GASPing along and Art Unraveled coming up

This cabinet and work top came with the garage--I'm in process of painting it with the floor paint I rejected for the bathroom.

Latest news on the Garage Art Studio Project:

The bathroom is built and painted. We painted the floor first. (Mostly done by the long-suffering Steve, contractor and carpenter.) I kind of chose a floor color at random, knowing the bathroom needed to be painted before the city inspectors beheld it. The wall color was similarly hurried. I like both colors but the combination looked 1940's institutional. Or like an old set from "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." Later I went over the floor with a wash of another color. I like the look but find it interesting that the green walls and red-brown floor replicate colors already in the garage that I plan to paint over.

New window, old trim and new walls

Saturday I went to Home Depot to look for a vanity and sink. I knew what size I needed so thought it would be simple. Haha. I don't know what it is, but I really suspect there's a network of home improvement stores that prepare for my visits. "She's headed toward the Johnson Creek Home Depot" or "Subject sighted at Acme Overhead Doors. Prepare to deflate!"

It unfolds like this. I enter the store, and find a helpful (ha) clerk. I explain clearly and concisely what I need. Said clerk then proceeds to tell me that what I (i.e. my contractor, plumber, or electrician) are planning to do Will Never Work.

If I tell them I need an insulated garage door with an R factor of 13 they'll tell me why I don't need that high an R factor. If I say I know I need a custom size door for my old garage, they'll tell me I don't and that my contractor measured it wrong. (Ha!)

So yesterday the helpful employee opined that none of the vanity units they had would work for my project and that the way my contractor and plumber proposed to handle the insertion of a water heater was Completely Wrong Headed. I called the long-suffering Steve, and wailed to him that he needed to talk to this mean man. They talked and little was resolved. Steve rightly suggested that I call the plumbing and electrical supervisor. I did and related my tale of woe. The latter stalwart fellow said he would go to Home Depot and sort out which vanity I needed.

I do try to do some of this myself, I really do. I did manage to get another color of floor paint to wash over the institutional gray, after hearing dire warnings from two clerks about how the paint would take days to dry and perhaps 1000 years to cure.

Repainted floor treatment

What I seem to be best at is popping into Goodwill when I have ten minutes to kill and coming out the owner of a huge armoire. As soon as I saw this, I knew I was a goner. What a patina. What character. I love it. The long-suffering Steve met me there and hauled it back to the studio. The next day he and my long-suffering son unloaded it.

Beautiful, isn't it?

I can't believe that I leave in a few days for Phoenix. Who would go to Phoenix in August? Many art lovers who will descend on the Embassy Suites for Art Unraveled. This will be my first time attending this retreat and I'm very excited. I know the Embassy Suites well from Art and Soul retreats, so I imagine there will be no need to leave the building and go into the hot sun! I'll tell you all about the retreat when I return.