In the dark...for a week!

Shortly before leaving for Thanksgiving I noticed that the light switch in our room wasn't working. Not only that, but the light switch next to the closet didn't work and neither did the light switch in Connor's room. Coincidental-I think not, but I didn't understand why they weren't turning on. Anyway we left, we came back and lived about a week in the dark at night because well we didn't have much of a light source. We kept the hall light on or the bathroom light on so we could get ready for bed. Changing a diaper in the dark was also a bit challenging, but we managed. So what could possibly be the source of the problem? Would you believe me if I said this was the culprit:
Yes the nightlight was the source of our problems. Connor really likes pulling the nightlight out, so I went ahead and pulled it out and placed a plug cover in it's place. From that point on we had no lights...though I didn't realize that at the time. A couple nights ago as we were getting ready for bed we decided re really needed the light from the night light, so Peter plugged it in. Instantly Connor's light turns on! We quickly turn it off as we didn't want him to wake up at 10pm. Then we try the light in our room and it works! Apparently in order to have our lights in working order the night light must be plugged into the top socket.

We just love the little quirky things about our house.

The Results Are In

Alright I know you've all been anxiously awaiting the results....and well the bathroom was finally put back together tonight and then pictures were taken. Followed by a few more touch ups.

Here is the Before picture-all the walls in our house are the same color.

We bought the primer and had it tinted to nearly the same color. The wall on the left has the primer on it. The wall on the right has one coat of plaster on top of the primer.Wall on left has one coat of plaster, wall on the right has two coats of plaster.

TADA! The bathroom is complete! So you want to know if we would recommend venetian plaster to anyone??? Well Peter did all the work and though he has a few blisters...he said, "If you just want a new color, don't bother, but if you want the look, it's worth it." He plans on doing a venetian plaster in our guest bathroom (the one we were originally going to do) next month. He said he learned from this experience a few things he would do differently next time.

1-When applying the first coat of plaster, make sure you completely cover the whole wall (don't leave spaces as the instructions suggest).
2- When taping-cover everything and leave some slack in the tarps-so you don't have to paint the baseboards too :)
3-Make sure you really love the room that you are painting...at a minimum there's four coats to apply with a trowel, not a brush.
4-Keep the plaster thin or else it cracks as it dries, thus creating more touch up work.
5-Remember this is supposed to be a relatively smooth surface when you're done...though ours didn't turn out that way...but we like it anyway.

The Painting Has Begun!

Woohooo the painting has begun and it looks so cool! We ended up deciding to start with our upstairs master bathroom in our bedroom (we have two small master bedrooms upstairs). We decided to start with our bathroom so if we didn't like the outcome, we would be the only ones to really see it. If we started with the downstairs bathroom then everyone who comes to visit would see it.

Through the week we gathered items that we would need. We decided to go with a Venetian Plaster-it's light blue, called Roman Bath. In order to do the plaster we needed a rounded trowel, sand the walls down, and put on some primer. We got the primer tinted to nearly the same color as the plaster. We also picked up the topcoat for the plaster as well (since it's a bathroom, we use a topcoat instead of some other steps on the instruction manual-the topcoat is supposed to give the same effect as a couple of other steps while keeping the moisture out.)

On Thursday night we dismantled all the hardware in the bathroom, and Peter took the tank off of the toilet. (Peter hates touching toilets, but he figured it would be easier to plaster behind if the tank wasn't there....so he grinned and bore the burden of touching a toilet...he washed thoroughly afterward.)

On Friday Peter had the day off of work, so he prepped the room-taped and hung plastic, sanded the walls and put the primer on. He also made another trip to Home Depot for drywall patch (we keep finding really crummy craftmanship in the way this place was built...so he fixed a gigantic hole behind our light fixture.) Friday night he put the first coat of plaster on. It looked pretty cool.

Saturday he put a second coat of plaster on and then a touch-up in a few areas. Then we had to wait. The top coat can't be put on until the plaster has dried for 24 hours...so the painting adventure will conclude Monday after work. In the meantime we keep going and staring at the bathroom....it looks great!

Before, during and after pictures will be posted as soon as the bathroom is complete!

Too Many Choices!

How do the guys on HGTV do this? Peter wants to paint...he thinks starting with our downstairs guest bathroom will be first. Here are the paint samples that we picked up, what do you think?
The above samples are from Frazee, the ones below are from Behr.
These are the Venetian Plaster and Bellagio Faux samples. We're seriously thinking about trying a Venetian plaster in a neutral color...but we're keeping our options open.

So what do you think?

Who designed this place?!

Recognize this? It's your average smoke detector. You're supposed to change the batteries every year. They should be found in every room of the house or at least in appropriate spots. Now if you're supposed to change the batteries, wouldn't you place your smoke detector in an accessible spot? Well take a look at where one of our detectors is located.

How on earth are we supposed to reach this?

This is the stairwell. The detector is located about halfway down the stairs and obviously out of reach. To make matters worse Thursday morning the detector started chirping, letting us know that the battery was running low. Thursday night around 10:30 as we were heading to bed it started chirping again. ARG we forgot about it until then. It chirped several times throughout the night and was chirping again Friday morning. Peter had Friday off and went and got a ladder from his parents house. Only problem is how do you reach the detector from the middle of the stairs. This was a regular ladder so the legs were the same length and not adjustable. So what do we do??? Mind you the detector was chirping all day Friday so the first thing on Peter's mind was fixing the detector and make the chirping stop. So what does the engineer think of? Well while the ladder is folded he leans it up against the stairs. My job is to hold the ladder from falling over while Peter fixes the detector. It wasn't easy, but in the end he fixed it. About five minute afterwards the dang thing chirped again, but we haven't heard it since then.

Peter drew this picture on the computer to help you get an idea of what we did to fix the problem. Mind you I was given the option to be the one on the ladder, but that didn't sound fun to me and I'm a good half a foot shorter than Peter. I would've had to climb up farther on an unsteady ladder.

On a different subject...looking back at the second picture you see our stairwell is a bit empty. There's a light on the wall and a framed needlework that I did. We have the huge space above the light that is empty and Peter and I are taking any suggestions on what we should do with the space. Or really with any of the space on the wall. We really need help!