It's 'Pismo' Not 'Bismol'

Since the "Sweet Corn" (a.k.a. light yellow) color was rejected for the bathroom, I've been switching color chips around, hiding their names and constantly quizzing Kevin on which one he likes. Kevin would tell you this is a uselss exercise as I always go with the one I like anyway, but that's not true. He picked the 'Harvest Brown' (a.k.a. light brown) for the bedroom and it's been a huge hit.

I'm really tickled by the names of some of these colors and part of liking the color is liking the name that comes with it. There's nothing like showing someone your newly painted room and responding to their "I really like this blue" by saying, "Thank you and actually, it's called Misty Surf." It makes your room sound so sleek and exotic, when really it's just a light blue.

Last night we added a few more yellows to the mix for the bathroom including 'Applesauce', 'Honeybutter' and 'Pismo Dunes.' Kevin has picked 'Pismo Dunes' and while I do think it's our best bet, I cringe when I picture myself telling visitors, "Actually it's called Pismo Dunes."

To make matters worse, Kevin's taken to calling is 'Bismol Dunes' (yes as in Pepto Bismol), which makes the color sound like a really disgusting runny pink if you ask me.

Sigh, I think 'Pismo Dunes' is our next try, so I may just have to learn to like the name. Then again, maybe it'll be too orange. One can always hope. 'Applesauce' here we come!

The Sun Is Rising in Our Bathroom

For some reason I've taken a liking to the rolling part of putting on paint. Don't ask me to trim or edge in or to do "touch-ups", all of which cause me to shudder. But ask me to throw some paint in a disposable paint tray with a fluffy new roller and I'm there.

Having finished all of the actual rolling of our rooms and there not being any jobs that could possibly provide the immediate gratification that I crave (i.e. splashing color on a wall) I started to obssess about what color to paint our guest bathroom upstairs (yes, the one we currently use).

Kevin has nixed any bright colors in the house, especially yellow. He has informed me that he is much more of an 'earth-tone' person and that's what colors he would like upstairs. Imagine my surprise when we started arguing about the color for this bathroom and he mentions yellow. I raised an eyebrow, but since that was what I had in mind anyway I started to pick out a color.

After the usual ordeal of sorting through colors and having the chips sitting in the room for a day or so, we settled on "sweet corn." The name should have given it away. When have you ever known corn to be subtle in color? After painting on a few swipes of this last night, to get an idea of what it looks like on the wall, I was assaulted by the brightest, shinest, neon yellow you can imagine. No, it hasn't calmed down this morning. And I hate it. Weirdly enough, Kevin loves it. Go figure.

It's Hard to Tell Who's Winning

We didn't have much time for the house last night, but we had two goals. First, to order carpet and second, to rid the bathroom of that awful smell from the Jacuzzi.

The carpet turned out to be more difficult than expected. Our estimate had two incorrect items on it. They charged us for moving furniture, which we currently don't have and they also charged us for removing carpet, which is quite obviously already gone.

Apparently this would take massive recalculations and would you know it the Flooring Department was swamped and their computers were down. We're hoping they call us today.

As for the Jacuzzi...after researching on Google, I discovered a few things. First, everybody wants you to buy their snazzy product, which will clean your Jacuzzi. No one will admit that any type of household cleaner could possibly clean your Jacuzzi pipes. This was disappointing. But the huge defeating fact I found out was that bleach has absolutely no effect on whatever is lurking in your Jacuzzi pipes. I also learned what's lurking in there and it isn't pretty. I think every deadly disease know to man must be breeding and hiding out in our Jacuzzi pipes.

We went for the relatively inexpensive second swipe at our problem and bought a 'whirlpool' cleaner at Lowe's. It consisted of two packets that you must pour in at timed intervals in a certain part of the tub. I read the instructions three times as they warned of a horrible odor if this wasn't done correctly and the last thing I wanted to do was add to the smell!

There were also three separate warnings on the package about not touching this cleaner, not smelling it, not ingesting it, etc. I was afraid to even get near the stuff by the time I had finished reading. Needless to say I sent Kevin in the bathroom with a rubber glove to drain the tub when it was done!

And the smell is - it's reduced. So I'm still not sure who's winning...

The House Is Still Winning

I guess I need to take back that point I scored yesterday. The smell is worse than ever, oozing its way across the master bedroom and out into the hallway. I have gone through approximately one and a half gallons of bleach and it has had no effect whatsoever on the smell. This leads me to believe that I'm not attacking the right location as bleach kills nearly everything in its path.

More detective work will be necessary to figure this one out. Keep checking back for the latest on the Case of the Fetid Smell!

Is That Algae?

I really thought we were ahead of the house, but it's sneaky and waits to play tricks on us until we're least expecting it. This weekend my parents came down again for more fun working on the house. Doors were painted, flowers were planted, tiles were replaced, baseboards painted and bushes trimmed. All in all, not bad for 5 people in 8 hours. We were feeling very good about our accomplishments.

But I think we were prideful a little too soon. Yesterday Kevin and I took a bath in our Jacuzzi tub after putting about 1/2 gallon of Clorox in the water and running it through the pipes. Note: The home inspector told us this was all we needed to do to clean out the jets. Kevin then proceeded to put bubble bath in the tub and turn on the jets. Do you know where this is leading yet? Stop laughing.

The bubbles grew like some horror movie and we quickly deduced that bubble bath and jacuzzis don't mix well. We turned off the jets to Kevin's dismay and drained the tub. Of course that couldn't be the end of this.

This morning when I woke up I smelled something putrid, almost like a stagnant pond. I ignored it for two reasons. First, this house has all kinds of putrid smells that we've been trying to get rid of and second, I was secretly hoping it would go away. After going downstairs to put out the trash I came back upstairs only to discover the smell was stronger. I followed my nose to, yes, the tub. Yuck! There was something on the bottom of the tub that I could only describe as the most fetid smelling green stuff I could imagine in a house. Score one for the house.

A gallon of Clorox later and three 1/2 hour separate runs of the jets and I thought I had most of it cleared out. But no, the algae is clining to the bottom of the tub like the ivy did on our fence out back and won't drain! Score two for the house. So, I did the only thing I could think of, I killed it with Clorox spray. Score one for me!

Yes, we're still grossed out by the fact we took a bath in the stagnant, putrid pond. And yes, the house is still ahead!