Some Days are Better than Others

It is a beautiful Sunday here in Houston, so I took Baxter to the dog park this morning, and I soaked up some sun while Baxter soaked up some other dogs’ spit and who knows what.  I had hoped to make some more progress on Junebug today, but I don’t think it was meant to be.

First, I got out the paint stripper and tried it on my cabinet door.  It seemed like it took something off, but there’s still a lot of varnish or stain on the wood, meaning I’ll either need to strip again and then sand, or maybe I can get the rest just sanding.  I’m going to borrow a sander from one of my friends soon so that I don’t have to buy one.

You can’t even tell that I did anything to the door from this picture.  The only thing that seems to be different is the texture of the wood since the drawer is still smooth with a slight sheen to it and the door is rough to the touch.  The color doesn’t seem to have changed at all.

While the stripper was doing its thing, I decided to remove the oven.  That wasn’t actually that hard, however I quickly realized that the oven would have to stay in the camper because it wouldn’t fit through the door frame.   If I want to take it out, I’ll have to wait until I remove some of the paneling.  I wanted to remove the cabinets and laminate from the countertop today, but even though I thought I got all the screws out, the cabinet wasn’t budging.  I also tried prying loose the laminate countertop and it kept breaking off so I gave up on that task for now.

Since none of my other projects seemed to be going well, I decided to get back to work removing the carpet glue from my tiles.  I thought that I could at least make some progress there for today.   I thought the acetone was working well before, but this time since I was working with a larger area, I realized that the acetone was also removing a thin layer of the tile itself.  Now I don’t know what to do about the tile once again.  I could try some different kinds of remover to see if something else works.  I really wish the previous owners hadn’t put that carpet down!

So, it’s 3pm and I’m not really any further along than I was yesterday.  I decided that maybe today was just an off day.  I am going to find something else to do instead, in hopes that next weekend will be better.   Sorry for the frustrated and negative post today.  Hopefully I’ll be back to my usual Pollyanna self next weekend.  (My stepdad used to call me Pollyanna because I was always in a good mood and so optimistic).

I will leave you with this cute picture of Baxter to lighten the mood.  I caught him sunning himself last weekend in one of my lounge chairs by the pool.  He’s so photogenic.

A few hours later…

I found a cool idea online for Junebug for the dinette/bed area, and I got re-energized a bit.   I really like how this camper has a permanent bed and a small dinette so you don’t have to constantly make the bed up everyday and find a spot to store the linens.  This will work great for Junebug! (Downloaded from http://www.littlevintagetrailer.com)

I also forgot to give credit to Larry at http://www.cannedhamtrailers.com for adding a link to my blog on his site!  I’ve learned so much watching Larry’s videos online and that’s what gave me the courage to start my own renovation.  I was honored that he added the link to this blog on his site.  Hopefully I will make him proud!

I started to shellac one of the birch panels tonight with my renewed energy.  It is already looking beautiful after only two coats!  I noticed there are some green streaks in the wood though and I don’t think those are supposed to be there.  I’m going to call Houston Hardwoods tomorrow to see if they’ll replace it with a better one.  I can probably still use this one in a less noticeable spot like above the kitchenette.

Notice the greenish streak in the wood.  Hmm

Ok, I’d better get to bed soon.  Good night everyone!