Sheen Down On Me

Life moves on, and I've been busy painting. What a difference the right paint sheen can make! There are some basic factors to consider in selecting paint sheen, like durability, touch-up potential, desired gloss, etc. But I can't think of a good reason why the previous resident painted the wood board-and-batten laundry room ceiling in high gloss. It only serves to highlight the very imperfect and rough texture of the cheap plywood panels. And I'm sure he wasn't up there scrubbing them regularly, because they were filthy.

I had already painted the crown molding months ago, so it was finally time to give the ceiling a nice, clean coat. I really like Benjamin Moore's ultra flat ceiling paint; it's so thick it rarely drips and it's tintable to any of their thousands of wonderful colors. I had to do a lot of cutting in, due to the little batten strips. But now it looks like a velvety soft cloud overhead, instead of a prickly, stubbly, garish glare.

Before:

After:

Now you see it...

Now you don't!

Before:

After:

After all the stress and anxiety of getting the new water heater installed, I have eased the memory by erasing the view of that very appliance. Until we know if a tankless water heater is in the budget, this ceiling mount curtain track and canvas drop cloth will serve the purpose of disguise.

In the photos, it looks vaguely like a tiny European shower or a changing booth for Superman, but I think it looks a bit more attractive in person. And certainly better than a large metal tank with pipe protuberances everywhere!

Hang 'em High

With the purchase of a few random cabinets on Craigslist, three coats of paint, and more measuring, finagling, discussion, and planning than you would think necessary, we finally have some storage in the mudroom.

Mudroom last July

My CL cabinets before

Mudroom now, in progress

I'll eventually build two custom narrow cubbies to fill out the upper run and trim the cabinets to the ceiling, but that is a project for another day! So is the meticulous painting of the multi-pane glass door that goes on that center cabinet. Please use your imagination and pretend you can see into the cabinet. Oh wait; you can!

The mudroom was simply the back porch in another life, before being closed in. The concrete floor, therefore, was thoughtfully designed to shed water with a very definite pitch towards the rear. Great for floods, but not so good for interior design. I will soon replace the large white bottom cabinet with a narrow drawer base at the end run, topping the whole length with a countertop to form a large work surface and desk area. But said drawer base will have to be jacked up a bit, in order to form a level line with the upper cabinets.

My Habi Restore find, a 15" drawer base, mid sanding and prepping.

We'll be hitching that puppy more than two inches off the floor to achieve parallel with the new counter. So with that in mind, we had to hang the uppers higher than normal to maintain a decent distance between countertop and cabinets. At 5'2", I already have to stretch on tippy toe for the third shelf; now I think I'll just resign that space for Jeff's things. When I told Jeff that, he asked what things were his!

Picking My Battles

Remodeling is often about prioritizing. What projects, to what extent, in what order. Sometimes (rather, oftentimes) what I thought was going to be simple becomes involved. Or a straightforward objective blossoms into an ever-growing endeavor. But I try to limit those things.

So it was with surprisingly little regret that I reeled in a moment of excitement. I came home last week to find that the workmen had finished up their first day of deconstruction on the laundry room. As I inspected the empty room, now with a few holes here and there, I spied something that made my heart quicken just a bit. Could it be!? I peered closer, and, yes in deed, there is beadboard under my paneled ceiling!

I immediately was filled with visions of a darling sun/laundry/mud/entry room with painted brick and charming beadboard. I already have plans for a beadboard ceiling in the adjoining kitchen, so what a perfect transition. But as Jeff and I reasoned together and investigated, we discovered several issues. All the trim would have to come down, all the paneling and batten boards, three sheets cut away, hundreds of tiny brads pulled, original tongue and grove beadboard patched, scraped, and painted, and the trim reinstalled. All to get me back to a functional ceiling like I have now (and this is assuming that there isn't a perfectly good reason why the beadboard is covered, like big rotten areas or something).

While Jeff was at Spokesman Club on Sunday, I had permission to experiment with a small panel. It took me about half an hour to remove an approximately one foot by three foot section due to the tiny-headed two inch brads, only to discover glue on the backside of the panel, and on my beadboard! This was a no-go. Some finish work is expected, but sanding off glue stuck to lead-based paint over my head in a 13 x 20 room is just a bit much, even for a preservationist like me.

So now you're in on our little secret. The beadboard actually looks better in these pictures than in real life, but it will always be there for us (or some future occupant) to uncover and restore down the road if desired. But I have a whole war to wage here, so this battle will not be fought today by me!

Achy breaky hands

Have you ever worked your hands so much that the muscles were actually sore? I now have a much clearer understanding of the intrinsic muscles of the palm and phalanges than I ever received in anatomy and cadaver college courses. I believe I can actually feel them all at the moment ;-).

The reason for my increased knowledge (and pain) is the fact that I've been stripping the last of the linoleum from the concrete floor in the laundry room. Our first big project is waiting at the starting gate! The workmen are coming next week to begin the masonry, plumbing, and electrical work necessary to have a proper laundry room.

The room has, up until now, been a neglected former porch that was closed in. It is on slab, unlike the rest of the house, so changes mean a lot of work! It currently houses the exposed water heater and the dryer, but the washer is in the kitchen. It will all be consolidated into better locations with a furred out wall to hide the water supply, drain, vent, and electrical needs. Then I'll tackle the miscellaneous walls (composed of at least three types of brick and two colors of mortar) with paint and etch and stain the concrete (hopefully). If the subfloor is too subpar for that, I'll do a faux finish.

Either way, I'm really excited to have some major progress coming down the pike! This room has lots of potential (aesthetically and functionally), so I can't wait to uncover it. I just hope it doesn't require much more scraping to get at it!





You can't see the old, odd green linoleum in these photos, but it's probably better that way anyhow. We got up about half of it with a reasonable amount of effort, but the remaining islands of stuck flooring might as well be continents! They are really, really well-adhered. So I'm using a four inch razor blade to scrape up the top rubbery layer in tiny shreds in the hopes of exposing the underneath to noxious chemicals that will persuade it to surrender its grip.

I’m just floored about it!

I finished laying the new floor in the laundry room! I did the kitchen flooring back in January when we put in the new cabinets, and I’ve had the bathroom done for a month, but the laundry room was on hold until Jeff could help me move the washer and dryer. He did the weekend before last, and it’s done! It's lovely to have so much storage space for all my ingredients, equipment, and supplies just steps from the kitchen. I even added extra pantry shelving to the coat closet beside the bathroom just for narrow bottles and jars that get lost in the cabinets.

I did all the priming and painting on Jeff's last business trip, as it took a few days of uninterrupted work to prep and finish that job. The new lighting, pulls, countertop, and open shelving were done in spurts. But the floor was the final project. This room and the bath both took a deceptively long time to lay, given the small space. There were so many tiny, tricky cuts and angles. Jeff would come home and count my fingers to make sure I hadn't lost any digits to the compound miter saw, jigsaw, or undercut saw! Since the flooring was seconds from a discount building supply place, I had to work around blemishes and damaged spots to salvage as much material as possible, so that took a long time, too.

All I need now is a counter height rolling chair for my menu planning area and I'm all set.

Here’s the before and after.

BEFORE

AFTER (same angle)

AFTER

SOUTH WALL (from kitchen)

NORTH WALL (from kitchen)

STRAIGHT ON (from bathroom doorway)

NORTH WALL (from bathroom doorway)

SOUTH WALL (from bathroom doorway)

PANTRY RACKS (in coat closet)