Friday Tip Day

Making a house a home is a daunting task, especially when you haven't stayed in one house for more than two years in the last decade.  Since 2001, I've been through an apartment in college, a dorm room in Army training, a house in Germany, a warehouse in Turkey, an apartment in Germany, a trailer in Iraq, a tent in Kuwait, another house in Germany, an apartment in Boston, a rented house in Boston, and finally a purchased house in Boston.

But the easiest thing to make your house is home is to prove that you own it by putting pictures up.  Photos of places, friends, and family make any room feel like any of the other places you've called home.

My favorite picture is one taken by Mr. Move-a-lot's sister at our wedding.  A total random moment caught in a dance we were making up on a spot to a song we picked that morning.  It reminds us that even when we don't know what we're doing, we're pretty happy.   Our faces are all squinted up and weird looking, but who cares!  It's blown up and framed and currently in a truck headed to Washington DC!


Have a picture-filled weekend!

Friday Tip Day

In the very very short amount of time that we have to move out of Boston and into DC, Mr. Move-a-lot and I are trying to de-lead our house.  Massachusetts has very strict lead paint laws and we are doing everything from throwing doors away to replacing walls to encapsulating baseboards.

My job is mainly the encapsulation process, which means that I put a special paint over things that have lead paint in one or more of its paint layers.  I originally thought that encapsulant paint (which is $50 a gallon, approximately - ouch!) was some super secret scientific paint that sealed off anything with lead paint in it.  Um, I'm reading too much sci fi.  According to the expensive deleading class that Mr. Move-a-lot had to take, it's just bad tasting paint.

Really?

Yes, it's just paint that tastes really really really horrible and so when kids put their mouths on it, they won't do it again.  I don't understand why I could crush some red pepper flakes up into my normal paint or rub a chili pepper all over the place (works for my dog!) but there you have it.  Three coats of encapsulant, which can ONLY be white, and then two layers of colored paint over it.

Oh yeah, the tip!  I'm not steady enough to paint without using blue tape to stop me from painting EVERYTHING, but I've learned a good tip.  If, like me, you tend to take advantage of blue tape and freely glop paint all over the place, you must pull your tape up between layers.  One the paint dries or even semi-dries, if it dries OVER the small crack between what you're painting and your blue tape, when you pull up the blue tape, it will take a little bit of paint from the area you're actually painting with it.  Then, you have to go back through with a tiny brush or an uber-steady hand and touch up.  Taping is time-consuming, so balance whether you'd like to retape or touch up, but it's a tip I learn and regularly apply.  I go through a lot more tape that way, but it really works!

Happy painting this weekend!

Friday Tip Day

This might not have a lot to do with moving, but once I learned this tip, a whole new world opened for me.  I love flowers, and every once in a while, Mr. Move-a-lot will stop by a grocery store or gas station and pick me up a small bouquet of something.  Carnations, daisies, I love them all.  But, of course, they ususally die in a day or so.

UNLESS you put a tiny little bit of bleach in the water.  Toss out the plant food that comes with, add a quarter to half a little capful of bleach and those flowers will keep going long and strong.  Right now I've got a simple little bouquet of flowers that someone got me still looking fresh and it's been OVER TWO WEEKS since I got them.

Have a great and flower-filled weekend!

Friday Tip Day

The great thing about being a Move-a-lot?  Getting to try new ideas in new spaces all the time, especially those I've been wanting to try for a while.  But, I often forget new things I've seen or colors I'd like to try because I look at so much design stuff.  So, today's tip is to start a design folder.

I'm an old-fashioned girl who likes the feel of paper, so I print pictures and tear things out of magazines to keep them for our next adventure.  Here's my folder:

And here's just a few of my collection.  (Currently OBSESSED with the outdoor space picture)

Look at that amazing hanging light in the bottom center picture!!

So, whenever we hit a new place or finally decide which room is going to be the guest room, I can pull out the folder, skim through all of these pictures and pick something I think is pretty neat to try.  And, if it doesn't work, we just move a few years later :-)


Have a great weekend!