Monday, March 17, 2008

And that's that

We've been off the work wagon for a month or more now, but just last Friday we finally got the last final official goodbye nod from the bank—meaning we've done everything we agreed to do back when we got our loan. Basically, then, we have entered a new era of renovation-because-we-want-to as opposed to renovation-to-avoid-financial-ruin. Also: No deadlines!

This was worth a bottle of champagne (yeah, another one) and a hunk of soft French cheese.

The next day we got right back to work on the tool room (a name that's fast becoming outdated). A week earlier, we'd started putting up ceiling trim but got discouraged by our uneven ceiling, which has a major low spot so that when you put a straight piece of wood up against it, there are giant gaps on both ends. We'd routed out a dip in the trim where the low spot is, but when our bank consultant was here he suggested a better technique involving a compass. Yep, that old tool you used in fourth grade to draw a circle. Here, you put the pointy arm against the ceiling and the pencil arm against your trim piece, draw a line left to right, and then cut on that line. Now you have a trim piece custom-fit to your screwed-up ceiling. Much better.

The problem:



The solution:



We employed this technique all around the room and soon had a fairly reasonable trim job. Meanwhile, I planed the corners and primed the two smaller trim pieces that cover the seams in the plybead. Put a top coat on them later in the day, and by evening it was dry enough so that we could nail those up too.

In the meantime, I'd been eyeing up the other trim in this room—baseboards, door and window trim—and decided it just needed a fresh coat of white so that we could move our stuff in and be all fresh and white and worry-free like the lady in the detergent commercial. So we busted out our brushes and did it up. John took the baseboards (after I, usually the point person for tricky edge painting, attempted the task and exhibited all the skill of a blind three-year-old with a caffeine problem) and I did the windows and doors. Ah yes. You can practically smell the freshness!

The only thing now that's not all nice and homey about this room is the floor. It's a cheaper type of tongue-and-groove flooring than the other hardwoods we have, seemingly meant to go underneath linoleum or carpeting, and has no finish on it (other than a patina of age and some random spots of paint). We're debating what to do with it—paint it, maybe?—but in the meantime our old rug does a lot for it.

Made a storage space run and brought back a few crucial items, and voila! Welcome to The Studio!

The living room ain't looking half bad neither. More to come on that front.

- Erika



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