16th January 2010

Back to painting today. The family room (which I am told are now called 'entertainment rooms' these days) is finished on the walls. I need to do another coat on the baseboards tomorrow.  I also painted the replaced baseboards in the front room after they were primered. Then that is another room done.

 

Between coats of the baseboards, I painted the claw feet for the bathtub. Two were white and two were green as no one had taken the tub out since perhaps the tub went into the home. I had to use rags to clean the major dust and cooties off, then used a wire brush to take the various layers off before painting them a brass colour to match the original taps inside the tub. It is amazing how a little paint can make things look so wonderful.


I salvaged some tile which matches pretty well from various sources. I will be installing the 13"x13" tiles around the woodstove to help protect the carpet even better (as I had melted the carpet on my former farm a time or two). It needs to be put in tomorrow or Monday.

The woodstove looks pretty small in this photo, but it is about twice as large as my former woodstove. The mantle itself is just above my eye level. I have the feeling this one will be able to cook me out of the house as well. With the rest of the salvaged tile, I believe I might be able to do the entire laundry/mudroom. Free is always good. I have to buy some things, but the tile and the grout was given to me as it was extra from various jobs. I laid it out to see how it looked. There is one tile I have to cut (the one at the far right of the tiles) and it will fit in the place on the left side of the stove (which you cannot see in this photo). But it needs to be in place and grouted in before Tuesday.

The linoleum looks wonderful in the kitchen, pantry room and the bathroom. The guy I hired to do it did a great job and there is no smell from the glue.

I picked up some contact paper to line the shelves and drawers (which mom is cutting and installing) and we both liked the color enough that I am going to change my mind and paint the drawer/cupboard faces a nice colonial blue which will probably bring out the blues/greys in the linoleum better than the green. So I did not put up the wonderful long shelf on the wall yet. Mom volunteered to paint it when I get the paint in the next couple of days. I can take time to do the drawer/cabinet doors after I move in and just do one at a time. I am rushing at the moment to get the staples out of the entire floor and fix, then paint my bedroom before the carpet goes in next week.

I brought the original antique glass knobs off the bathroom cabinets and drawer pulls back to where I am staying, so I can run them through the dishwasher to get the years of debris off them before I put them back on tomorrow. I am thinking that might work better than a toothbrush (and I do not have an old one anyway). The house is getting closer to being done to move in, and thankfully it more labour than funds needed. I really ought to have kept track of how many man hours from start to finish.