Learning to Cope...

When we moved into the house, there was small, and I mean really small, crown molding through most of the house. Since we've always liked having picture rail moldings to hang our pictures from, the bride came up with the idea of adding the picture rail below the small crown leaving about a 2 1/2 inch space and then painting the whole thing to look like one piece of molding. It came out surprisingly well...


It's been kind of a challenge to cope the inside corners and miter the outside ones with the picture molding and also filling in the missing crown molding in the new added house parts. But I think I'm kind of getting the hang of it.



Once on the wall, it fits!


Which is a surprise, because I have a bad habit of cutting things a little too long the first time and then cutting them too short when I take them back to adjust them...

Where we been????

Well, we arrived at the point where we need to finish up detail work before we start on any more major projects. At least that's my point and I'm going to press it.

We've been filling nail holes, caulking seams, painting, putting gliders on the bottom of chair legs and finishing up trim work.

I'll post some pics when we've made enough progress to be interesting...

Floor Show

Since we're re-using a run of cabinets, that were between the kitchen and dining room, against the wall we found that some of the features of a double sided cabinet don't work so well in this application. Like the row of drawers and doors that ends in a blank cabinet back...


So, my little bride told me I needed to do something about that. And, that I needed to do something about it before we laid floor. So, I bent a couple of jigsaw blades and cut out a the blank side to make a drawer and a cabinet door opening...

Now, I told the bride that my cabinet skills are like really terrible and that she had a 50% chance or less of getting something decent out of it. As it is, the drawer turned out a teeny bit crooked, but I'm going to live with it. Yes, I am.

We started in laying floor, jockying loose cabinetry and kitchen tables,


...and, I must say, the results are very pleasing...

Treading the Boards

At son2's birthday party today, his grandparents invited him to come spend the night with them. Son1 was long gone to do things teenagers do. We were left completely alone. You know what that means, right?

Right. We took up the rest of the floor in the kitchen and got it cleaned up in preparation for laying floor tomorrow...


Which, of course, will make us really popular with the trash people come Tuesday...

Sub-Urban Archaeology

started back in on the demolition today since we'd gone as far with the new floor as we could. We uncovered what may very well be the original kitchen floor...


...and are proceeding to tear it out. The toe kick saw has been great even if it's a little scary. If I had to saw all of the edges with the reciprocating saw I would lose the will to live. One draw back is that it doesn't get into corners very well. And, neither does the Sawsall.


Which meant that I had to chisel out the plywood from the inside corner of the kitchen cabinets. A time consuming process, but necessary and worthwhile...


Tomorry is son2's birthday, but we'll try to get the rest of the floor out between parties and church.

Details, details...

Here's a pic of the pantry corner with the trim installed except crown molding. We are using the nook next to it as a tool staging area and have moved a temporary shelf in place for that.


The nook was left purposely to put a rolling island in when we're not using it. The bride had a pretty good idea that I think I can implement using an "extra" Victorian sideboard and adapting it into an island. I'll keep you posted...

Here's a couple of close-up peeks at the trim we're using around the doors and baseboard...