Tape, Miles and Miles of Tape

It's another kitchen reno update.  I know I'm obsessing about the kitchen, but seriously it is all I am doing morning to night right  now, so it's all I've got to blog about.  And if you've ever lived in government housing where you have no choice in furnishings, curtains, or even the house itself, then you understand  how excited I am to be playing with my own little house.

Today I got up and decided I would knock out the backsplash on the second side of the kitchen,  I figured I could do it all in one day, no problem.  I already know what to do since I did the other side of my little galley kitchen last week.  Yeah, that worked. Either I am an incurable optimist when it comes to DIY projects in spite of being a glass half empty kind person in the rest of my life, or the paint fumes have gotten to me. I didn't even come close to finishing up today.

10 am blocking in the area to be painted with wide tape to protect the cabinets, counters, window and what ever I can possibly splash paint on while creating the faux tiles.

At this point I thought I was making good progress. Paint fumes I tell you, paint fumes. I worked pretty steadily until around 2:30 or so when some family dropped by to see the progress.  I love being someplace where family can just drop by.  We visited for a while, it was great.  You never realize what a luxury that is until you live some place where it takes a couple day's travel for family to "drop by."

After they left I got back to work, but realized fairly quickly that I probably won't be painting today, but I was confident I would finish up the taping at a reasonable hour (paint fumes!!) and have a relaxing evening.  Yeah, that didn't work either.

6:00 still have the part of the area behind the fridge and most of the area around the window to do, plus all the little vertical pieces that make it look like tile instead of stripes. At this point I'm starting to think it's going to be long night, but I was still confident I would finish up before I headed to bed. Yeah, riiiight! It has to be paint fumes, no one is this delusion, I mean optimistic. Yeah, I totally meant optimistic, not delusional. Whose delusional?  I don't know what you are talking about.

9:00  The window.  Oh the window.  At this point I should probably apologize to my high school geometry teacher.  Perhaps if I had paid more attention to Ms. Lange that window would have been easier to tape. Suffice it to say that stupid window was taped and untaped and retaped several times today.  There has to be an easier way than the way I did it. I measured, marked, and taped only to find when I got to the top of the window the two sides didn't match up.  Starting at the ceiling and working down didn't work either, apparently the ceiling isn't level. The result were even worse.

10:30 VICTORY!!!  The window is finally taped.  Whew!  I finally taped the very top of the window, and then worked up and down from there.  Several rows are a tiny bit wider or narrower than the rest to make it all work.  The difference is so small I don't think anyone will ever be able to tell unless they take a ruler to the wall.

I still need to add in most of the little vertical stripes. I will be spending several hours in the morning doing this.  Yay, more tape.  I'm so excited. No really, I am.

I am confident that by bedtime tomorrow I will be done with the backslashes, except for applying the polycrylic sealer in a few days. Please don't let this be paint fumes talking.  I really want to be finished with this step.

In the meantime I am going to enjoy some beer and brats with a side of salad for a very late dinner. Good night y'all!