How I scratched the surface

My moving into my apartment was only the apogee of a very stressful time in life. Acquiring my apartment was in itself the most stressful thing I’ve ever done, so much as when I was finally there it took me months to unpack the kitchen utensils  alone. And it took me years to fix some basic utility problems, such as hot water … And as it is meant to be in life, wounds heal, and one day I woke up and didn’t really like what I saw, and that is when I started scratching the surface, without a definitive plan, or direction, or deadline on my mind.

The surface I scratched – the very first thing – the kitchen joinery was dirty with the dark mauve paint, used all over the kitchen to hide God knows what. In fact, it is a rather dark kitchen – situated on the second floor of a six story building, and with solid walls on both sides, it is like pitched inside a stairwell. The sun only shines for 15 minutes every day, sometime in the morning, but the specific hour depends on the season.

In other circumstances, this could have been a successful combination – dark succulent mauve walls and gentle pale yellow cabinets – off-white or “blanc cassé” as it is known in French. The craftsmanship however leaves one without a doubt that this had been a cover up job – the paint goes over the board on the window frame, and also on the ceiling.

 

My first action is on the window frames – I buy degreaser and start working on it regularly, in fact until my rags soak up too much of the degreaser and risk to leave even bigger marks on the window frame. So, the task stretches, day in and day out, the quality is variable, but some progress on the frame can be noted.

 

Inspired by the success of the operation, I already see expansion opportunities. In the same space – the ceiling needs cleaning; in the neighboring space – living room door frame is covered in the most despicable gray, and now that I had my maiden use of DIY chemicals, I am up for the next important intervention – I will strip the paint off the door frame, all the way down to the original wood.

 

So, the surface scratching did not produce the results I had expected – the window in the kitchen instead of snow white, ended up in some pinky glow. The ceiling marks needed more than manual sanding. The stripped door frame wouldn’t be complete without sanding either.

But once it was all started – the imagination could stretch and conceive different views, and that was a good, positive thing! It started in fact an invisible domino effect which I am still living through. It proves that one difficult thing to do is beginning, and from then on – it is just putting one foot in front of the other, until the final destination is reached.

Hard to believe I started more than a year ago, and only today was busy with applying the new layer of varnish on the doorframe.

I call it before, after and encore - and more about it in the next post!

In the meantime - let me know if you scratched a surface and what was it like? How far did it take you? Are you still on the way, do you know where you want to go?

And, happy scratching, of course:)