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Home Improvement
Jul. 23rd, 2003 04:50 pmBack from the trip from to my sister's. I spent two days breathing toxic chemicals, painting my hair, getting eaten alive by mosquitoes, and, as usual, laughing my ass off. Only with my sister is home improvement quite this much fun.
The trip didn't start out very auspiciously, though. The day I left on this trip, Thursday, I suffered one of my top ten most embarassingly acquired injuries: I managed to wrench my neck while performing the tricky and difficult task of washing my hair. The two most painful motions were bending and lifting, something I do only about a billion times a day with an 18-pound baby. I got my husband to come home and help with the last-minute packing and baby chores, and after lying down with a hot pad for a while found out I could turn my head enough to check my blind spots, very important when setting out on a three-hour car trip. Made it to my Mom's without mishap, and was immediately relieved of all necessity of hefting Boo, seeing as my mother was prying her out of the car seat before I even managed to get out of the car. Yea for moms.
Of course, the whole reason I had planned this trip was to go to Atlanta for the weekend and help my sister with various home improvement chores. I even packed my power drill. But not only was I facing another three-hour drive, I was pretty sure it would be hard to wield a paintbrush or power drill when I couldn't turn my head. When I got up Friday morning, my neck wasn't any better, so Mom bundled me off to her chiropracter. I'd never been to a chiropracter before, but at that point I was willing to try new things. I got adjusted, electrified, and heated, and was told that, surprise, the best long-term treatment was exercise. He also recommended getting a massage once in a while. Too bad I can't get my insurance to cover it.
The drive was uneventful. I got to my sister's house around 4:30, and managed to avoid getting stuck in any Atlanta traffic until I hit the Techwood exit, which is par for doing a reverse commute. She fixed pasta for supper, then we went out and got some really good ice cream at a place that I now can't remember the name of. Jeff's or something.
Whether or not the aforementioned chiropractic adjustment was responsible, by next morning most of the pain had gone from my neck, and I was able to pitch in with the painting project and enjoy the toxic fumes of bleach and Kilz primer. There had been a serious water leak into that room, and one wall and the closet were covered in mold stains. We had to take turns with the bleach, spraying it, letting it sit for a few minutes, and then wiping it off. I did the closet, and the fumes drove me out about every two minutes. We had both windows open and fans in each window sucking the fumes out, but it was still nasty. After the bleach came the Kilz, which is supposed to seal and protect against mold stains and such coming through. We debated a while about whether to use it, since the source of the mold, ie the leak, wasn't an issue any more, and weighed the possibility of the mold re-occurance with the environmental hazards of using the stuff in a four-cat household. In the end, we opted not to chance the mold coming back, and used the primer.
Later, we discovered two things. First, that we only needed the primer to cover the actual spots where the mold had occured, not over the whole room. Second, that one is supposed to apply the top coat within an hour of putting the primer on. These two facts were mentioned nowhere among the copious labels and instructions on the paint can. Painting the whole room wasn't really a bad idea, since there might have been variations in the top coat where the primer was different, but someone might have mentioned the hour thing. In any case, after sucking in fumes for two hours, even wearing masks and towels and such, we packed it in and went for sushi.
The next day, my sister invested in a simple item that made the whole proccess about a thousand times easier: She bought a drop cloth. Not one of the micro-thin plastic ones, but a 12' by 15' piece of nice thick canvas. We'd been messing around with our traditional protective coat of newspapers, and the end result was a big mess and a bigger headache. After we put the cloth down, our lives became much happier. We painted the trim, put two coats of Pale Stem (aka pale green-yellow) on the walls, and even painted a bookcase for good measure.
All in all, it was a lot of fun, even with the toxic fumes, heat, and mosquitoes. I'm just hoping the sore throat I picked up is allergies and not paint poisoning. My neck feels better, though, so I guess the doctor was right about the exercise. I'm going to my own doctor tomorrow to have him look at a sore foot that's been bugging me, so maybe I'll ask him about the side effects of paint fumes while I'm there.
The trip didn't start out very auspiciously, though. The day I left on this trip, Thursday, I suffered one of my top ten most embarassingly acquired injuries: I managed to wrench my neck while performing the tricky and difficult task of washing my hair. The two most painful motions were bending and lifting, something I do only about a billion times a day with an 18-pound baby. I got my husband to come home and help with the last-minute packing and baby chores, and after lying down with a hot pad for a while found out I could turn my head enough to check my blind spots, very important when setting out on a three-hour car trip. Made it to my Mom's without mishap, and was immediately relieved of all necessity of hefting Boo, seeing as my mother was prying her out of the car seat before I even managed to get out of the car. Yea for moms.
Of course, the whole reason I had planned this trip was to go to Atlanta for the weekend and help my sister with various home improvement chores. I even packed my power drill. But not only was I facing another three-hour drive, I was pretty sure it would be hard to wield a paintbrush or power drill when I couldn't turn my head. When I got up Friday morning, my neck wasn't any better, so Mom bundled me off to her chiropracter. I'd never been to a chiropracter before, but at that point I was willing to try new things. I got adjusted, electrified, and heated, and was told that, surprise, the best long-term treatment was exercise. He also recommended getting a massage once in a while. Too bad I can't get my insurance to cover it.
The drive was uneventful. I got to my sister's house around 4:30, and managed to avoid getting stuck in any Atlanta traffic until I hit the Techwood exit, which is par for doing a reverse commute. She fixed pasta for supper, then we went out and got some really good ice cream at a place that I now can't remember the name of. Jeff's or something.
Whether or not the aforementioned chiropractic adjustment was responsible, by next morning most of the pain had gone from my neck, and I was able to pitch in with the painting project and enjoy the toxic fumes of bleach and Kilz primer. There had been a serious water leak into that room, and one wall and the closet were covered in mold stains. We had to take turns with the bleach, spraying it, letting it sit for a few minutes, and then wiping it off. I did the closet, and the fumes drove me out about every two minutes. We had both windows open and fans in each window sucking the fumes out, but it was still nasty. After the bleach came the Kilz, which is supposed to seal and protect against mold stains and such coming through. We debated a while about whether to use it, since the source of the mold, ie the leak, wasn't an issue any more, and weighed the possibility of the mold re-occurance with the environmental hazards of using the stuff in a four-cat household. In the end, we opted not to chance the mold coming back, and used the primer.
Later, we discovered two things. First, that we only needed the primer to cover the actual spots where the mold had occured, not over the whole room. Second, that one is supposed to apply the top coat within an hour of putting the primer on. These two facts were mentioned nowhere among the copious labels and instructions on the paint can. Painting the whole room wasn't really a bad idea, since there might have been variations in the top coat where the primer was different, but someone might have mentioned the hour thing. In any case, after sucking in fumes for two hours, even wearing masks and towels and such, we packed it in and went for sushi.
The next day, my sister invested in a simple item that made the whole proccess about a thousand times easier: She bought a drop cloth. Not one of the micro-thin plastic ones, but a 12' by 15' piece of nice thick canvas. We'd been messing around with our traditional protective coat of newspapers, and the end result was a big mess and a bigger headache. After we put the cloth down, our lives became much happier. We painted the trim, put two coats of Pale Stem (aka pale green-yellow) on the walls, and even painted a bookcase for good measure.
All in all, it was a lot of fun, even with the toxic fumes, heat, and mosquitoes. I'm just hoping the sore throat I picked up is allergies and not paint poisoning. My neck feels better, though, so I guess the doctor was right about the exercise. I'm going to my own doctor tomorrow to have him look at a sore foot that's been bugging me, so maybe I'll ask him about the side effects of paint fumes while I'm there.