Tuesday, January 25, 2011

The Bathroom is Done

It's done it's done it's done!!!!  My friend Krista come over and helped me put on the last coat of wall paint.  It's all Behr Ultra Plus Premium color matched to Yolo Colorhouse Air.05 in a semi-gloss, for moisture and durability.  Doors for the linen cabinet are being finished up and installed by the end of the week.  One last project will be to install a decorative metal screen over the radiator nook, trimmed out to match the cabinet above.  But that's not a high priority item at the moment, so onto the punch list it goes.




Updated pictures: In time for the Valentine's Day Party







Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Drawings

Being an architect and all, I figured I would post what it's all supposed to look like.  Someday.


Left: "Before" Floor Plan                                     Right: "After" Floor Plan

Below: New Kitchen Elevations 



Monday, January 10, 2011

The Kitchen Gets Some Love

The kitchen became my pet project after the holidays.  Cracked plastered, bubbling paint, and wallpaper residue all had to be removed and repaired and cleaned before I could even prime the walls.  But once I did, wow, it looked so much less like a crack den just covering up all that nonsense with the crisp white paint.  But you KNOW I couldn't leave it white.  What better place to put my favorite color than the kitchen?


That's right, that's a chartreuse kitchen you're looking at!

Ok, technically it's Behr Ultra Plus Premium (low VOC) in Lemongrass, but I know you are all horrified no matter the name.  But I promise after all the white base cabinets and appliances and upper shelves are in and I hang some Audubon prints (pages from last year's calendar!) the room will be awesome.

All the painted trim in the house will be Ace Cabinet Coat in Palace Gown, a warm white.  It's the most indestructible trim paint out there.  I've had my Behr ceiling paint tinted to match for the kitchen and bedrooms.  The living room, dining room, and sun porch ceilings are a light blue/green - Behr paint color matched to Yolo Colorhouse Air.05.  (I would have loved to use Yolo's paint, but there's no retailer in my area, and the shipping costs of online stores were cost prohibitive).

Where is the rest of the kitchen you ask? Why, it's right here.  
What, you don't keep your dishwasher in your dining room?

Window Trim in the kitchen
I would have *loved* to slap a new coat of paint on the trim, but the 80 years of people preceding me doing just that finally won.  After removing multiple sets of curtain rod hardware, the surface was so beat up it all had to go.  I broke out the heat gun I got as a housewarming gift (Thanks Bri!) and got to work.  I used the lower temperature setting in a vain attempt to produce fewer fumes.  Alas, during the coldest weather we've had in YEARS, I've been working with at least one window open so as to not pass out.  It's grueling ugly work and makes me now look at all my other 20 windows (on this floor) with terror.  I've averaging 6 hours a window. Eeek!  But it had to be done, and the windows will look so nice when they're all restored.  Right now I'm focusing on the trim and not the windows themselves, except for the casements, because I can remove those without taking down any trim, because really, it can wait until it's nice out.

Saturday, January 1, 2011

New Downstairs Apt Laundry Room

So the stacked laundry unit from 1989 died in the downstairs apartment late October and I finally found the time, energy, and money (well, 6 months interest free financing from Lowe's) to do something about it during Christmas, mostly because the tenants would not be there to be disturbed. 


Before                                             After


Much like my pantry upstairs, the shelving was circa 1950 and had been painted until it structurally became part of the wall; albeit a dirty, slanted, beat up part.  I sealed myself into the pantry with plastic sheeting so that no dust would get into the apartment as I worked. I am not sure what I was thinking, trying to work with w/d still in there.  As you can see in the photo, there's about 12 inches of clearance after I took out the shelves get around/behind the stacked unit. The entire room was covered in lint, due to a dryer vent leak, which meant I had to wash all the walls down with steel wool, which was the only thing that would get it off, while leaning over and around said appliance.  All the paint was flaking and had to be scraped as well. Ceiling included. What a dumb-dumb.  After about 4 days of this, I eventually called a guy from Craigslist to come and haul it away for scrap so I could actually finish the room and not kill myself before the new appliances got there. After that, I had to spackle all the holes from the old shelving, prime with Kilz2 (low VOC bad-ass primer), and throw on a coat of Behr Linen White exactly 2 hours before the appliances arrived.  After they were set-up, I installed new adjustable shelving that can be easily taken down to access the back of the room. A week of my time later and the downstairs has a spanking new laundry/pantry space that is way more functional (and cleaner!) than before.