This week started off with a mission. Since my sister is coming for a visit from Christmas through New Year's Eve, my goal for the past month has been to work towards having a decent place for a guest to enjoy. I don't mind it, but most people don't want to vacation in the middle of a construction site. It meant wrapping up a few loose ends, making sure the basics are functional and ... actually breaking into the cosmetics! That's the final and most fun stage of this whole project that I've been putting off until now.
As you know, I spent the previous week taping and finishing drywall, so I could get that guest room painted. At the suggestion of a good friend, I had chosen a nice blue color "clear blue sky" to paint all the ceilings downstairs, and I decided to use this color on the walls in the guest room too. And since I was finishing drywall anyway, I began by texturing all the fresh drywall - mainly the kitchen and guest room, but also all the other little patchy-poo areas I'd been working on as well. Some people spray on texture, but that's so messy, and I don't have the equipment, so I use a watered-down drywall mud and roll it on the wall just like paint. It's messy but not quite so.
Here's the kitchen, with the walls and ceiling completely textured and primed, and the ceiling painted blue. I love it!! Later on I also installed the rings on the can lights you see there.
And voila!! Here is the lovely guest room - painted and furnished and ready for visitors. The first resident actually was Dave's kitty, Dee Dee... I failed to get a picture of her (!) but she tried out the bed and the chair and especially enjoyed that great perch looking out the window over the street below. As you can see I decided on a pair of twin beds that can be combined into a king for the more romantic couples that may be visiting in the future.
You remember Dave. He started out last August as a 'mystery guest' but now is destined to make more regular appearances - singularly the most helpful man I have ever met (plus he shares my aversion to OSHA approved footwear). This weekend he volunteered to help me install bead board paneling on the ceiling of the porch and sun room. The tongue-in-groove bead board that you see there is very old and warped, and it would need about a case of caulk to fill in the gaps and still would look like crap, so he suggested we just go over it with paneling and I agreed. For about $200 I got a brand new ceiling!
I did help a little bit. It was my job to put the liquid nails on the back of each piece, and help hold one end up while Dave did the hard work - he used a finish nailer and 2" 16 gauge nails, about 100 in each board, I think. If anyone in the future ever tries to take it down we will get cussed out for sure.
We used seven full sheets of paneling, and needed just one more strip a foot wide. I grabbed the scraps I had saved from when I did the inside of the pantry, and Dave made a custom edge using the table saw, so the pieces would overlap the way they were supposed to.
Here is the porch celing all done - awesome, huh? It will have to be primed and painted when I do the rest of that siding there, but it's going to add so much to that great front porch. I love it!
Today I had a 'laundry list' of miscellaneous jobs that I thought were going to take me all day, starting with this laundry sink. Last week I was filling a bucket with water in the sink that came with the house and the cheapo plastic bottom of the sink cracked! So I had to replace it and I chose a heavier duty one of course. And, as usual nothing is a simple project - once I removed the old one I decided it was time to paint that portion of the laundry room that I couldn't get to before. So another prime and caulk job yesterday, and I was ready to paint then put the sink in, which I did this morning.
Then I had to install a new garbage disposal because - did I mention? - the one that came with the house didn't work once I got it all hooked up. It was gross anyway and there really isn't any way to clean an icky garbage disposal. That project went perfectly as well.
I hung a ceiling fan on the porch, bam! A couple of curtains in the bathroom, bam bam! Washed the linens and set up the guest room, repaired a dresser drawer the bottom had fallen out of, hung mirrors in both bedrooms, and by 2:00 my laundry list of honey-do's was honey-done! I headed for home, and will be returning soon with my sister in tow. We are planning to enjoy the place as if we are on vacation, but there might be a few pictures when we're done, I'll be sure to keep you posted on any of the exciting goings-on. Have a wonderful holiday everyone!!
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