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:cover

trim work continues -


we have the perimeter of all 3 doubles plus the triple window trimmed out, and just need to cut new pieces for the spaces between the windows.

and we've made a couple of furniture purchases via craigslist...
1. a pair of chairs for $100:


i bought some fabric to recover them for $28 and voila:




one day i may paint this chair a fun color, and i was hoping to find a more punchy or funky pattern to make these chairs less formal looking, but didn't find anything just right, so this will do for now. charleston is sadly deficient in fabric resources. does anybody recommend any online sources for modern fabrics?

2. a pair of MCM dressers for $100 that just need a little TLC...




just another project to add to the list! this will be my first experience refinishing furniture. wish me luck!

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:start

a sneak peak of the window trim...

re:animate

i know, i know... it's been a while. we took the winter off. i guess when you gogogo for a year-plus, you get burned out.

in the meantime, i have started studying for my architectural registration exams. i'm jumping into the deep end and starting with structures, and my brain finds the material to be like an alien intruder or foreign object and is fighting to keep it out. but i digress...

we're finally ready to get going on the house projects again. the big projects (especially the master bathroom) are going to have to wait for proper funds, but we can do some small stuff. like the trim... check out this nifty drawing my awesome architect-husband did:



it's a color-coded trim take-off for finishing out the rest of our baseboards and door & window trim! we need four more 5'x12' sheets of mdf to rip down. time to get back on the wagon!

re:ception

we invited all of our friends over last night to show them how far we've come in the last year. we had this slideshow projected onto a wall...




anthony worked very hard on getting as many casings and baseboards as possible installed before the party. it's looking great!






we're looking forward to getting the rest of the 'to do' list knocked out before the 'two years later' party next fall!

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...