Sunday I worked on the wiring upstairs, mostly because Saturday’s experience with the leveling compound scared me off of doing any “real” work. I thought I’d take it easy by trying to get some power upstairs.

Every time I wire (or plumb or do anything for that matter), I’m always adjusting my philosophies. That basically means that I do it the opposite of the way I did it the time before, because “that way sucked.” Anyway, my current mantra on electrical is to use lots of handy boxes to tie things together. So, what you’re looking at here are my two main upstairs boxes, the top for the lighting and Continue Reading »

A lesson in reading directions…

On Saturday, after finishing the painting, I attempted to use leveling compound to even out some of the settling in Chloe’s room. Besides the overall slope from front to back, there was a dip along the center over the old stairwell. While the 2×4’s are strong enough for a floor, they weren’t big enough to hold the floor completely flat over the years. Knowing that the laminate floors really need a nice, flat surface, I figured that I’d better do something to improve the situation.

Believe it or not, I did actually read all the directions Continue Reading »

No! But we’re almost done with the painting. A few design changes have been made in the short time since these pictures were taken, so these aren’t exactly what you’ll see in the end. For one thing, we thought that the front room (lighter pink) looked too closed-in, so we are changing the ceiling to white.  Chloe, who did “help” with a little bit of the painting (”here, paint the inside of this bookshelf cavity that’ll get covered up later), is re-enacting the painting in each room…

We’ve got a long ways to go, but it’s great to see something that is a taste of the finished product.  All of the closets have been painted, as has the play room ceiling and walls.  Here’s an in-progress shot of the play room:

Wow, this looks different… even though the rooms will be full of color by the time we’re through, the stark white walls of drywall primer are an exciting milestone. The formerly dull, dark rooms are full of light, even with just a camera flash. The drywall is looking really good - we’ve only been able to find a few problem spots, all of which can be easily corrected. The funny thing is that I had nearly finished priming Chloe’s room before noticing that her recessed light was no longer there, or more correctly, was neatly covered up by the drywall. One of the hangers forgot

Continue Reading »