Many Things

Hello again. It's been a while since I've updated this blog. I've accomplished several things, but I also was sick for a while and didn't get much done during that time. Anyway, the bathroom got more of its moulding up; it's almost all up now, just needs to be painted. Only moulding left to put up is along the top edge of the bathtub/shower unit and that should be it.

 I've actually already painted this cornice, but haven't taken a picture of it painted yet. I guess I'm just waiting until I get all the rest of the trim painted first.

I also bought some flexible moulding for along the bottom edge of the tub. It comes in rolls and has an adhesive layer. You just peel the paper off, bend the moulding, and apply.

No more worry about water possibly seeping under the tub now!

I also managed to finish caulking and painting the corners (all except the one above the tub that I need to work on soon). It's looking really good! I think I definitely like it better than I would have had I put trim in those corners. Looks more like sheetrock this way.

And of course I used painter's putty to fill in all the nail holes in the walls. Looked a bit weird with those white dots until I painted over them!

The reason for all those holes is trying to hit the studs with the nail gun! That stud is in there somewhere, and we found it a couple of times! LOL Good thing for painter's putty!

Next, I put a piece of corner trim in my bedroom, in the small corner under the bathroom window. It didn't take very long.

The first pic is the trim just leaning against the corner. The second picture is the first coat of paint, and the last picture is the finished product, where you can barely even see the trim, it blends in so nicely!

Ok, after the bathroom and bedroom projects, the next project was (and is) the kitchen. First things first; we finally got that beam under the house moved into position to steady the shaking floor when it was walked on. Now that was fun (note the sarcasm lol). Actually, it wasn't too bad, but it was a cold windy day, and that cold wind picked up speed as it came under the house and up the back of my shirt lol. Regardless, we carefully maneuvered each end up on a stabilizing jack, and jacked it up. Then we discovered that the beam was only touching two of the several joists! So we had to lower each end and put shims between the beam and the joists it wasn't quite touching. This took several tries to get it just right, but we finally did! Later on (probably in the spring) we may go back under (although it'll be more difficult now that our easy access hole in the kitchen is gone) and put a third jack in the middle of the beam.

So glad that's out of the way! And now, of course, as I mentioned, we no longer have the easy access hole, since we fixed that up and got the sheet of plywood into place.

And once that was done, then we began putting down the plywood over the hardwood as our subfloor. Still undecided at this point if we're going to put down tile, extending it out from the bathroom into the kitchen, or the Allure vinyl planking floor, extending it out from my bedroom into the kitchen. I'm leaning at this point towards the tile, for two reasons. One, I think it'll look better in the kitchen, and two, it'll be cheaper than the Allure.

We almost got the floor covered. Only sections remaining (which we'll probably do tomorrow, unless we run out of time with the other project) is a largish section by the living room door, and a small section by the laundry room door. It's so nice not to feel a draft coming up through the floor when walking through a kitchen that doesn't shake like an earthquake any more!

Today, I started phase II of the kitchen project: Removing the paneling from the walls to make way for the lauan that I also purchased this evening.

Under the paneling was very old wallpaper with faded kitchen scenes on it:

Under the wallpaper was the original clapboard siding, painted yellow. Interestingly, evidently when the kitchen was first painted, it had a cabinet of some sort in the corner that they didn't want to move, for whatever reason. So, when they painted, they left the outline of this cabinet against the wall:

Note the outline of the legs at the bottom, and although it's hard to make out in this picture, you can also see a lip protruding from the top on the "side view" of the outline. Makes you wonder if this piece of furniture was just too heavy to be moved, or if the people that painted the kitchen were just that lazy?

You also never know what you'll find when you open up the walls like I did. For instance, the following picture shows several very old cockroach egg cases placed in a convenient space along the original clapboarding:

During the process of removing the paneling and wallpaper, disturbances against the wall has caused a rain of dried cockroach droppings to fall onto the floor. I hope I've gotten most of it out by now; combination of beating on the wall and sticking my shop vac into the crevices should have taken care of that. In any case, tomorrow holds hanging the lauan onto the walls and, hopefully, finishing out the subflooring. The kitchen is on its way to being functional!

Adding to the functionality, since it's doubtful I'll be able to afford a range any time soon, I've worked on the wall oven and it's actually in good working order. The stove top will be next on my list to work on, and hopefully I'll be able to cook again soon!

Prime Cabinets and a (Mostly) Trim Bathroom

Hello again! It's been a while since my last post, but I've done several things since (and probably not quite as much as I should have), which I'll be talking about this evening. To begin, I've finally gotten around to priming the base cabinets in my kitchen. I've only done those from the sink to the water heater closet, since I will most likely be cutting out the cabinets under the stove top so I can put in a full size range. The cabinet that holds the ancient wall oven will either become a pantry, or will be removed so I can put my refrigerator over there. Those decisions are still up in the air at this time, but they will eventually be decided.

That countertop is so junky right now! Hopefully as things progress, that junkiness will quickly go away. In any case, the base cabinets, at least, are now ready for their first coat of paint. I just have to decide what color that coat will be! One thing I'm going to have to keep in mind is that since my bedroom and the bathroom both open off the kitchen, and both have rather bold colors now, the kitchen will most likely need to be a more neutral tone than I had originally intended. And that's fine with me, since the kitchen has just one tiny window and will need something lighter and more neutral to brighten it up somewhat.

As for the bathroom, I finally decided on colors for it. Yay! The main color is a shade of brown called Irish Tea, while the trim color (which was originally going to be white to match the vanity, fixtures, and ceiling) is a shade of pewterish-beige called Dust Bunny. Originally I had planned to paint the bathroom a shade of green or khaki-green, but I felt drawn to brown, especially since my both my sister and my friend suggested brown would perhaps be a more compelling (and complementary to the porcelain tiling) base color. So I then went through all the shades of browns that I have on color cards and narrowed it down to a few shades. But the Irish Tea is the shade that spoke the loudest to me, so it's the one I finally selected. My friend and I went through various color combinations last Sunday for the trim, and finally we decided the Dust Bunny would be a very good shade for the trim.

Sunday also saw us measuring and cutting the baseboards for the bathroom, although we just put them in place rather than nailing them down. We knew we were going to have to do some more measuring and trimming once we were ready to go, so there was no point in nailing them down at that time. We then went and purchased the paint, as well as trim for the corners, and the corner blocks for the crown moulding. However, we were unable to find the proper size of corner block for the single outside corner, so we figured we'd worry over that at a later time.

Monday found me applying the initial coat of paint to the bathroom walls. I was so eager to get started that I had to rein in my enthusiasm so I would take the time to prepare for what I was doing rather than rashly jumping right on in. Of course, my enthusiasm still got the better of me, so I ended up having to stop in the middle of painting to take care of a few things (such as remove the temporary light switch cover). By early afternoon, the first coat was laid down, and it was looking good!

The true color really only shines through in the last picture above, the one that features the vanity. It felt so awesome having that first coat of paint on the walls! And it was looking so good! Although I could see the necessity for the upcoming second coat. In several areas, the primer was shining through like a white rash. So, once the first coat was on the walls, I collected the baseboards I had removed for the wall painting, and then opened the pail of trim paint to paint those. I laid them across several plastic tubs in the laundry room and painted them there.

I had thought these were hard to paint, but I'd find out the next day that doing the crown moulding would be much more of a challenge!

On Tuesday, I went ahead and applied the second coat to the bathroom walls. It went a bit quicker than doing the first coat. Once that was done, I then painted two of the flat wall trim sections, which would be the same color as the walls. I then had to take a break to drive a neighbor somewhere to drop off some items she was donating, then later that day I took the five sections of crown moulding and put them on the plastic tubs in the laundry room where I had painted the baseboards. I then gave them a coat of the trim color, waited for them to dry, then gave them a second coat. (I forgot to take a picture of them as they dried.)

Today, we set to work to put the baseboards in place. They were a bit tricky, as some sections needed to be cut off to fit, since not only were we installing the baseboards but also installing trim around the lips of the tub/shower unit. Since that trim reached to the floor, the baseboards abutting them had to be trimmed back to accommodate the extra sections. We weren't able to fit all the trim around the shower unit, but we did get the important pieces in place (those along the outside that reached to the floor). We then nailed the baseboards in place, then began the task of installing the crown moulding. First, we put up the four corner blocks, then did the moulding in between them. This became a little interesting, since the two longest sections of wall were longer than the sections of moulding. It became a bit of a challenge, but we also weren't able to complete all the crown moulding, since we're missing the one outside corner block as well as having to decide what to do around the window we installed over the shower. But, most of it is up, and it looks great! Next, we then installed the two sections of flat moulding over the seams where two sheets of luaun meet up; these sections weren't long enough, so of course we had to merge them with smaller sections from a third piece. It looks rather funny at the moment with most of the flat trim being painted while the small lower sections are still unpainted lol.

Some of these pictures are a bit blurry because my camera doesn't like taking pictures in the bathroom. I guess it's too small and dark for it to focus lol. But you can get the general idea from the pics. The bathroom is well on its way to looking sensational! Still going to have to decide what to do with the light fixture as well. Since I've chosen a darker shade for the bathroom, the light fixture is going to have to be a bit stronger than I had really planned on. Or we may end up going with more than one light fixture in the room. In any case, I also am going to have to paint the ceiling. I had hoped that would be unnecessary, since the beadboard we put up was already white, but it's showing some wear and tear from the installation, but shouldn't be too bad to paint.

In any case, this is one more step towards having a completed home!