re:use

we've been busy! to get the guest rooms ready for upcoming guests and potential future roommates, we reused the french doors that were formerly in the dining room, and added some privacy film to the glass -





i like that it still allows light into the hallway from the two guest bedrooms.

we've also been very productive on trim work. nearly every room is complete with window & door trim, baseboards, shoe mould and quarter round! a few pics -





we have some caulking and lots of painting left to complete on the trim and windows...so we'll continue to be productive, though without drastically noticeable results. i'll update again as soon as i can!

re:boot

hello again!

the in-laws are coming down for thanksgiving, so we have a new deadline fast approaching, and little by little we're making big progress on trim work!

we made a door for the storage area under the stairs..
before:


during:


after (with primer coat, before finish paint):


so, opinions: should the panel areas be painted the gray of our walls, with the trim/baseboards to be white, or should this entire area be painted white as it is now with the primer coat?

we've also been working on baseboards and trimming out the windows!









all of the single windows are now trimmed out and in various stages of needing to be puttied/sanded/primed/caulked and painted. that's 17 windows + the small kitchen double window down, and just the 3 double windows + 1 triple window to go.

sanding casings (my least favorite part):




we also filled in the gaps in the corners of the upper kitchen cabinets, and just need to match the paint of our cabinet faces to finish these out:

before:


after:


and last month we scored this old salvaged door from the Historic Charleston Foundation warehouse sale for $10:





it's actually made with real beadboard, and we're going to have to add a couple boards to make it as wide as we need, so then we'll probably paint and distress it to hang on some barn door hardware at our pantry, inspired by this (from cottage living):


and we're currently contemplating ordering the doors for our bedrooms. the problem is, it'll cost us a little over $800 to get the 3 doors within the next couple days - to get them installed before Thanksgiving, or we can save a little and spend about $550 to get them in 6-8 weeks (not in time for the in-laws visit) - so therefore no point in ordering them now. anthony doesn't want to spend the extra $250 - that's the cost of another door!

see, we're very deadline-oriented people. which reminds me, i should just schedule my first ARE exam so i'll actually start studying. breaking work-related news coming soon, hopefully...

re:trim

i'm back! the work on the house the past few weeks hasn't been blog-worthy, but we're having a 'one year later' party next weekend, and in an effort not to disappoint the people who've never been here and may come expecting the house to be finished, we buckled down this weekend to make some more progress.

i lost the battle for wood trim, so anthony and david got some baseboard and casings cut out of mdf on saturday morning and anthony and i primed them in the afternoon...





the reason i wanted to avoid mdf - fearing it would look plastic because it's so smooth - turned out to be the opposite of the actual problem with using mdf - that is, the cut edges end up being kind of "fuzzy," even with sanding. so, we put two coats of primer on the cut sides, and we'll try a very fine sanding before the two finish coats of paint.

the baseboards are 6 1/2" high, and we'll add a quarter round on the top for an extra bead of detail (as well as the quarter round or shoe mould at the floor). we went with 4 1/2" wide door and window casings and routered the edges, and we also have 1 1/4" thick plinthe blocks at the bottom of the door casings. i think the simplicity of the trim complements the style of the house.

we've just begun the trimwork, but it makes such a difference already!




i'm also trying to get on the window & door painting train - but it's hard to find the motivation. it's such a tedious and repetitive task, and there is soooo much of it to do. but i got a little bit of taping done this weekend -


so, little by little the house is starting to look like a home...

re:install

we have doors! yay! this morning we installed the four interior doors that we ordered. they have one coat of primer and we'll eventually paint them the same as the [future] trim.

coat closet -



laundry room -


upstairs [guest] bathroom -


powder room downstairs -


while we were in seattle we also picked up some house numbers at restoration hardware. they are a little oversized, maybe - but they really work with the style of the house.




so next on the list is to have the floors in the family room refinished (you can see their condition in the powder room photo above) along with having stair treads installed.

re:post

a few more pics of the [near] final products...

re:entry

we have a new door! dave and anthony installed it this morning!

just getting started...



lucy guarding the tools...


inside view -


cutting back the siding for the new trim...






trimmed out (still need a drip cap at the top)...




and with the primer coat of paint on the trim...


tomorrow we will fill the screw holes, caulk, and paint the trim.
(old door still on the front porch) -


and the shed is coming along as well!






and the four interior doors we ordered are in-house and ready to be painted.


it was a reeaaaaallllyyyy hot day today, so we're exhausted and our a/c is working overtime now to try to cool the house back down, but we're so happy with our new door. many thanks to new daddy dave for building it and helping us install it!