Weekend in Review: Bathroom Ready to Paint

Friday:
Since we are hiring a guy to do the rest of the drywall repairs for us, we have been able to focus on other priorities.  He will be doing the garage and the remaining cracks in the ceiling and walls inside, but we are still responsible for the hall bathroom.  Ornery worked on that Friday night, and all afternoon and evening I worked on painting cabinet doors for the kitchen and bathroom.  We actually hung the bathroom cabinet doors, and WOW what an improvement!  We still have the drawers to repair and paint, but it already looks tons better.

Saturday:
We started out with a run to Lowe's where we picked up paint for the garage and ordered a over-range vent hood to replace the disgusting microwave we took out.  Then we ran by a building supply store and picked up some new grills for the return air vents.  Even though I had spent a long time cleaning the old ones, they still looked really bad when we put them up next to the freshly painted walls and ceiling.  They weren't expensive, so I am glad we did that.

I painted cabinet doors, repaired drawers and helped Elizabeth with lining the kitchen cabinets with peel-and-stick tiles (actually she did most of the work, I just cut them after she marked them.) She also painted inside all the lower cabinets and cleaned the shelves before putting the tile down.  She only got about 4 cabinets lined, but they sure look nice!

Ornery had two helpers -- Michael and Jeff (the gnome) -- so he worked with them for a while installing the new closet doors in the "blue" bedroom, and rebuilding the water heater closet that Michael took out for us last weekend, and closing off two attic access openings in the garage that were just big holes in the ceiling.  They would have finished it except they didn't have enough material, so we will have to buy more to finish that job.

Jeff has never done anything like this, so while hesitant at first, he was all sorts of excited about using Ornery's tools--the table saw, the miter saw, the cordless driver and the nail gun.  He also learned what a hacksaw was, and used it exuberantly to shorten the closet door rails while Ornery and Michael looked on and laughed at his enthusiasm.  As he was leaving he asked if they (Michael and Elizabeth) would be coming back next weekend, as he wanted to come learn some more stuff! :)

After they all left, Ornery cut the last of the baseboards for the hall bathroom and got them up, then sanded the sheet rock repairs in the hall bathroom.  By the end of the day he just had a small area left behind the toilet to sand.  He also took the cover for the vent fan down so I could wash it, and now it looks like new!

Sunday:
We started out with giving Ornery a hair cut.  Between the lawns (here and 507) and his hair it seems like we are having to mow every little bit! ;)  We worked on a variety of things, but first Ornery sanded the last of the drywall repairs and then painted the baseboards.  All the bathroom lacks to be ready for primer and paint is some masking tape around the newly tiled shower walls.  It would be really sad to get paint on the grout!

While he was working in the bathroom, I was busy with cabinet doors and drawers. I finished the day with six full and three partial doors left to paint, and about six drawers between the bathroom and the kitchen.  Altogether the house has 24 cabinet doors and ten drawers in the kitchen and hall bathroom. Each door has had to be scraped, partially sanded and deep cleaned prior to painting. Some have been primed, most I just put the paint over what was already there. All the drawers except 2 have had some sort of repair needed.

There are more drawers in the bedrooms, two in one and either 8 or 12 in the other.  I am only painting the two, the others are file drawers and other than put the handles back on, I don't intend to do anything to that.

Ornery had to remake the face of two drawers so I can't paint those until they are assembled. He was able to make them almost exactly like the faces of the other drawers using his table saw and router table. Between the amazing job he did on the baseboard trim in the hall bathroom and the drawer faces, he jumped another notch or two in my esteem--and he was already over the top there!

I also lined all the drawers I had finished and touched up paint on several places I thought were already done as well as painted the face of the cabinet below the counter-tops. Things are looking mighty spiffy in there!

This week we will begin bringing things back home that we won't be needing any more.  The bulk of what is left requires elbow grease and a paint brush or roller. Other than paint we still need to block off the fireplace, finish the water heater closet and install all the new light fixtures and vent hood. A big cleaning inside will complete the work.  We could conceivably be done in a couple more weekends!

Thursday and Friday I will have to be at 507 all day with the drywall guy.  I am not concerned that I will be bored!  I hope to get all the cabinet parts finished and the bathroom painted this week.  In the evenings we will work on finishing up the kitchen and the details in the hall bath. 

We are excited to be getting so close to finished!  Our bodies are telling us in many ways that we are overtaxing them, and I am looking forward to a spa week at home once we are done!