Stephen's Personal Blog

The window sills are almost done. They are ready for the last spray of poly and I need some steel wool to finish and install them. The big holes around the windows are patched, though the window sill will over most of that up. The window frames are almost ready too. Needs one more layer of paint and to screw in the boards and cover the holes.

The room is painted, except for the trim color on doors, door frames, chair rail, and baseboard. It looks good. The boards for the closet are painted except for the edges and almost ready to go. The edge painting between walls and ceilings is finished. As is edge painting between walls and door frames.

Now, the to-do stuff.. Trim. Chair rail and baseboard have to be purchased, cut, and placed; though not installed. Touch up paint of each color goes everywhere after all the hardware is installed. Carpet and pad pulled up. Tack strips removed. Minor defects in the concrete patched. Flooring delivered, cut, and installed. Sound insulation/vapor barrier material purchased. Window shades purchased and installed. And the wood working station in the garage needs to be switched from painting to cutting with a chopsaw.

I’ll buy and the trim tonight. The El Camino has carried 12′ boards before, but trim is pretty floppy. So, I thought I would buy the pieces I needed, 12′ were I only had to otherwise 8′, and also buy a 12′ 2X4 or 2X6. Then use bungie cord to wrap the trim around the stronger board. And drive slower. I need 4 12′ chair rail and 4 12′ baseboard plus an 8′ chair rail and 2 or 3 8′ baseboards for the closets.

Everything looks good.

Busy weekend. I got a lot of stuff done. The window sills are cut, stained, and in the process of being sanded and poly’ed. They should dress the windows up nicely. The took a lot of time to make two boards. But most of the time was in setup. Half a day spent getting supplies. Then I pulled the El Camino out and cleaned out that side of the garage.

I saw a door at Lowe’s for $10 and picked up some saw horses to give me a table for $40. And the router+table was $100. So that was good. I just used on 1/8″ straight bit for all the cuts. Not great, but it will work. The 6′ piece got frustrating.

Sunday, I did clean up to get stuff off the carpet that will come out in a week and stained the boards for the windows. All the trim everywhere is pulled up. And all the short, custom fit pieces are saved. Hopefully, they can be used as templates to cut new boards.

Tonight, I sanded and poly’ed the boards again and painted the closet boards. And I taped off the ceiling/wall joint. Tomorrow, I’ll finish the light green top color, be done patching the holes I put into the walls getting the trim out and painting the bottom color.

That leaves the trim color on the doors and trim. Getting and installing the chair rail. Getting and cutting the trim.

It seems I’m running a little ahead of schedule. The floor some come in this weekend to sit in the room for a week to meditate. Then we install it, the quarter round, and blinds. Feels good. Done soon.

I went to Sears this weekend and got some decorations. Some $3-$4 frames that match the wall color. A green rug for at the door. Still looking for shades, though I have an idea of what I want now.

3/6/2008
Last night I stripped off the trim, made some holes in the walls, ordered the floor, peeled up the carpet. A nicely destructive night.

Tonight I need to clean everything off the carpet and get it out of the room. The padding is still there, cause the concrete is very cold. The carpet might be useful in strips around the house. Like in front of the backdoor. So, in the mean time I’ll hang the pieces on the wall of the garage for insulation, hah.

Christopher told me how to patch the walls and there is a big ridge of old paint along the wall where the trim used to be. When those things are fixed, I’ll paint the lower half of the walls.

3/7/2008
Last night I stripped off the trim in the closets. That was tough. Small, tightly packed pieces of 3 1/2″ X 1/2″ old cheap wood. Afterward, I cleaned off the carpet and I began to imagine what the room would look like when finished, how much time was left, and what order to do things.

The window sills should get created this weekend. They will take a lot of time and are a nice-to-have. What gets done this weekend is pretty much it. The walls need to be repaired and painted. During the week nights I can tape and paint touch-ups. I want to keep the carpet down while I can, because it’s warmer and softer. Next weekend I will pull it and all the carpet tack strips. This weekend is a bit of gravy.

I spent a while thinking of solutions to probably insigificant problems. For example, the windows are an old cheap aluminum. They need dressing up. Badly. So, I decide to attempt to put a wood veneer on the two most prominent pieces of metal that stick out. It took quite a while to design the process of making the veneers in my head.

Something like: cut a strip off the end of a 4′ board to get a rectangle about 1″ X 1″ X 42″. Router one edge down about 1/8″. The metal slides into the wood and the wood holds it like teeth. To make a channel in the rectangle for the metal drill many, many holes and chisel in a channel. Adjust to fit, stain, sand and poly.

They will hold themselves on and be fragile unless installed. However, they are a custom piece that should really make it pop.

Another thing is installing rope lights in the closets under the shelving. It bugs me that the closets would be so dim. I think it would help to staple an extension cord from the light socket down the wall and then connect to some 8′ rope lights also stapled to the wall.

I really like to make original ideas that ease the maintenance, enhance the look, use, and durability, add subtle detail, and demonstrate quality.

So, the agenda today is router table, window sill boards, and poly. This weekend I’ll cut the boards to fit and begin “painting” the sills and closet boards.

I picked up the two paint cans today. Turns out both colors have mint in the name. Didn’t expect that. I painted one wall with both colors as a sample and put the light upper color on all the walls.

The chair rail I like is some kind of door stop or something. Pretty rough cut. It will need a couple of sanding and painting sessions. The real chair rail was 3″ and I want one smaller than the MBR.

While the paint was mixing I checked out the engineered bamboo flooring options. The stuff they have on hand is not really good. Narrow, not much in a box and the edge between sections is kind of gappy.

I was attracted to the Techsan brand. They have four kinds. My preference is for the wider, horizontal, uncolored, floating material. No glue or nails. Just click together and the floor holds itself down.

Turns out they are having a sale on special orders today and tomorrow. The $136 becomes $110. It’s supposed to take 10 days to come in. Well ahead of my Easter target date. That puts the price at $3.60/ft².

The painting needs to be finished, the chair rail installed, the carpet pulled, all the baseboard pulled and refinished and replaced, and the window sills need to be created. There are 2 weekends before Easter weekend.

So, tomorrow I’ll go in and order it. Everything looks like. Hopefully, it will all be finished by my birthday; 4/4.