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!