Hello Storage, Have We Met?

February 2012

Soon after we finished framing in the wall, our carpenter Jason arrived to start our built-ins.  The first thing to go in was a bookcase that we designed to go in the small recessed area around the chimney.  We designed it to have a small cabinet on bottom and three movable shelves up above.  The first day it went in was a huge break through! One more hole in this room was finally filed up! Next, Jason installed new baseboards and door trim throughout the room.  Instantly our shanty half constructed room started to look a little more professional. 

Last, he started building in the two closets along the eave wall.  The last step was for him to make the solid wood shaker style doors to match our kitchen cabinets. He then dropped the doors and shelves off for us to start painting, and painting, and painting before he installed them.  We had 6 doors in all, 7 shelves and endless feet of closets and trim to start priming and painting.  We pulled out our trusty Benjamin Moore Bone White Acrinamel and went to work.  We set up the doors and shelves in the basement and I circled the room countless times painting the trim.  Slowly the spaces came together and we started to imagine what life would be like with four walls in the bedroom and enough closet space for all of our clothes. In the meantime, we kept painting.

Project: Grown Up Bedroom

January 2012

Probably the most incomplete room in our house was the master bedroom.  When we first bought the house the sheer size of the bedroom wow'ed us. It's about 17' long and about 14' wide, in modern bedroom standards this is probably a guest room, but for those of you who are old house owners you will know this is a huge bedroom.  That was about all it had going for it.

Issues:

1.  There was no drywall on the entire North side of the room.  The studs were there, doing their job holding up the house, but not protecting us from our creepy eaves space.  

2.  There was no trim in this room.  None.  No baseboards, no door trim, nada.  The wood floors stopped short of the walls and there was a nice empty crevice to collect dog hair and anything else that was swept to the side.
3.  The newer vinyl windows did not open properly and were not trimmed to match the house.  (We actually fixed this when we remodeled the outside, we installed a new working and style matching windows as well as new trim)

4. On the South side we had a weird slider door entrance to the shag den.  See earlier post.  (This was decontaminated and closed up) 

5.  For some odd reason there was a large hole in the wall that showed the chimney stack.  I am not sure what this was for, maybe there was a leak?  Maybe they thought about exposing it? Either way it was ugly and dirty and served no purpose

6. There was one standard 4' closet for all of our clothes.

7. The existing ceiling fan was hideous and brass (we replaced this about a month prior, see earlier post)

8. There were two can lights??? (totally not in keeping with the house, but necessary for lighting purposes) that had no trim on them

9.  The walls were drywall not plaster and did not match the overall look of the rest of the house.

I really should stop now because you're getting the point.  It was bad, real bad.  We lived with this for 18 months.  It was starting to be not cool. The biggest hold up had actually been that we didn't exactly know what to do with the space. We knew we needed more closet space, we also knew we had a lot of space behind the stud wall, and in the creepy chimney recess to add some storage.  Josh and I are by no means carpenters.  If you have ever tried finish carpentry you will know what we mean, it is harder than it looks, and requires a good deal of precise cutting.  We didn't feel confident building in the storage and considering the unlevel, unusual sizes of our house we could not utilize off the shelf items.

The kick start finally came when we were walking Gus.  Each night Josh would run into this women with a large yellow lab mix.  Gus and Baxter liked to wrestle and play and so they often stopped to let the dogs duke it out.  Turns out after talking to her, her husband is a carpenter.  They live three blocks away and his workshop was in the neighborhood.  It was the moment we had been waiting for.  We asked him to come look at the areas before Christmas and give us an idea on pricing.  We drew some quick sketches of two closets in the eaves and a bookcase for the the chimney eaves.  We also asked him to install trim in the room to match our exisiting trim throughout the house. His prices were perfect, right in line with what we thought and his work was amazing!

I was super excited to have a professional handmake things for our house.  It always amazes me to look at our house and think about the hours that went into making the panelled solid wood doors, the dining room built-in, the handmade kitchen cabinets. These weren't 'upgrades,'  they came standard on every house, because that was how you made them. I felt like this was the best way to go.  Pay someone in our own community to make beautiful things in the way they used to be made.  Respect your house, respect craftsman.  Buy local.  Buy Real.  It felt good. 

Built-In Finishing Touches

February 2011

After several weeks of stripping... the built-in.  I moved on to sanding, patching, and painting the lower portion.  This got a healthy three coats of Bone White (see earlier blog for color information).  I also bleached all the drawers down and put new cork liners in the bottom.  Apparently, I am not only a DIY maven but also apparently a clean freak.   After the drawers were lined I installed some brand new knobs I got at Restoration Hardware.  These are amazing, they are real solid oil rub bronze knobs that weigh about a pound each.  I love that they are slightly over sized and remind me of the talking door knob in Alice in Wonderland.  
 

The lower portion went so quickly and easily I felt super successful and excited about the end of the project.  Then I started staining the top.  This took a few tries to get right.  I was trying with a brush at first and it just didn't seem to be going on evenly.  Each time I would sand all the stain off and start again.  Finally I discovered staining with a rag... this was much more successful and after three coats I felt pretty good about my staining jobs.  The second to last step was applying a sealer... I debated between varnish, lacquer, poly or just an oil treatment.  The Internet is a warren of conflicting information, after hundreds of articles and blog entries I gleamed this: varnish is REALLY hard... you should be a professional or at least have a spray gun for it.  Oil would require me 3-4 times a year apply a fresh coat to protect the wood from sun, water, and whatever I left on top.  Apparently lacquer can also go yellow and eventually chip off... urgh.  So I decided good old fashion poly would be my trick. 
 

Of course, I had similar issues with the poly.  I was tentative and putting it on way too light.  The issue with poly is when you are applying it to the surface it looks horrible.  No matter what you do there is brush strokes and small air bubbles.  What I eventually learned was if you apply it thick enough then these spread out and go away as it dries.  After a few different methods I settled on foam brushes. These did not leave brush strokes and after three coats of poly I finally had to admit, I might be done.   I touched up the paint around the top and called it a day.  Needless to say this was a labor of love.  It took we two months and way too long to be proud of.  I think a capable person could do this in about 5 days but in the end I feel like the result was pretty professional and I will admit to running my hands along the glossy top every time I pass it!