Last week marked the 116th anniversary of the birth of Dr. Suess (Theodor Giesel). I took this as inspiration to paint four more fish for our bathroom in our little rented apartment. I had already pasted the four fish that I painted last year on the walls above around the tub in the new place.
I decided to paint four more fish in the rest of the bathroom. These are all discus fish, from the Amazon River basin. They are painted approximately life-sized. They travel in schools of variegated colours. I paint the canvas the colour of the wall before I paint the fish, because the fins and tails are partly transparent. I use clay based wall paper paste, so I can remove the canvas at any time. It remains water-soluble indefinitely.
Just after we moved into our current, slightly larger, small house in the middle of last month, we purchased a wooden table and three chairs for $50 through an online yard sale. The chairs are simple, sturdy, solid wood kitchen chairs. They were built for durability, not for comfort. We are using one for at the desk in the living room, one for a guest in the sewing room, and one for at my Mac computer which I use for editing photos.
I painted the living room chair Brazilian Tan. I painted my Mac chair Sunny Yellow, Cerulean Blue and Orange. It is part of my Perkasie Fun-A-Day 2019 home decor project.
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.
Dear Friends,
We moved on December 15, so didn’t get any Christmas cards out. We only put a couple of Christmas decorations up. The Christmas over the door swag has lain on various places on the front deck, since we could find no place to hang it. We had to move out of our tiny house on 5th and Spruce, Perkasie, in a hurry. In late October, black mold bloomed all over the house. It was making us sick. The roof leaked and it was damp. The landlord had never told us there was a dehumidifier in the utility room under the house. It had turned off, due to a clogged drain hose. We had never seen the utility room. At any rate, we moved to a slightly larger place seven blocks north, still in Perkasie. It was the only place we looked at. It was the only place in our price range. A bunch of friends and family helped us move, including two strong, very polite young men, whom we had never met before. They even used their pickup truck to help. We are not completely unpacked, but Cranford spent the last few days of 2018 painting the living room, kitchen, hallway and bathroom. We have spent the first few days of 2019 hanging photos, paintings, needlework and icons. We miss having our granddaughters and Lydia and Vincent living across the street. They had already moved to Souderton in October. Last summer was a joy! On just about every sunny day, the girls walked across the street to ask us to go to the pool with them, and to the new zip line in the park, or to the library. These were all within two blocks south. On most Saturday mornings, we would walk with Lydia, Isabella and Brigitta to the Perkasie Farmers’ Market, two blocks north. Cranford spent most of the summer (June 1 – August 24) painting a 100’ long mural on the retaining wall between our yard and Dave & Tammy Opalkas’ yard. There are photos, etc., at www.perkbirds.com.
Bethann has been learning patchwork quilting from Rosalie. Bethann took early “retirement” from Social Security, so she doesn’t need to work full-time. She took a half-time teller position with QNB bank, that comes with benefits. She continues to sew beautiful clothing for our granddaughters and fun pajamas for our grandsons. Last January, Cranford painted every day for Perkasie Fun-A-Day, which he started. He is in the throes of it again, this January. Last year he tried to paint a “hope” everyday. Two of those pieces, plus another have since been shipped to a patron on the west coast of Ireland. This January, he is working every day on a single painting of a winter sunrise through the windows of our new digs. You can view his progress on the Perkasie Fun-A-Day 2019 event page on Facebook.
Healthwise, we are doing OK for people of our age and condition. We had no major health crises last year.
We hope that you and yours have a healthy and happy 2019. Thank you for your friendship. Feel free to stop by our new digs. We now actually have room for a few more people at the table.
Peace & love,
Cranford & Bethann Coulter
400 Ridge Ave.
Perkasie, PA 18944-1143
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.
There is an angled wall which conceals pipes and wires. It is right behind the toilet. It is at the opposite end from the bathroom door. I was trying to figure out how to treat this one foot surface with regard to the faux subway tile painting. I started out just continuing the normal pattern around with the two yellow rows. It looked awkward. Then it hit me. This is just paint. I don’t have to order or cut special tiles. I only need to measure, draw and paint! The first thing I decided was to move the clock onto this wall and paint it with Rustoleum’s “Hammered” galvanized look paint. It is just a $10 clock with a cheesy, faux wood frame. Next, I took the yellow and framed a large section over the toilet with 3″ x 6″ tiles and filled it in with blue and shrimp checkerboard 3″ x 3″ tiles. I hung the clock at an appropriate height on this wall. This freed up the spot where the clock had been for a cartoon tile portraying Woodstock.
A couple of the guys who work at the State Store have been following my progress. I ran into one of them at the grocery store and I told him about the cartoon characters I had added. He asked me if my bathroom would pass true steampunk muster; if Bruce Rosenbaum or Damien McNamara would approve. I replied, probably not. This is just a poor man’s version. Plus the faux, subway tiles, with the cartoon accents, are really more postmodern. So what we have here is Steampunk Postmodern Fusion. My grandchildren like it! It’s bright and cheery. It keeps me from playing on the freeway, as they used to say. Who knew this guy was so design literate? Kudos!
Next to the toilet is the radiator. I spray painted it with another of Rustoleum’s new paints: Sienna Mist. It was true to its name. The overspray left a fine coating over the entire floor of the bathroom and the lower two feet of the walls all around. Thankfully, most of it came off with just warm water, a rag and elbow grease. This photo doesn’t do it justice. It has a copper or bronze-like metallic sheen.
I’m into the home stretch now. I have to finish the subway tile lining here and there and four or five more cartoons. I have to paint the clawfeet of the tub and perhaps the tank and seat of the toilet. That’s right. I still have to fabricate and hang the copper tubing curtain rod for the window valance, and repaint the crates. No rest for the wicked.
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 first thing I did was GFCI upgrade to the electrical before I began using power tools in the bathroom.
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.
towel rack with wrench still tightening
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.
