Item #17

I finally finished the crown moulding in the back bedroom. It's primed, caulked, wood-filled, sanded, and ready for a coat or two of glossy paint. Not only that, but I got a good start on the crown in the bathroom, too. I am also in the process of cutting the last batch of wall tiles. Anything to avoid plumbing.

I never really quit working on the bathroom after the ill-fated one-room challenge, but I got another kick in the pants to get it done. Tom's parents are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary and we're throwing a party in their honor. The party won't be in our house, thank goodness, but we'd at least like to offer a bedroom and a bathroom if anyone needs it. The spare room and hall bathroom are looking worse than ever, but I can see the progress even if no one else can.

Plumbing is the worst.

Clara strikes again

Just when I thought I was to the point of being able to decorate instead of construct in Clara's room, Clara struck again. One night instead of counting sheep to fall asleep she decided to peel paint off the wall. (Full disclosure, this happened like 8 months ago and I'm just now getting around to fixing it.)

Fortunately the surface of the drywall paper was still intact so I did not have to use any drywall mud. I just sanded the edges and painted right over. If you get close you can still see the outline of the part that she peeled (in retrospect, probably should have used drywall mud and not had this issue), but it disappears when you get more than two feet away. I was very happy with the color match on the new gallon I had to buy for the repair, so kudos to Sherwin-Williams for that!

One Room Challenge - Wrap-up

You might have guessed by the radio silence that things did not end well for the One Room Challenge. Not even close.

I'm certainly several steps closer to completion, but even at the beginning I knew it was an unrealistic goal. There was just too much life happening - road trips, holidays with family, sick kids. And I'm okay with that. Well, I could have done without the sickness, but we're all back to normal now.

Despite the utter failure of this experiment, I'd be willing to do it again. Just in a room that doesn't require plumbing. Plumbing is the worst.

One Room Challenge - Week Four

I don't even want to talk about the lack of progress being made. I managed to cut out the hole in the vanity top for the sink, but that was about it. 

One Room Challenge - Week Three

Well, week 3 was pretty much a bust. We were out of town for 5 days for Easter, so I really didn't get much done. Last week I discovered that some of the toilet plumbing was not to code, so I have to take out a large section of pipe. Don't you love it when you have to redo the work you paid someone else to do? I brought the toilet upstairs last week thinking that I only had to set the toilet flange before I could install it. Yeah, right, like it could ever go so smoothly. I guess this isn't called a challenge for nothing.

While I fumed about the plumbing I have to cut out and redo, I re-set the bathtub, which involved more fiddling with the plumbing. I'm tired of plumbing.

I've been stripping paint off the doors with a heat gun. It's one of those things you can put down at a moment's notice, so I'll keep chipping away (pun intended) at it whenever I have a free minute. The doors are so pretty under that paint that I don't know if I'll want to paint them again.

Otherwise, not much got accomplished. I'm very close to calling it quits on the challenge, but I'm going to see how much I can get done. I know it still won't be finished by then, but I will keep on trucking.

One Room Challenge - Week Two

This week I prepped for vanity installation - installed shutoff valves, cut out plumbing access in the back of the dresser, and cut a hole in the top for the sink. Before I could screw the vanity into place, I needed to install the baseboard. I used the baseboard we salvaged from the classroom near Cincinnati, but I had to strip it of several layers of paint first. The wood was pretty but not so pretty that I felt guilty for painting it. I made and installed the plinth blocks for the doors. I wanted to get to the door trim, but making plinth blocks and stripping paint ate up a lot of work time this week (plus we were out of town over the weekend). Installing the plinths had to come before the baseboard, but the rest of the door trim can wait a bit longer.

That's it for week 2!