he told me so

Ok, boys and girls. The (expensive) lesson we have learned today is that proper preparation is GOOD. No, it is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. And lazy and impatient are BAD.

While embarking on our last floor-staining adventure, my O.H. sagely opined that it might be wise to put a skim coat of concrete down on our once-damaged, many-times repaired slab prior to staining it. I replied with something to the effect of "pish posh, don't be silly. All that prep we're going to do to it - acid etching, neutralizing, cleaning, all with a big floor buffer - will even it out." (Don't worry, I didn't really say "pish posh". That would be difficult to translate. And weird.)

So we prepped the slab as we did for our ill-fated bedroom/office; probably spent about $100 in chemicals, $65 in buffer rental. Having learned that despite good prep, acrylic stains do not last, we also purchased about $220 worth of acid stain from Lowe's. (Running total so far for the mathematically challenged: $385.00.) We applied the stain yesterday, and since this one was really an acid, we had to protect the baseboards and walls from overspray, so we spent about an hour taping off the baseboards and walls with plastic.

We very gingerly sprayed the acid, using a pump-up garden sprayer with a heavier spray pattern. I once, just once, switched it to a fine spray pattern and inadvertently inhaled some through my mouth (spare me the mouth-breather jokes; I was actually talking to O.H., hence the open pie-hole). I hadn't used a respirator since I thought the heavy spray pattern would work. That was dumb. I immediately got a sore throat (yay! Acid in the esophagus!), followed by a restless night of mild coughing. Mild, because it was just an irritation, but restless because it started. every. time. I. fell. asleep. Today it's grown into a full-fledged very irritated sore throat/pre-cold/stuffy head/crappy feeling. So I'm not sure if stripping my throat with acid started all that, or if it's just the stress I've been under and I had it coming anyway. But to look on the bright side, I'm sure it's a very fashionable splotchy copper-color inside there now, as opposed to that boring fleshy pink the rest of you conformists still have.

Which brings me back to the floor, which was my original target for all that acid. On the parts that were not patched with some obviously non-chemically reactive crap, it turned out beautifully. As for those crappy parts, they now stick out like a sore thumb. When it was all grey, it really didn't look that bad. I swear. But the stain immediately highlighted every single flaw on our floor.

Witness Exhibit A: Pre-cleaning, dirty slab: note space-cats observing strange humanoid behavior from back porch and obviously talking about me since I couldn't hear through the glass door. Their conversation was probably as follows:

Boo-Boo: she's not really gonna stain it without a skim coat, is she?

Romeow: I do believe she is.

Boo-Boo: Everybody knows the acid won't react with all those non-concrete white splotches.

Romeow: Yeah, we're just cats and even we know it. Too bad we don't have opposable thumbs. We could open this door and actually tell her.

Boo-Boo: Oh well, that's what she gets for putting us out here. Her loss.

I'm pretty sure their conversation went something like that.

Exhibit B: post-clean, post-etched slab:

Looks good, right? That's what I thought too! Begin application of stain for exhibit C, also known as the "descent into stupidity" (mine, not his):

And after 24 hours of curing, and two neutralizing scrubs with baking soda (who knew? Baking soda!), there were parts of it that ended up absolutely beautiful, Exhibit D:

And unfortunatley, those that ended up not-so-beautiful, Exhibit E. The "E" is for "Error".

And finally, Exhibit "F", which stands for "Failure to properly prepare".

As you can see, although a mottled look is desirable, the white patches and grey orbs are not. Since we had a good result with the acrylic stain in the bedroom covering some white patches, the hope was the same thing would happen in the living room. Apparently, the living room's white patches like to assert themselves more than those in the bedroom, and they just kept shining through. I even tried to "paint" them with the acrylic stain, but they overpowered the wimpy pigment. OUT, OUT, DAMN [white] SPOT(s)! (Sorry, somebody had to say it.)

SO. That brings me to my ultimate mea culpa, which was telling O.H. that he was right, and I was wrong. He was very gracious about it, kept the eye rolling to a polite minimum. Ever see Rita Rudner's act about "I told you so"? The one where she says she won't say it but she'll sing it? And then hums, in the same tone of voice that you'd say it in, "Hmmm HMMM hmmm hmmmm". Yeah, lots of that going on here.

We ended up locating a store here in Jax that is all about the modern concrete - counters, stain, misc. fabrication, etc. Very cool. Called DC Surfaces. (Not sure what the DC means - decorative concrete, maybe?) Managed to buy the kits we need to do an overlay (the damn skim coat I should've done before the LAST stain application), bond it to the existing slab, stain it AGAIN, and seal it. The good news is, the overlay is guaranteed to react with the stain due to extra limestone and stuff, whereas normal concrete is not. Plus, normal concrete needs to cure for a month before staining, which would kind of throw my timeline off. So THIS should give us the result we want. And all of that stuff totalled less than $500, which is a relative bargain compared to the QuickCrete stuff we bought at Lowe's, where the stain alone was $72 per gallon. And we used 3 gallons. Ouch.

Skim coat goes on tomorrow. Wish me (and my kneepads) luck.

Still no news on Mr. Roscoe. Hope to hear from vet tomorrow.

Here I is

Phew, that sure was a prolonged silence...especially from the likes of me! Thanks for the inquiries as to whether I was alive or not. I'm sure that's how they'll tell, at that final moment in the hospital. The doctor won't need to check my pulse, just whether I'm talking or not. Because when my talking stops...we all know that can't be a good sign.

Nothing major or new going on, just had to actually work for a few days there, Orlando, Buffalo, you know the deal. Tradeshow, demo, etc. Got to see my good friend B. from high school, and she hooked me up with like a DOZEN slammin' house music CDs from her friends at Om, many of whom I got to meet and hang out with at this year's WMC in Miami. Kewl. Almost blew out my eardrums on the drive back from Orlando.

Now we're taking bids from plumbers and contractors for the master bath and fireplace renovations, and discovering little problems with our lovely stained concrete floor. Like, the color comes off waaaaay too easily if you scrape it with something or accidentally put a piece of industrial-strength TAPE on it. Ahem, O.H. So now, since we were planning on doing the living room floor this weekend, I need to re-evaluate the product we're using. I followed the instructions TO THE LETTER, I swear, I was ridiculously obedient to the package label. AND we put 3 layers of glossy sealer on it. So it really shouldn't have lifted off quite so readily.

I need to look into obtaining a sample of real concrete acid stain, and seeing what kind of results we'll get with it. I'm nervous about the color result - you can't control those kind of stains, really, and we need it to coordinate with this trim color in order for my world to make visual sense. And we all know how important that is to me.

At the moment, Roscoe (who is now 15, if you can believe that) is out in the mobile vet's van, being poked and prodded in all kinds of unimaginable places, the poor thing. He's acting exactly the same as he did for the last decade and a half, but has lost a lot of weight and become quite bony. Old-man skinny, I call it. So we're worried about him, but hopeful it's something treatable. I guess time (and LOTS and LOTS of expensive tests) will tell.

Romeow has nice teeth. Here's why.

Use your imagination

Ok, so, theoretically, this is what a 3-sided fireplace could look like from our back porch. Had to dust off the ol' Photoshop skillz for that one. In reality, there would probably be some slate involved in a surround between the actual glass/firebox and the wood, but to add that would've taken me yet another 3 hours (I said I have skillz; I didn't say they were fast.)

And you can see that I added some very shiny stained concrete floors. Unfortunately, that's a shine I'm afraid my humble slab can never aspire to, our concrete is just too rough to get that shiny. I could probably do something to it to get it that way, but then we'd be slipping and falling down all the time, and sooner or later, one of us is going to break a hip. We are getting older, you know.
This is about the best we can hope for in the shine department:

Not exactly mirror-like, but I'll take it. It fits well with my notorious adoration of imperfections.

So tell me what you think. That means don't lurk, dammit, POST.

Vegetarians look away

This is what we had for dinner last night at a Cuban birthday barbeque. A little grotesque to be sure. A typical Cuban fiesta includes a roast pig ("puerco"), which is roasted in a coal barbeque pit for about 10 -12 hours, yuca (root vegetable like potato but more fibrous), Cuban black beans and rice, and some kind of salad. To make sure I wasn't rude, I tried everything. Twice.
It was nice to get out of the (dusty, echo-y and unfurnished) house for a while and meet some new people.

Did you know?

It's a little-known fact that when a cat reaches the topmost point of any climbable object over 10 feet tall, an invisible beam of energy comes down from the sky and energizes them with evil cat energy, enabling them to annoy you quicker and be 10x as mischievious as before. If you take a picture at just the right moment, you can see it shining out of their shifty little eyes. Kind of like "The Quickening" from Highlander, if any of you remember that. Probably less embarassing for me if you don't. Here's another case:

If you catch them doing something humans aren't meant to see, like Roscoe here doing leg-lifts, they will shoot radioactive cat beams at you from their eyes. Best to avoid these moments, it's awkward for everyone. Especially the next day, having to go back to pretending they're just little pets living in your house and not highly advanced alien life forms. Who also happen to like to play with string.

and the dust goes on

This is what it looks like when you take a 12-ft stone fireplace down to the studs. A hot mess. Any surface (including felines) that wasn't previously covered in dust now has a triple layer.

We had the foresight to list the used stone in the 'free' section on Craigslist Friday night; within 15 minutes of the listing I had 2 phone calls and 3 emails. No joke. Unfortunately, I didn't have the foresight to a.) charge for the stuff, since apparently it's hellapopular, and b.) tell them they had to haul away ALL of the rubble, concrete, mesh, drywall etc. in order to get said coveted rock. My bad.

So, as penance, I had to sort through all the rubble myself, and bag up whatever wasn't usable stone. Of course, this earned me another few hours with gloves and a breathing mask, and another shower that almost required a hammer and chisel to remove the coagulated dust. Yeeeech.

We're hoping we can open up the fireplace to the back porch - OH's idea. That would be super-cool, to be able to see outside from the fireplace, and to be able to enjoy the fire (and reap the benefits of some woodsmoke on the back porch - the bugs here are unbelievable) from outside as well as in. Well, on the 3 or so occasions we'll probably want to light a fire in the winter, anyway. It's been 90-ish every day for the past two weeks, so it's a little hard to imagine wanting to light a fire.

If you'd like to see a few more pictures of the construction (destruction, really), see them here, in the "construction" album.

Why, oh why

I'd like to know who determined at some point in time that bathroom stall doors in public restrooms, particularly in airports, should swing inward. Not exactly a stroke of genius. More like a design flaw. If you've ever traveled with a rolling suitcase or wheeled laptop bag, and tried to maneuver yourself into the stall without any unnecessary toilet frottage, you know what I mean. I decided not to check my bags on this last trip, which required two flights to get there and two flights to return (hey, at least I'm returning to a city I like now), and of course had to hurriedly dash to the bathroom between flights, with my wheeled laptop bag and my other carry-on strapped on top of it. Well. Let me tell you what a fiasco that was to try to wedge myself first, then both bags, into a stall that was already 95% occupied by a toilet.

First I had to flatten myself against the right-hand (facing) wall of the stall, which the door is hinged to, then try to open the door pretty much right onto my face while my bags uncomfortably tried to squeak through the less-than-adequate opening. I managed to get the bags into the stall, but now we're forming a bathroom door sandwich, with my bags and myself serving as the bread. So then I have to further wedge myself into the actual corner where the hinge is (hint: if your posterior is not naturally triangle-shaped, don't try this.), drag my bags sideways in front of and touching the toilet (yeeeeeech!), and only then could the damn door (barely) close, almost puncturing my bags in the process.

Thank goodness it wasn't an 'emergency', because I never would've made it with all that maneuvering, huffing, puffing, and eventual slamming followed by fuming.

WHO DESIGNED THIS?

Being a former almost-designer (does that count for anything?), I am well aware of the disadvantages of a door swinging outward from a stall (potential to get hit in the face, cause traffic-flow problems, etc.). However, somewhat ridiculously, the stall doors on the handicapped toilet stalls do swing outward. And they're the only people with the room to turn around inside and need to be able to reach the door once they're inside to close it! I think we need to reverse this.

Am I alone on this? Or do others experience the same frustration with the odious airport bathroom stalls? Larry Craig need not reply.

Something else you should know.

There's no "T" in the word "else". Say it to yourself...it shouldn't sound like "eltse". It's pronounced exactly how it's spelled. Just thought I'd share.

Random thoughts

I just received news that the apartment of one of my favorite co-workers had a fire, and he lost a beloved pet (and a friend of his lost her pets too) in the fire. Unspeakably sad, I cry every time I think about his loss. So I'm sending out lots of love and support to him and his friend right now.

Hard to follow that up with any of the usual drivel I spew here, so as a distraction from the sadness, here's a random question I have every time I check into a hotel: why is it that Housekeeping will tidy up pretty much any slop you leave in the room, yet seem to be unable to PUT THE FREAKING IRON AWAY? Just wonderin'.

Ow.

I know, I've been suspiciously silent lately...and we all know that's not a natural state for me. What I've been up to is DEMOLITION. And prep work. We (and by "we" I mean "my other half") scraped popcorn off of the ceilings in our master bedroom, office, bath, closet, and dining room; we (I) cleaned up the mess wearing a respirator and goggles; we (both of us, really, but OH mainly) removed carpeting from those same rooms, then pried up the tack strips; we (I) then pulled the nails that were holding the tack strips to the concrete OUT of the concrete; we (I) patched each and every little hole, sanding to level when dry; we (I) then wet-mopped the concrete, then mopped it with an etching acid, then mopped it with a neutralizing cleaner, then washed it down with water, all in preparation for staining and sealing. Man, "we" have been busy! O.H. has also replaced the screens on our back porch, which actually involved framing it out since the original screens were not made to be removable. But for scraping the popcorn alone, which is a sweaty, difficult job that I couldn't do without gouging the ceiling (unless I got some robotic shoulder implants), O.H. gets the Husband of the Week award.

So I am now re-evaluating my relationship with Advil, Tylenol, and other OTC pain relievers. I think I under-appreciated them until now. Additionally, we have rented a buffer/sander to do some of the scrubbing work tomorrow; if memory serves, one of these threw me across the room in basic training. Should be fun.