State of the House Update

Soooooooooooooooooo close to being done! I finished painting the closet door today. It looks something kinda awesome!

I started on the other door, but I knew I wouldn't be able to finish in time for dinner.  The things that needed to be completed in the front bedroom are just the door and the windows!  We're THIS close to being done with it!

I finished what needed to be done on the mantle.

It looks really clean, sitting on top of the mantle like that!

The living room is almost done, too.  The ceiling is about 1/4 painted and the walls are about 90% done.  Once the bookshelf has had a coat of semi gloss, it'll be good to go!  I'll be drilling in some PVC pipe ends that I cut with the miter saw to hold a rod that we'll be using as a curtain rod for the lower half of the shelf.  We're hoping that separating it from the wall by painting it a different color will make it stand out a little more, and cause less of an eye sore.

Chris Samayoa came through to help paint.  He finished the primer on the ceiling and started primering the stairway walls.

Sandra and Yvette cleaned out the apartment and moved all their stuff in to the house and garage.  They were laughing quite a bit, so I wonder if I should be worried.

The bathroom looks REALLY nice with everything painted.  Well, almost everything.  I didn't have a steady enough hand to paint the inside of the window frame without taping it, and it was getting late the night that I had painted, so I didn't want to tape it and just leave it.  The bathroom needs to have the 3/4 inch part of 3/4 pieces of the inside of the window frame painted, and possibly inside the built in cabinet.  Grout, the vanity, and the mirror should be going in this weekend.  The new light looks great in there.  It's REALLY bright.  I still have to get some wood for the door frame.  I should get it sooner than later, so I can paint it before mounting it.  Everything's just so much easier to paint when you can move it around (and nothing's next to or behind it!).  About four more rows of tiles need to get laid down, then it's a wrap!  We're getting pretty close to finishing.  I'm pretty excited about it all.

I still need to figure out what I'm going to do about the kitchen sink.  I got an outlet installed for the garbage disposal, but I forgot to get a switch put on it!  I might have one just installed under the sink, so it's easier to deal with for now - no new holes in the walls or tiles.  I also have to either get a new faucet fixture (something that has a pull down spout), or cut a hole in the sink to vent the dishwasher and garbage disposal.  Like this one to the left.

Repairing the Laundry Room Ceiling (3)

This was one of the three holes the contractors cut into my ceiling for shits and giggles. They ended up cutting into my sisters walls to do what they had to do, since they couldn't reach through my ceiling. WTF, right?!

One last layer of compound with plaster of paris did it. It's all smoothed out and looks fine. I guess I have to paint this room now to make that square go away. Crap.

Repairing the Kitchen Ceiling (2)

I sanded down the kitchen ceiling and applied another layer of compound. This mixture was two parts plaster of paris, two parts 45, three parts water. I kept it somewhat watery because I used it to texture the area above the mantle also.

The area above the stove in the kitchen looks done. This is after two days of drying. I had been spraying it with water to keep it moist while I used a putty knife to smooth it out. I'm guessing all that water in addition to the rain is keeping it from drying too quickly. The cool thing is that you can't even see the seams anymore! I feathered out the edges about 6 inches on all sides.

Repairing the Laundry Room Ceiling (2)

The hole in the laundry room ceiling is pretty confusing. Not only is it oddly shaped, but it has a beam and two walls around it. I decided to screw down a piece of plywood above the hole, and cut to fit some purple board into the hole. This hole was really deep, so the 5/8 inch purple board fit well here.



I wanted to make sure this was sealed well, so before putting in the purple board, I puttied the edges of the holes to close up all the gaps. I also put joint compound on the backside of the purple board before screwing it to the piece of wood. Satisfied that it was all there, I used the rest of the joint compound for the edges and screw holes.

Repairing the Kitchen

I sanded down the ceiling and applied another layer of joint compound.



The wall behind the stove got the same treatment. I think this wall is done!


This hole of death is not getting closed. It still looms there, mocking me.

Repairing the Kitchen Ceiling

I finally decided to close up the holes in the kitchen ceiling. Today, we were at the house from roughly 9 AM to 9 PM. We did get a lot done, though.

The hole in the ceiling above the stove was a bit hard to get. The back of the ceiling around the hole wasn't even. I cut a piece of plywood to place behind the hole, but it was not sitting flush. I ended up going upstairs and using some extra pieces of wood to apply pressure on the plywood from the top, so I could secure it to the existing ceiling. Thank you, MacGuyver!



With the wood secured, I attached a 1/2 inch piece of green board, cut to fit.