The Bathroom So Far...

When I moved in, I had a bathroom with fuzzy wallpaper. Yes, fuzzy, and yes, in the bathroom. It was gross for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that it was impossible for the previous occupants to clean properly. It also had a tile-floor and decaying vanity/countertop that I wasn't planning on replacing immediately...but plans change.

Before: Fuzzy wallpaper, dirty everything


Before: It also has this sweet light fixture that may end up in my garage.

Before: Notice the stained-tile floor in this photo, as it's the focus of the 'during' later.

During: I think I've had this picture in a previous entry, but my Mom successfully removed ALL of the fuzzy wallpaper by herself. Thanks, Mom!

During: I had to practically destroy my cabinet to remove it, revealing mild-water damage on the walls, but virtually none on the floor at least.


During: The vanity was anchored by, that's right, a phone jack right next to the toilet.
I chose not to salvage the phone line.

During: A little bit of tile came up with the vanity, it was then I decided the tile was going.
This pic is about five minutes into the tile removal (it came up pert' easy)

During: Luckily my lack of motivation on buying carpet for my living room meant that the living room was still perfect for storing a toilet for a week or so.

During: All of the whole tiles laid out dry.

During: We picked out tile that I had nearly used for the Kitchen.

During: I set up a wet-saw station in the furnace room to contain the mess.


During: Me approving of my own tile cutting.

During: Mortar in the linen closet.

During: Carefully laying the last few tiles.

After(floor-wise): Not pictured, the grouting process.

After(floor-wise): The linen closet.

After(floor-wise)

So the new next step is still carpet, although I'm almost glad that I 'waited' until the last of the flooring on the main level was completed. In the bathroom we're still looking on Craig's List for the perfect (and cheap) new vanity, the walls still need to get smoothed out and painted, the toilet needs to be re-installed...oh and the wall-tile around the shower needs to be destroyed and re-done...I'm trying to make that a separate project somehow though.

Now, just for fun, is a picture I took at work last week, not knowing it would become a before picture after the weekend snow-melt/rain that happened:

Before: Notice the work barge on the right side of the dock.

Now the after is the reverse angle, so you'll have to use whichever side of your brain it is that deals with perspective. Sorry, I didn't have the foresight to take matching pictures, and the problem has already been resolved.

After: A sunken work-barge.

Have a nice month(or three!).

Tiling the Entryway

Tiling my entryway was always in the plans when I picked-up the house. Originally it was more of a long-term idea, but after all the carpet was ripped up and I pulled off the kitchen tile without any major issues I figured now was much better than later.

Before: worn blue carpet from previous owners.

Before: The boys removing the carpet several months ago.

Before: The shoe-tying bench told me how far the tile needed to go.

During: I laid all the tile out dry to make my cuts.

Before: Entryway closet to be tiled also.

During: Didn't get as many pictures this time because I was working solo.

During: Everything laid, w/o grout.

After: Grouted & cleaned, shoe-tying bench ready for action.

After: Another angle

Project Queue:

• Clean everything again to get ready for carpet.
• Carpet, which is the first thing that I'm having someone else do, so it should go quick, right?
• Finally move furniture into carpeted living/dining rooms (this one is pretty big for me)
  
• Get bathrooms up to 100%...or 85% at LEAST.
• Kitchen Countertops
  

Painting the big room

I've done a lot of little projects in the last month, I'll probably get around to talking about them at some point, but not in this entry. I had a long weekend last week and tackled one of the bigger projects for the Living/Dining Room, painting the ceilings and the walls.

I borrowed a paint sprayer from work to use on the ceiling, as I've heard some stories about difficulties painting textured-ceilings.

Before: the hallway...

Before: I covered everything near the ceiling that I didn't want white...

Before: I only partially dismantled the dining room chandelier

Before: I don't know if it shows well in the pictures, but the ceiling had a lot of dark-discolorations

I've had limited experience with paint-spraying down on the boats, but this was easily the largest space I've sprayed before.

I bought a 5-gallon pail of the ceiling paint and only went through about half of it, and the whole thing took me about an hour-and-a-half by myself, including cleaning the sprayer out again after I finished. Better than I expected, it needs a few touch-ups and I nicked the edges a little later when I did the walls, but I'm happy with how it turned out.

The next day I finished prepping the walls, taping around doors and windows, trying to find any holes that the crew might've missed while spackeling, etc. Then my mom came over and helped me with the first coat of the blue walls...

Before: the walls were grimy, greasy, and drawn-on.

Before: The interior walls were ready for blue...

During: with my improvised bandana and fresh-shave, I was ready to get up on my perch and put my riverboat edge-painting skills to good use...

During: While rolling began on the other side...

During: She left the high stuff for me...

During: Down the hallway

After: Jumping ahead here, both colors + ceiling are finished here...

The next day the new Halo game was released. I resisted temptation and pressed on. I did the second coat of blue in the morning and took a break. About mid-afternoon I cracked open the lighter color for the exterior walls and started trimming the ceiling.

During: ceiling trimmed, because of my remarkable dedication to the philosophy of getting it right the first time, trimming everything for the lighter color alone took about 2 hours.

During: Then I started right into the rolling...Several hours later I finished the first coat.

After: Then I stayed up until about 2 in the morning to finish the second coat..

After: because I didn't ever want to paint again...

After: At first it looked a lot more beige than I had wanted...

After: but I wasn't about to paint it again...it's either grown on me now or my original perspective was negatively impacted by lack of sleep.

You may recall the photoshopped image I posted on a previous blog of what I envisioned for the living room walls, but just in case you aren't the Xanadu-enthusiast I expect you to be, I'll post again here, followed by the "end" result:

Before: Photoshopped.

After: Actual, still no carpet, vent-covers or new baseboard.

And, just to be thorough on this return to the blog, here are the obligatory 'Before & After' videos:

Goodnight.