We’ve spent the past couple of days at Mom’s house working on the basement apartment. Eddie pointed out that we’re not going to be living in the basement, but rather “we’ll be on the 1st floor and have a seriously cool attic.” We took some pictures yesterday both before and after cleaning, but they’re already out of date since we made messes in there today while painting.

We got some of the kitchen done this afternoon. What seemed to be some fairly stuck-on wallpaper turned into near-mush when we slapped some primer on it, so we ended up scraping off some of the bubbly areas. There was some really hideous wallpaper in there - we pulled off a top layer of this rough, yellow paper (think huge wallpaper-sized pieces of yellow duct tape) to find a stereotypical horrid kitchen-themed pattern that involved fruit, veggies, and sugar bowls, and in some areas we were even able to reveal a 3rd layer underneath the fruity one, this time featuring the Liberty Bell and other assorted motifs that I’ve shoved out of my head already. While I was scraping mushy paper off the walls and priming what I could, Eddie was doing the white trim in the rest of the basement. Brian painted some of the downstairs when they first moved in and doesn’t believe in contrasting trim, since everything - walls, molding, plate rail, everything - was all the same color.

Mom and I hit up Walmart for the painting supplies, where I snagged 2 gallons of paint for the place for about $14 because they were tinted wrong. So while I’d initially planned on doing the bedroom with a smoky blue, it’s now going to be bright blue, and the buttery yellow for the kitchen will now be a bit brighter as well. Eddie also painted the stairway leading down to the basement with some bright white, which really brightened it up in there.

Both of us are a bit on the sleepy side, so we’re going to watch some Leno, snuggle the cat, and then sleep. I don’t think we’re going over to Mom’s tomorrow, so I’m looking forward to taking an entire day to sit around in my jammies.

I officially hate wallpaper.

I’m posting this from the comfort of my bathtub, where I’m Enjoying a fabulous bubble bath. Pardon any typos.

We got a lot of work done on the basement yesterday. Eddie cleaned the kitchen and scrubbed down everything while Mom and I went through the bedroom to clean out a tote and clean off the bed. We had thouht that we’d found all of the boxes of pictures until eddie pulled another bag filled with them from the kitchen. Not only were there several million greeting cards and photo envelopes stuffed full of pictures fresh off of Mystic Color Lab’s presses, but there was also a small wooden box filled with photos from my great-grandfather’s time along with his war medals. Nice find.

It’s much easier going through Nanny’s stuff now than it was last fall. It’s both as raw and fresh as it was back then. We’re actually able to actually throw stuff out this time around. We’re trying to get as much done as possible while we’re on vacation so we can just move stuff in come July. Hopefully in the next few weeks we ccan get some painting done down there.