. Keep your fingers crossed for me!