The "New" Little Blue Trailer, Part 1

Once upon a time, we had a little blue trailer for hauling wood and such.  But it wasn't big enough.  In fact, I wrote about it five years ago:

http://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2011/04/little-blue-wagon.html

Here's a picture of it:

Notice the blue color?  Well that was kind of by accident.  I had white paint that I added a can of dark blue paint, and that's the color it gave me.  It was what we call a happy accident.  You see, that color blue almost glows at night.  So when we were driving down the road at night, the trailer could be seen from a half mile back. 

But Dad said the little blue trailer wasn't big enough.  He needed a trailer with dual tandems (a total set of four tires on it.)  That's right, it had to be super heavy duty.

So he bought one with dual tandems.  It was working well until a construction worker with a crane set a 4,000 pound log on it, and then pushed down with the crane.  So, it's now time to rehab, rebuild, and repaint the "new" little blue trailer.

Here's what we are dealing with:

Right now, the wood has been pulled off of it.  Namely, the wood was so banged and torn up that it needed replaced.  So here is the trailer stripped of wood, and the frame halfway painted.  It looks orange in the picture, but it is closer to Spiderman red. 

Here is the beam that was bent.  It is going to need replaced.  Hence, why it and part of the trailer have not been painted yet.

Here's the view from the back:

And here's the view from the side that still needs welded:

So this leads us to the wood.  Since the last blue worked so well, Dad decided he wanted to go with that same blue.  So we went to Home Depot, eyeballed the blue colors, and came up with the blue closest to what we had on the old blue trailer.

Heck if I can tell the difference between the two.  This time, we are doing it right.  The guy at Home Depot colored our primer the same as our paint.  So I am putting both primer and paint down on the wood.  Now, the wood on the upside will get torn up, but it will be protected from water damage on the underside. 

As of this moment I have the primer put on all the wood.  I am letting it dry until tomorrow when I will start adding the regular paint on it. 

So there is still a lot of work to do on it.

1.  Weld the trailer in a few spots.
2.  Replace the bent beam.
3.  Continue with the red paint after all the metalwork is complete.
4.  Continue painting the wood.
5.  Install the wood into the trailer. 
6.  Somewhere in there make sure all the trailer wires are off the ground and working.
7.  Once the wood is completely installed it will probably need another coat of paint.  Since the back of the trailer gets so dinged up, it 's good to have a thicker coat of paint there. 

I will post Part 2 in a week or so once most of the work is complete on the trailer.  Stay tuned!

New Sloppy Art Day

I've done a few bad art/ sloppy art posts before, so here's another one.  Every now and then I get some time and decide to paint a few paintings.  But before I get into that let me explain my painting style.  Honestly, I can't paint life-like/realistically to save my life.  I learned that I am too impatient, and way too sloppy.  But then, I was introduced to impressionist art.  And it was perfect for me.  I found that the sloppier I was, the better I was.

So here's what I have been up to lately.

This one is called "Picasso's Blue Reef."  Of all the paintings I have painted, I think I like this one the best.  I wanted to do something like Picasso, where he had a "blue" period.  I thought, what if I took Picasso's blue thoughts, and used them to paint a coral reef.  So I used all sorts of blues on this painting.  It came out great.  Again, I am really happy with it.

This one is called "Around the Old Oak Tree."  I wanted to so something a bit different.  This was supposed to be part of a five part series.  I'm still working on the series, but this one was supposed to be "Earth."  The picture itself is a little brighter than it is in real life due to the flash.  I think it's a nice, happy painting that doesn't try to over think anything.  It's just nice.

This one is called, "The Little Red Admiral From Argentina."  The butterfly itself is called a Red Admiral, and the species that I painted makes its home in Argentina.  Again, this was something outside my comfort zone.  I actually started painting a butterfly, but it didn't turn out right.  So I painted over that painting, and came up with this.  I'm pretty happy with it.  It has a lot more detail than you can see in the photo.

This is part one of a two part series.  I made this painting and the following one as a "fire and ice" theme.  This of course, would be the ice.  I call it, "Busy Day on the Blue Reef."  Here's a funny note.  I had an idea for a brush I needed, but they didn't make that kind of brush.  So I went to Home Depot, bought a brush, and cut it to the needed shape.  If you see the "seaweed" on the bottom, that's what I used the brush to paint. 

This one is called, "Maroon 5 Clownfish."  Yes, I am a bit of a smart aleck.  But if you look there are 5 Maroon Clownfish in the picture.  I also used my special brush in the middle bottom of this painting.  It's come in really handy.  At first, I wasn't sure how this painting would come out.  But once the finishing touches were put on it, it really started to pop out. 

So that's what I have been up to lately.  Stay tuned.  I'm sure I will spit out a couple more works pretty soon. 

Adrian: Amateur Handyman/ Bathroom Remodeler

As promised, here is my adventure in painting.  I truly feel like a weekend warrior, if that warrior was named Homer D. Poe.  (See previous post.) 

Here's the beginning of the story.  Like I have said a few times, my girlfriend Lili moved into a new place.  The people who lived there before did their best to destroy the place.  The bathroom was really hard hit.  The landlord repaired a lot of water damage and completely replaced the floor.  The bathroom was also painted, but it was painted in a dog shit brown kind of color.  And it looked like it was done in a hurry, so it was a piss poor job.

That's where I come in.  I had talked to Lili about painting the bathroom and doing a little remodeling on it.  She completely agreed.  Luckily, I have a lot of tools and such so we kept the cost down.  We only had to buy one gallon of wind swept blue paint, and the landlord will take the cost off the rent.  So really, we are keeping the cost of this project way down. 

As always, I have taken a bunch of pictures.  That way, you can really see the transformation.  First off we start with the "before" pictures.

So yeah, you can really see that it is just a terrible brown color.  Next up comes "the taping."  Honestly, we put painter's tape everywhere.

We decided to put the blue down first.  There was more of it, and all the trim was going to be white so it only made sense. 

 

Next up it was time to add the white paint.  Actually, it was more of a cream whitewash, but it blended nicely.

Of course there was a lot of things that happened in-between pictures, but I am doing the Cliff's Notes version of things.  That, and with pictures.  Next up is our finished project.  Let's look!

What an awesome outcome.  With a lot of hard work and elbow grease, everything just fell into place.  The bathroom looks really inviting with the new colors and a brand new shower curtain.  And I'm proud to say we did it without me and Lili trying to kill each other.  So in closing I want to say I am really excited about this, but would also like to thank my little helper.  That would be Monster the Dog.  (See picture below.)

I Am Homer

It has finally occurred to me that I am Homer.  No, not that one.

Also, I'm not that Homer either.

I am this Homer. 

That's right.  I am Homer D. Poe.  The Home Depot mascot.  Maybe I should start at the beginning.

You see, I didn't exactly expect to have a girlfriend, but life was kind to me, and I met Lili.  Due to life being even more kind to us, she was able to find a place near where I live, and get out of the not so nice place she was at.  The only problem with the new place is that, the people who lived their before Lili did their best to destroy the place.

The landlord and his three sons due their best to take care of all their properties, but they are stretched thin.  So a lot has fallen on me to make the place better.  And I've done a pretty good job.

If I am Homer, then let's start with the garden section.  The place had no real garden or hedges.  So I put in the garden.  I also put in the patio block.  It looks pretty good, and totally changes the look of the place. 

Moving onto the lumber section, I added onto the front steps.  I added a post and handrails for the stairs and ramp that lead to the front door.  I don't want to talk bad about the landlord or his sons, but since their time is limited, they don't do the best job in the world.  When I added the rails and things, I took my time and did it perfect the first time.  And I am really happy with the job I did.  I even added a ledge to the rail so I can put my drink on it. 

Let's go to plumbing section.  The kids who lived there before Lili destroyed the water spigot.  So it got capped off.  So my Dad and I put in a new water spigot outside.  That was we can water the plants, and use the spigot for outdoor things. 

Dad and I also added a new shower head in the bathroom.  The old shower head looked like something from the 70's and honestly, looked like something you'd find in a 1950's Shasta trailer.  I mean, it worked, but something else would definitely work better.  So Lili picked out a shower head she wanted, and Dad and I got it working.

Let's move onto the pest control section.  Again when Lili moved in there were some friends left behind.  And lots of them.  So I started my own personal war against the bugs.  First I dropped some very nasty poison called "Demon."  Then I dropped down some stuff even worse than that.  Seriously, I threw up when I started to put it down.  Yes, it's that vicious.  And then I did something that hadn't been done in a long time.  I put down some triasicide around the yard.  You put it in a spreader like you do fertilizer.  It is good to kill fleas and ticks so I know the dog appreciates it. 

That left me with a problem that I never had.  I had put down three types of poison repeatedly, but was still having problems.  I found out that the bugs that were still there needed a completely different type of poison.  So it got ordered through the internet, and I laid it down.  That got their attention.  Really.  They started coming out of the woodwork immediately. 

Now, let's go to the paint section.  Again, the house was torn up so the landlord did paint it.  However, all he had was paint that I will call "dog shit brown," so that's what he painted the inside.  The bathroom had the most damage so it got a lot of paint.  Well, not that much paint.  It was not applied very well.  It looked like it was done in a hurry.  So Lili and I decided to paint it.  We choose "wind swept blue."

In my next post I will show the pictures of what we did to the bathroom.  I have to say I am really happy with what we have done so far with it.

Everyone tries to find their way in life.  They also try to find out what they are good at.  If I am remembered as a blue collar "Homer," then I am okay with that.