The Make Over Take Over

Redoing just one room of your house is apparently impossible. Once you finish that room the one next to it looks shabby, old, dated.... voila! you end up with the make over take over.

Having finished the dining room remodel in a week for under $200 I was on a mission. I explored designs for bathrooms, bedrooms, family rooms, kitchens...  Even keeping our old kitchen cabinets new granite counters and appliances would cost at least $10,000- ouch! I decided to tackle the another room first.

Our TV room is a sunny yellow that I actually like despite its not being trendy. My biggest dilemma in the TV room is a problem I also face in the kitchen and living room - laminate cabinets and counter tops. Yuck. Dated, old and ugly all rolled into one. I never understood why the original owners went to the effort and expense of having built-ins made and then cheaped out halfway through. However, I can't exactly rip out the built in bookcases without a sledge hammer and a big commitment to doing something else in the space.

Since painting over the wallpaper worked so well in the dining room I decide to be bold and paint the laminate countertops in the TV room. Rustoleum sells a countertop refinishing kit for about $250. A good deal if I was planning on repainting all of the kitchen countertops, but a bit expensive for the two small sections in the TV room.

My method was inexpensive and quick, but probably won't work in a heavy use area such as a kitchen or bathroom. I read a lot of other blogs on how to paint countertops and decided that I was much too lazy for most methods. Giani makes a countertop paint kit designed to simulate granite. The results on the website are spectacular. However, I didn't want a countertop look - I wanted the look of a built-in bookcase.

I ultimately purchased a less expensive Rustoleum product, Countertop Coating, which promised to be "washable, moisture and chemical resistant against common household items. No primer needed for laminate surfaces!"  I honestly think the nice man in the video who said,"Trust me, you can do this stuff" is what ultimately sold me on this product. I had less than 20 square feet to paint. Even with the recommended two coats, a single quart would be enough. And, better yet, the manufacturer does not recommend a finish coat of polyurethane. Two coats and in theory I'd be done! It costs less than $20 and is tintable. While the lightest shade it comes in is Ivory, Tom at Home Depot reduced the tint by 75% and I ended up with a close match to the white paint on the wood bookshelves.

First I cleaned the surfaces, wiped them down with rubbing alcohol and gave them a quick sanding, then wiped with alcohol again. Then I taped around the edges - it took 10 minutes all together.

"BEFORE"

I bravely applied the first coat. It took about 15 minutes to paint the two small sections. By then the house smelled like someone had spilled about a gallon of nail polish remover! Time to open the doors and the windows - in early March. Brr! Why didn't I think of this last week when the weather was an unseasonable 70 degrees?

First coat - not feelin' the love yet...

I waited two hours and then applied a second coat. The key to getting a good finish is to use a very good quality roller intended for smooth surfaces. While I was waiting I posted the "before" picture on Facebook. I got a mixed review of the project. Some friends cheered me on, some thought I was plain crazy - others warned me that the stuff was toxic. Oops! Too late to turn back if it is.

The Rustoleum web site estimated that the labor would take 2 hours. Without the drying time I did my small areas in about half of that.

Am I ever going to remember to wear gloves?!?

Next I replaced the boring black drawer pulls with inexpensive brushed nickel ones. I selected an oval pull for the drawers and simple round knobs for the cabinet doors - another big change for roughly $15. Having read many, many design blogs and researched a number of web sites over the past weeks one snippet of style advice stuck with me. It was simply,"when choosing metals, chose any color BUT brass!" I replaced the dated brass ceiling fixture with a new brushed nickel fixture (2 for $17.99 at Lowe's).

Original drawer pull and knobs

Finally, I decided to try reusing things from other parts of the house since it had worked well in the dining room. First, I swapped the dark area rug for a lighter one that had been stored in the basement. The darker rug will probably end up under the kitchen table. Next, I switched the table lamps with ones from our bedroom.

The total make over took two days (including shopping) and cost less than $50. The other piece of salient design advice that I read was, "Remember, that anything you chose today will look as dated in 30 years as your Grandmother's 1970 avocado green refrigerator does now." Funny - and too true!

My oh, my oh – Mysticism!

I push the Ouija board. I always have. I just don’t believe in mysticism.

So every morning when I drop Danielle at school and one of the mothers suggests that we bring Amanda to a Pranic Healer I want to hide.  According to the official Pranic Healing website,” Pranic Healing® requires no drugs, gadgets, not even physical contact with the subject. Physical contact is not required because the practitioner is working on the bioplasmic or energy body and not directly on the physical body.” [i]

This woman is convinced that pranic healing can not only mend Amanda’s broken hip, but cure her of autism. Forgive me if I doubt either claim.

She has told me that this healer can cut his hand and close the wound within half an hour. She has told me that he cured her own son who was diagnosed as having Asperger’s Syndrome. I admire her faith and enthusiasm, but I have met her son many times. He doesn’t make eye contact. He doesn’t respond to questions directed to him. Mainly, he sits by himself and plays on his I Pad. I have never heard him speak. I wonder what behaviors the master “healed.”

Now she has arranged to have this pranic master come to Danielle’s school to perform “healings”. She has explained that “this is the opportunity of a lifetime” because thousands of people in India line up to have him heal them. Well, thousands of people in India bathe in the River Ganges for spiritual cleansing and healing, but I doubt the wisdom of that as well given the contaminants in the water.

The fee is only $100 for 10-15 minutes of his time. She says that she made this special arrangement with him because she was tired of driving her son an hour back and forth to Atlanta. I tried to politely avoid the situation by explaining that I couldn’t transport Amanda by myself yet. She countered with the claim that this master could perform a “distance healing” on Amanda. All I would have to do is pay the fee and he would send his psychic energy to her in our home.  Of course, my first thought was if he can do these distance healings, why did she bother to drive to Atlanta, and conversely, why would he be willing to drive up to Alpharetta?

It reminds me of the time a dear friend hired a “pet psychic” because her cat was peeing in their laundry basket – on top of the clean clothes. Again, this psychic was able to communicate with the cat through distances so she simply called on the phone. [ii] I have a mental image of my friend forcefully holding the phone up to her disgruntled cat’s ear.  Guess what the pet psychic said? She said that the cat was “angry”. Well, duh, he was just held up to a phone for 30 minutes. The psychic probably put on some muzak and walked away. My friend was out $85 and her cat still peed on the clean laundry.

I place my faith in science and modern medicine. However, I acknowledge that there are many cultures that practice alternative medicine and that in some instances, for some individuals, these practices appear to work. It is similar to the”laying on of hands” some Christian groups practice although I imagine that they might resent the comparison.  I can’t help thinking of the 1992 movie, Leap of Faith, where Steve Martin plays a bogus faith healer. In the movie when asked if he is a true believer he responds, "If I get the job done, what difference does it make?"

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 [i] http://www.pranichealing.com/what-pranic-healing

[ii] http://thepetpsychic.com/order-services/