Trapped in the closet, Part II

After finishing Tom's closet I moved on to creating a closet where there wasn't one on the first floor. When you enter the front door there was a small entrance way, perhaps 3ft deep x 6ft wide. I'm walling up the middle and adding a door to the blocked of area from the inside to create a closet. Placement of the door may be slightly weird, but at most I could have moved it over another 4 inches if I cut through a second stud (where it is now only required cutting one stud). The wall is not load bearing in the sense it's supporting the house, but it is most likely supporting a portion of the porch roof so the less alterations the better. I've got the door in, now I need to lay some new flooring, frame out the wall, and drywall things up.

Spring is here!

This weekend was the first nice weekend of spring. I decided to take full advantage and work on some of the curb appeal plans I've had brewing all winter. I started off by priming the porch railing white. I decided that the white looked so good that I'd go white will all my accent colors. I primed the formally red stairs white to match. Then today I picked up a couple sets of white shutters, mounted those, and gave everything a coat of white paint. It's looking good so far but plenty more to come. Hopefully I can get that atrocious attic window replaced in the not too distant future.

Trapped in the closet

The closet in Tom's room is really awkward since the floor is raised to accommodate the ceiling of the stairwell. Add in the fact that when I raised the stairwell height it raised the closet floor, it doesn't help much. I had a plan for a few months now about how to make it a usable space and finally got around it. The lower panel you see folds down to reveal what is basically shoe storage on the slope. I also added another shelf above the hanger bar.

So close I can taste it

The bathroom is about 95% finished right now. The rest are relatively smaller scale things like touching up paint, decorating, and I still need to get that my custom shower curtain rod fabricated. Like I said small things. At least the bathroom is back to fully operational and I can start to a sense of satisfaction. Also the pictures may be a little weird because each shot is actually a pair I had to seem together. I couldn't back up enough to get a full shot. Now I can finally put up a picture of what it looked like when I started.

And I thought it looked good before

I spent all night putting down the grout. Considering it was my first time working with the stuff I'm pretty pumped about the way everything came out. On a side note when grouting walls expect to get a lot less coverage than expected as the extra falls to the floor, preventing you from working it all into the joints. I had to make a grout run at 9:45 to have enough to finish.

Staying on track

It took four hours of solid work but I was able to get the floor tile laid today. I get a couple days off as the thinset cures then it's back to work. Here's the latest.

Light at the end of the tunnel

With classes starting back up I might be slowed down a bit having the regular obligations, a final the 25th, and a term paper due April 2nd, but I'm going to do my best to keep plugging along. I went with a nice chocolate-ish color for the walls and am pretty pleased with the way it came out. With a little luck tomorrow I can get the floor tile down, my chair rail boards should be arriving Wednesday, then it's just a matter of painting trim, making molding for the top of the rail, and putting fixtures back in. Not sure if I'm going to go with a white or this beige color for the chair rail yet but we shall see.

Wins the race

I knew it would happen like this. Despite the slow going things would rapidly fall into place at the end. Checkout the finished ceiling w/ recessed lighting and the tiled shower. Painting and mounting the chair rail will go quickly, as will the tiling of the floor. Feeling pretty good right about now.

Slow but steady

I've been working on this all week but man, it's just taking forever. If this was new construction I'd probably be at this point in two days. Anyway right now I remounted the molding and I have to let the caulk dry so no more for tonight. Hopefully tomorrow I can have the ceiling finished, the walls/trim ready to go, and I'm toying with the idea of doing the shower tiling. We'll see how that goes.

Twice the bath

So this spring break I'm focusing on trying to get my downstairs bathroom that was a half bath completely renovated and converted into a full bath with a standup shower. It's something I've been kicking around for a long time and I'm finally ready to make it happen. Here are some pictures after the walls/ceiling have been torn out, the shower is roughed in, and the electrical is run. I'm going with recessed lighting if you're wondering why it looks like someone punched a few holes in the ceiling. Those can't actually go in until the greenboard is up on the ceiling--tomorrow's project.