Oh Yeah...

It's done!

The bath/bedroom project is officially complete! Last night was our first night back in our bedroom. It felt like we had moved into a new house. It turned out so well that I am so proud of myself I can hardly stand it! I figure I spent 28 long days (divided into weekends and days off) on the project. I can understand now why Habitat for Humanity requires the future inhabitants to work on their homes. All of a sudden I have a vested interest in my abode, and and am even more proud to be its inhabitant.

The picture above is of the bamboo floor before we started moving everything back in. At first the color variation in the wood was a tad disturbing, but as the pieces started accumulating, the overall effect was very pleasing.

Now that we have moved back into the bedroom and out of the dining room, my life should return to (somewhat) normal, and I can start posting more often again. I also plan to get back into the pastel quite heavily again. It's all a matter of priorities, and now that my shelter (one of man's 'needs') is back to normal, the rest of my life can continue as before.

Until next time!
Pastel Guy
www.matthewweld.com - pastel paintings
www.studio206.etsy.com - handmade jewelry

Some More Floor

So here's the final floor. Well, almost final. The grout isn't down yet in these pictures. But this shows all those little rectangular tiles from the old bathroom. The room in the top of the picture now also has tile in it, too. Putting down the tile was a lot like doing stained glass patterns. I enjoyed it so much that I ordered a book on Amazon about mosaic techniques. I have a grand scale design for the floor of the downstairs hallway brewing in the recesses of my brain.... I have a tendency to skip the baby steps and charge right in to the 'advanced' level projects.

My goal for this weekend is to finish the bathroom. The trim is painted and waiting to go back on. The vanity is in, the sinks put in, and the new faucets just need to have the last bit of hooking up to do. Then I do the real nailbiter and turn off the water, cut the existing pipes, and tap into them. Our goal when this project started was to have the project done for Valentine's Day. It looks as though the wood floors will be put down next weekend, with the moving in done on Presidents' Day. (I'm knocking loudly on my desk. Can't you hear it?!)

Cheers!
Pastel Guy
http://www.matthewweld.com/ - pastel paintings
http://www.studio206.etsy.com/ - handmade jewelry for sale

The Project from Hades

For the first time in oh, about three weeks, I don't feel totally burdened in the evening. I don't have any grading (this happens about twice each year in a teacher's life - at least mine), and I don't have a short project to do in my bathroom project. Therefore, here's the next installment on my project.



This photo shows the mess I created in the shower/toilet room by knocking out the tile. See those little rectagles? Remember them, because they will show up again later.

Then, in the main part of the bath,the vanity had been removed, and the plaster redone, and the flooring redone. This shows the wall before it was replastered. The hideous light fixture is now gone, and that soffitting is there to hold the new light fixture over the surface-mounted medicine cabinets that will stretch across the expanse. Turns out I actually had to make another step to cover the old light's hole in the ceiling. It was either that or redo the whole ceiling. The second step actually looks pretty cool.

Next time, I'll show you some quick photos of the tile floor with mosaic border (remember those little rectangles?), the new vanity, and the RED walls.

Until then,

Pastel Guy

http://www.matthewweld.com/ - pastels

http://www.studio206.etsy.com/ - handmade jewelry for sale

Sleeping in the Dining Room

OK, I've been guilted into posting again. There are so many amazing blogs out there that I spend all my time reading instead of writing.

So here goes. There have been a lot of things happening on the home front that I just haven't found the gumption to put into words. But here goes. You asked for it (OK, not really, but you're reading it, right?!).

OK. Study the picture, above, and then answer the questions below.

See the ugly miniprint wallpaper?

See the black mildewy ickiness on the wall and the floor?

See where our bathroom vanity used to be?

Remember all these things as I relate the story. It all started when we decided to paint our Master bedroom. Easy, right? We have lived in this house for 7 years, now, and have been house poor until this year. We finally have some breathing room in our budget, so we have decided to finally take some of the extra $$ to make the necessary changes in order to make this house feel more like ours, rather than the previous owners'. (That, and we've both finished our Masters program, and so have all this extra time!)

Well, the walls had more of the ugly miniprint wallpaper pictured above. Fortunately, that came off in nice, tidy sheets. The glue, however, did not. So I tried scraping. Then I tried DIF stuff. Then I taped plastic over all the openings, donned a respirator, and used my sander. Fianlly, I gave up and replastered the whole thing. BTW, it looks great! I put a nice texture into it and painted it 'Toasted Wheat' per my wife's color preference (more on THAT later!).

Three days later...

Oh! Forgot to mention the trim. The people who built this house (1971) did it right, which is one of the reasons we bought it. Therefore, the trim in the bedroom consisted of baseboards, chair rail, and crown molding. The chair rail is off for good (anybody need some?!), and the crown molding went from dark brown stain to white (5 coats? Maybe? ...lost count). The base boards, however, were nailed on before the carpeting was laid down. Therefore, the tack strips were in front of the baseboards, necessitating the removal of the carpeting before the trim.

There I was, plastering the wall, singing along to the radio, when my wife calls in from the bathroom, "Uh, honey...?" Uh-oh. I walk into the bathroom, and she has pulled back the carpet under the bathroom vanity only to find a ring of WET (OK, very damp) subflooring in front of my sink. Long story short: the water pipes are in an exterior wall, and must have frozen some years ago when it was really cold during the winter, and had been slowly leaking since. Suddenly, what had been a 'one-of-these-days' project was now a 'yesterday!' project.

Out came my plumber's hat, and I cut out the old pipes and capped them off without incident. Since then, the floor has been drying nicely. Tomorrow, I will be taking out subfloor, sills, and studs and replacing them all. Wish me luck!

So, what had started out as a 3 gallons of paint project has turned into the 3 gallons of paint, lumber, tiles (more on THAT later, too!), solid bamboo flooring (I'm sure there will be a story there...), custom order vanity and top, plumbing supplies, and about a month of sleeping in the dining room.

Until later!
Pastel (and home remodeling) Guy
www.matthewweld.com - pastels
www.studio206.etsy.com - handmade jewelry