Another project

I can't imagine what would happen if I only had one project going at a time. I worry that I'd go into a tailspin of boredom, or that I would actually have time to keep the house tidy. Since my bathroom project has wound down to a near finish, I decided to tackle another project that has been bugging me for years. The Hallway.

Too big to be a hallway, too small to be a room. Dark and dingy and too ugly to be a part of my house.

A couple years ago I peeled the wallpaper off the bottom half of the wall and painted it the same color as the kitchen backsplash. The color coordinated pretty well with the wallpaper above, but I still didn't like the look.

And the wallpaper above was so old and dirty and dingy. One day I decided to paint a few different colors on the wall to see what I'd like in there. The Man suggested forest green after he came home and saw all the splotches of color on the wall. Well, forest green just doesn't go with the rest of my house. I settled on a teal, but was waiting to get more of the bathroom done before I bought paint.

On those home shows they talk about paint being the cheapest improvement you can make in your home, but paint isn't exactly cheap. Then I decided the ceilings better be painted first so I did the bathroom ceiling in white, and the hallway ceiling in a color called "Sand dunes" that I've got elsewhere in the house. The horrible grate in the ceiling was rusted and brown, so I painted right over that. It's not quite the eye sore it was before.

Under the wallpaper I found one wall painted with flat green paint and another wall painted with gloss white. Weird. But that's the way this whole house has been.

Scraping, sanding, staining and varnishing the woodwork is going to be an all winter project since I'm dealing with at least eight layers of paint.

More pictures to come when I get the halls decked for Christmas.

More Bathroom Photos

The essentials are done! Things are done enough to put the toilet paper holder back up.

And the mirror is back up. That's not necessarily a good thing, now I have no excuse for not doing my hair!

And the shelves have been moved back in after 6 months of sitting in the hallway. Nothing as inconvienient as having your eyeliner in the hallway, your mirror in the living room, and ponytail holders, in the kitchen.

The baseboard has been put on. I see from the picture that I do need to sweep the floor though!

With luck, this afternoon I'll get the ceiling painted and the rest of the window trim put on. I still need to hang the towel racks too.

Bathroom Project Update

I know I posted earlier this year about my bathroom remodel project, so I thought I shoudl update and give you some pictures to look at. It's coming along slowly but surely. As big a pain in the butt as it's been, some good things have happened. 1) our bathroom is now much, much warmer in cold weather 2) I got the table saw running again 3) hubby found the missing piece of the router and fixed it last night so I can use it again. Hooray!!!!

I tore all the old stuff off the walls, pulled out the old insulation (I was quite surprised to find any in the wall), reinsulated with modern insulation. Tore out a big heavy cupboard that was hung using three big finishing nails. Very interesting. There were several layers and colors of wallpaper. Most of the bathroom was originally built using used lumber. I used more used lumber to fill in missing studs. In one corner of the bathroom, the wallboard was nailed to NOTHING in the corner. The only thing keeping the corner together was paint.

Putting up the new boards meant draining and moving that water heater- twice. I worked all of one day and didn't get near finished, so I had to reconnect the water heater and start all over the next time I had a day free to work. The boards are pine carsiding, stained with "pickled oak" stain. Basicly just white stain. I want to keep the whitish look of the new pine, I don't want it darkening to that dull gold that pine gets after a few years, so I'm hoping this white stain will do the trick. After the stain is on, then I'm topcoating with varnish

I have more pictures on the camera. They will have to wait for another day to be downloaded and posted.