This counter top project that was supposed to take one weekend has gone on for five.  Putting the second layer of base coat and chips on and then not being able to sand 24 hours later because Steve works resulted in the top being so hard that we had to borrow an electric sander.  And that was going to be a big mess so we bought more plastic drop cloths to enclose the kitchen.

Somehow we still managed to have a fine dust coating every inch of everywhere including the dishes in the closed cabinets.

A couple of people wanted to see the counter tops after the top coat glaze was put on. This final part of the project has taken two weekends because we decided to apply a second top coat.

It’s just too bad we didn’t know up front to have two kits on hand and then we would have been finished after the first weekend.  We are very happy with the transformation though and it was worth the added work.

Now we are faced with what exactly to do about the part of the fence that was blown down last fall.  The ugly fence actually belongs to the neighbor but he has refused to make repairs in the past when the garbage truck backed into it, when his renter ran into it, when a bear climbed over one part and broke the lattice, and yet again when a bear ripped right through the pickets one night (I watched it happen).  The other problem is the fence is one foot over our property line onto their side but only in the backyard so it curves inward.  We’re not too keen about building a whole new section that would still be crooked.  I talked to our potential listing realtor and naturally he wants us to just fix it quickly no matter how we do it.  According to him the market is getting hot here now and we should hurry up. I do remember that last year many houses sold in the spring and then the real estate market came to a halt later in the summer.

           Big Blah. Our property line is actually between the two left trees. 

This is when the bear brought a bag of garbage over from next door. After he got done eating he clawed right through the fence to get back.

Anyhow, Steve got the pantry shelves painted and now all we have left to do is the fence and clean some stucco at the front of the house that developed water marks over the winter.  After writing a check for our property taxes we are ready to be done with the expense and constant upkeep of owing a house.  I love our town but heck, we can stay in the local RV park every summer (if we wanted to) for four months for just what our property taxes are.  House insurance expense gets us two more months at an RV park.  It’s a no-brainer particularly when Steve could retire for good and also his mood is so much better when he doesn’t work.

On another note, yesterday I read a photography article about the Zoom Effect.  Essentially you snap a picture on a cloudy day, set your shutter around 1 second, f-stop about 22, ISO 100, and zoom in or out while you take the picture.  It wasn’t cloudy here yesterday so I quickly tried this method indoors without much thought and the results were rather interesting.  This is looking down on a vase of artificial flowers that I placed on the floor.