I have continued to hang my artwork, paint, and organize in our little house, each day. I painted another Discus Fish on canvas and pasted it on the bathroom wall by the sink. I painted a portrait of our friend, Tony, and hung it in the sewing room. I finished painting our cat Skittles’ eyes, and hung the painting in our bedroom. I also hung the rest of the icons in the sewing room.
On the 10th, I painted two more Discus Fish and mounted them on the bathroom wall. I actually finished painting them today, after I realized I had forgotten to paint their side fins. No big thing. It was just a few strokes with a fine brush using three colors of paint. Then I hung my 6″ x 6″ painting from Day 13 of last year’s Fun-A-Day on the wall next to the toilet. It is of a yellow Butterfly Fish. The title of the painting is Hope #13 Biodiversity. 
I also arranged more of my paintings in the back entry room, over the freezer and on the outside of the furnace room. I hung most of them using Velcro Command Strips, since this is how I hang them at art and craft shows.
During my nearly 20 years in the Antiochian Orthodox Church I became an iconologist and helped a few iconographers install icons in several churches. I also edited photos of icons, printed them and installed them in an iconostasis for a mission church. I learned how to apply to and remove painted canvasses from walls. I, in turn, instructed several other iconographers how to do this. By now, you are wondering what this has to do with Fun-A-Day.
On the first two days, I installed painted canvasses that I had originally painted for and installed on doors in our former, rental house. Yesterday and today, I painted and mounted a Discus Fish on our bathroom wall. I intend to paint several of these in various colors to mount on the walls of the bathroom. The first one took a good bit of time, with the research, sketching and painting. The rest should go more quickly.
All of the paintings on canvas were pasted to the wall with clay based paste. They will lay flat and tight to the wall until I want to remove them using warm water, a sponge and some rags. They will leave the paint unharmed.
I started participating in Fun-A-Day two years ago in the Lansdale Fun-A-Day and started the Perkasie Fun-A-Day last year. For each of those, I painted a separate piece each day. They were rather ambitious undertakings. This year, I started with the idea that I was going to work on a single painting every day during the month of January. I decided I didn’t like the painting that I started and changed my project. If it isn’t fun, what’s the point? The project I landed on is actually something I had been doing every day during the month. I just needed to document it. So, here goes.
I am sprucing up the rented house we moved into on December 15, 2018. This may involve painting original artwork.It has already included painting two doors.
1/1/19 and 1/2/19: I mounted my Three Stooges portrayal on canvas of our grandsons on the bathroom door on the 1st. I mounted the life-sized canvas I painted two years ago of our granddaughters on the wall between the bathroom and sewing room doors on the 2nd.
1/3/19:
I arranged the icons for the prayer corner in our bedroom and hung photos and mirror/shelf.
I also hung paintings on the bedroom door using Velcro Command strips.
1/4/19: 
On Friday, I painted the dough box “Brazilian Tan” to match the kitchen backsplash. I also painted both sides of the front door. It had never been painted. It was still Slumlord Gray. 
1/5/19: On Saturday, I painted the remaining, tired, yellow wall in the bedroom white and hung family pictures there. 
I also hung a shelf I made and painted the day before, in the sewing room, hung pictures around it, and elsewhere in the room.
I hung my self-portraits and other creations in the hallway and back entry room.
Then I arranged more family photos and my art in the living room. Bethann sewed Velcro ‘hooks’ on the quilted valance that our daughter, Rosalie, made for our bedroom on 5th St. I mounted it on our headboard with adhesive Velcro fuzz
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1/6/19: On Sunday, I spent time unpacking the back entry, while the paint on the desk chair was drying. I also put the first coat on the soffit above the cupboards. 
1/7/19: Today, I cleaned the first, original painting we ever owned, a horse race, and repainted the frame, and hung it in the back entry.
This project is fun and creative, and even beautiful.
It may not seem like much, but it was a huge undertaking for me. I finally finished painting the lines for the tiles on the upper vanity wall of the bathroom. There are five accent tiles. I painted the background color on these. It is taking me so long because my health has been not so good. I had a severe TIA a few weeks ago. We thought it was another stroke. I am still suffering some deficits from it. At any rate, it landed me in the hospital. They did all sorts of poking around and found that I have some major heart valve issues. This explains why I am exhausted all the time and fall asleep at the drop of a hat.
The latest cartoon character to join the collection is the Peanuts character Franklin. He is Charlie Brown’s African-American friend. He is Charlie’s most loyal friend. He admires his grandfather and considers him the wisest man he knows. He is located to the right of the clock.
Of the four remaining accent tiles, only two will be cartoon characters. The other two will be dedicated to Bethann’s and my passions: sewing for her; art for me. They will be a challenge.
Today’s little update is that I started to paint some custom tiles. Originally, I was planning on painting graffiti rubber ducks of various colors on top of the tiles, once the walls were painted. However, I was inspired by the custom, reproduction subway tiles I saw when I was researching for this project. With all the work I’m putting into this, spoiling it with graffiti just didn’t appeal to me anymore. I still wanted to include my rubber ducks, etc., so this is a more civilized presentation.
Today
I added soap and shampoo holders for the shower and little trays above the sink to hold cups, toothpaste, etc. These are made of 4″ galvanized vent caps bolted together, then bolted to the wall. I was inspired to use these in this maner by the use of the PVC end caps that are bolted to the scaffolding at Home Depot and used to dispense advertising flyers and such. I failed to share a picture of my toilet paper holder until now. It is angled out for two reasons. Our toilet angles from the corner, so this places the paper in actual parallel. More importantly, this allows the holder to receive larger than standard rolls. We sometimes are given “remnant” rolls of TP by a cleaning service. This spindle will accommodate them just fine.
I have watched a lot of those home improvement, DIY and various home makeover shows over the last 10 or 12 years. Already, some of the things they were promoting in the beginning, people are starting to turn up their noses at and feel look dated. I remember watching shows where they painted beautiful, natural maple cabinets to “update” a kitchen. I cringed. What could be more timeless than natural wood? Then they started putting in glass tile backsplashes in almost every kitchen. The same tiles started showing up in the bathrooms, as well. Then the buzzword became “subway tiles”. This puzzled me. They were tiny compared to the tiles I’ve seen in the subways I have ridden. The only thing that made them “subway” was that they were shaped and arranged in staggered fashion, like bricks.
I am steampunking my bathroom and I wanted to paint the walls in a faux finish mimicking original subway tiles. When I began to research, the first site that came up had someone lamenting the ubiquity of subway tiles in home decor right now, and how that is going to date every home that uses them. Oh the irony of being trendy! A few sites down was a company that has just started reproducing old style subway tiles in the last couple of years. They give the history and have them available in a variety of sizes and colors. They confirmed my hunch. The tile size I was seeing on the far side of the tracks in Philadelphia was 6″x12″. That is what I wanted to go with. I also wanted to intersperse with a couple of rows of 3″x12″ tiles to accommodate two color bands. I can’t afford tiles. Time I have. Painting is like Zen. I painted our living room, hallway, steps, etc., all with a 2-1/2″ brush.
I thought I could use a white paint Sharpie to draw the lines on the walls, using a straight edge. That didn’t work on the high gloss paint. So I found my tiny paint brush and my bright white paint. Trouble is, I can’t paint a straight line to save my soul. I never could and it has gotten worse now that I have a slight tremor. Well, the colors I had chosen are on the cartoonish side of reality, so my painting will just add to the whimsy.
Let me say something about the colors. The first time I painted this bathroom, I took my rubber ducky to the paint store. We computer matched the yellow for the walls and the beak for the trim and the tub. My wife came home from Ladies’ Night Out and hollered at me, “Can I not leave you home alone anymore?”
At least I had not painted anything Rubber Ducky Lipstick Pink! For real, the lips on the rubber ducky are pink! Anyway, I painted over the orange and took the towels back to the paint store to match the blue for the trim and tub color. Bethann was pleased. Well, at least, she tolerated it. This is the second generation: Rubber Ducky Steampunk, if you will. The egg cream paint color is chosen based on a rubber ducky fabric. The custom blue paint was optically matched from the same curtain fabric. It is an interesting, light, robin’s egg blue. It has the subtlest touch of green to it. It changes its look between sunlight and artificial light.
The light fixtures I made from 3/4″ galvanized pipe with a black pipe transitions to a 1″. I used lamp socket, plug-in adapters. I wired them with lamp cord, then inserted them in the pipes with black tool insulating coat, normally used for cushioning tool handles. The shower curtain rod is made from 3/4″ and 1/2″ galvanized pipe. It allows more room in the shower than the aluminum, off-the-rack one, plus is more sturdy and won’t fall down mid-shower.
I’m not done yet. I have custom tiles to paint and the soap holders to install; not to mention what I may do to the sink and toilet.
This all started because the towel bars kept falling off the wall. Those silly micro-screwdriver pegs to tighten the bar ends onto the cleats never quite properly grip into the drywall. It was alway a gamble whether or not the towel was going to hang or fall. Things came to a head when Bethann used my bahroom for a month while I was renovating hers. She said I needed a “grab” bar for the tub. I have a clawfoot tub. We are now 60 and washing our feet standing up in the shower can be a dangerous thing. She found it precarious just climbing out of the wet tub onto the floor with the added height of the claw feet, with nothing solid to hold onto.
If you know me, you know I generally jump in all fours. It will not just be a grab bar and towel rack. I want the whole theme! I loved Warehouse 13. I want that computer keyboard! I am typing on a keyboard with six keys missing because I melted them off attempting to dry them off, after spilling my water on them when falling asleep one night. This is one the $100 replacement computer after I fried a better computer the same way. That steampunk mechanical keyboard would so solve my problem! So, I started with the grab bar and the towel bar that was falling off. Then I moved on to the lights and the medicine chest/mirror. Next, I will take on the toilet paper holder and the shower curtain rod. Ther bigger challenges will be the sink, the toilet and the shower control. I have ideas for those.
A more extensive article or articles will follow explaining the process. I’m just posting this to share some photos for now. I need to clean up the bathroom and steam this punk, now! I stink.
We were told by our realtor to just let the house rot. We are in the process of foreclosure. The odds are we are going to lose the house. We are trying to negotiate a refinance, but PHH, the mortgage handling company, has never been honest, even to the point of lying to me about who owns our mortgage while I was looking at a letter I had just received from them which told me that it was HSBC, the Scottish drug dealing bank that the US Senate bailed out with no strings attached. It makes sense that PHH represents HSBC. One criminal organization represents another. I digress.
We still live in the house. I am on disability due to my six strokes caused by migraines, more than 40 TIAs, and innumerable prolonged (at times, 20 days long) debilitating migraines that mimic strokes. I asked the ALJ, “Would you hire me?” He granted my Social Security disability immediately. We are losing the house because the lawyer I used screwed things up and I still haven’t received the two years’ back pay. (Somehow, he got his full fee based on it, though. A lawsuit may be pending. I digress again.) Back on track. Bethann and I decided that we wanted to paint the living room as a gift to each other for Christmas. This was a first for us in our over 40 years of marriage; to have that sort of idea at the same time, with neither of us having to persuade the other.
Normally, I would just pick the colors and paint. Bethann would learn to like it. I know that is unusual. I have always been the color person in our house. Only once did I have to retreat on a color. That was the Rubber Ducky’s Bill Orange for the trim of the upstairs bathroom that I painted while she was at a Ladies’ Night Out several years ago. She let me leave the walls Rubber Ducky Yellow, but shook her head and said, “What? Can’t I leave you home alone anymore?” I said, “It’s only paint! These colors were big in the ’60s.” Just brings back images of a young, perky Judy Carne saying “SockItToMe!”
At any rate, for this project, I actually went to Home Depot and got paint chips and little samples to try; an absolute first for me! We agreed on the colors, adjusting one, with no argument with each other. We wanted to respect the age of the house (new part: 1845, kitchen & bedroom above: 1700s) without leaving it moldering in its antebellum past. Bethann and I went to Joann Fabric with a great 50% off upholstery fabric coupon and selected fabrics for throw covers for the couch and our recliners, for about $80. It was like an ultra low budget Trading Spaces room makeover, only done right.
The job included the tiny entryway, tiny back hall, stairway and upstairs hall. The job included 9 doors, 15 doorframes, and 3 windows. We have reconsidered what we hang on our walls and have opted for less. I eliminated the shelves over the windows that the former owner had incorporated into the frames. They weren’t level, and we wanted a cleaner look. I had to replace the top piece of the frame on two of the windows, because the way the shelves were installed destroyed the antique parts of the frames.
I am still repairing sagging accoustic tiles in the ceiling in preparation for painting it with high gloss, ultra bright white paint. The tiles are faux stamped tin style. I am using high powered glue in a dispenser with a long, narrow spout. I insert the spout between the tiles, at the corner where they are sagging to deliver glue on top of the tiles. Then I tighten the tiles to the frame above with a screw through a piece of stiff cardboard and leave it there long enough for the glue to dry. Then I move on to the next spot that needs to be repaired.
