Over a half mile

Having cracked through the most difficult pieces yesterday, we made headway again today and completed the first finishing coat on all of the trim. It rained all night and our setup in the 3 car garage proved to be invaluable, although a bit tight on drying space. By 1 PM Mr. Sun poked his head out and the fog had cleared. We continued to finish up our last batch while the morning batch dried in the sun.
By 3 PM, we were finished painting and began to move what we could into the basement to cure for the next 2 weeks. Unfortunately, most of the trim will need a 2nd coat and I hate to leave my Dad here with it. I’ll try to get out here again to finish it up.

By the time all of the trim is painted, we will have painted about 1,000 ft. of trim 3 times...over a half mile! Yikes!

Sweet Strokes Dude

Another full 10 hour day of painting. We’ve tackled some of the most difficult of the trim pieces…and learned a few lessons too. Lesson #1 – Don’t roll primer on wood when the sun is beating down on it! This caused the paint to set a bit quickly and resulted in an orange peel look. We should have followed it with brush strokes right away.

Lesson #2 – The orbital sander is a close 2nd to the Sawzall…at least for now. This saved the day in eliminating some of those annoying roller marks.

Besides the frustration of a few mistakes made yesterday and hints of rain that threatened, but didn't “dampen” our work day, my Dad and I made a lot of headway. We put the first finish coat on about 50% of the trim.

The difference is amazing. Here’s a picture of a finished piece of wall molding and the original. So much detail restored and a finish that looks fabulous.


One more day of painting…

Run Faster! We’ve got a lot of trim to paint!

I'm glad I operate on little sleep as today's schedule was nothing but brutal.

4:15 AM – Wake up
4:30 AM – Shower and Eat a light breakfast
4:45 AM – Get in car and head north to Mackinaw City
5:15 AM – Register for Race
5:30 AM – Get on bus to North Side of Mackinaw Bridge
6:03 AM – Run across Mackinaw Bridge (5.5 miles)
6:38 AM – Cross the finish line
7:00 AM – Eat a salty breakfast (included in the race entry fee!)
7:45 AM – Arrive back home
8:00 AM – Shower again
8:30 AM – Start to prep painting
6:30 PM – Stop painting (yes, 10 hours)

So, as you can imagine, I'm a little tired. That big pile of wood you see is all of my trim. My Dad, Kathryn (his girlfriend) and I were able to prime everything today which is a huge accomplishment.



As a result of our unexpected progress, I've made the executive decision to put the finishing coat on the trim. Although touch-ups are likely to be needed when we mount it, it will save a lot of time not having to tape and paint it when its on the walls. The hardest part was picking a color. I want it to match the kitchen cabinet color, but I haven’t technically picked that out just yet. After comparing a few of the cream colored cabinets to paint colors in the store, I ended up with the Vermont Cream from Behr (go to Home Depot if you really want to see it). Good thing too, as Home Depot is having a sale on paint this holiday weekend! Time for bed!

Painting in Michigan

It’s been a blur of a week and the holiday weekend has started out in a similar fashion. After about 2 hours of sleep, I woke at 3:15 AM to head off for Michigan via a 6 AM flight at LaGuardia. I feel like I’ve taken every form of transport besides a boat today, but I've arrive safely after flying on Northwest (of Northworst as I like to call it). Scrambling for a few hours, I submitted what I need to for work and completed the always fun trip to Home Depot to begin the painting of the trim tomorrow.

That's right, I've come all the way home to Michigan to paint trim with my Dad on a holiday weekend. We saved a few thousand dollars by having it replicated in Michigan. Although it’s a bit of an expense to fly out, there is a luxury here that I’ve forgotten: room to work!

I saw the trim for the first time tonight and it looks fabulous. The milling is spot on and my Dad has kept it inside all winter making sure it’s nice and dry, minimizing any chance for warping and splitting since it has been in a controlled environment.

Tomorrow is going to be a long day, so it's off to bed for now.

Traveling and forgetting plaster

I've been gone for 10 days now on a crazy trip to London, UK and Athens, Greece for work. Long story short, I've forgotten what it's like to live in a construction site. I came home yesterday a bit jet lagged to the pleasant reminder of plaster dust on the floor, surpise pieces of wall fallen and my clothes fallen to the ground as my makeshift closet (a shower rod) fell in my abscence. Swank hotels and friends homes with clear areas to sit down on and clothing in closets has been the norm for the past week. It's been nice traveling without any plaster.

Now reality has reminded me how much work I have to go. After a good night's sleep and a day of work, I'm back into my routine of hauling out bags of plaster in the Radio Flyer cart. I took it easy tonight, just 6 bags to our building's pile, just so the trash guys don't get ticked off that I'm back. I'm sure they had a nice week and half off without having to haul away my plaster. Luckily the pile has greatly dwindled and there are only a handful of pickups left for it to be all gone.

Moving in Paralell

While there is a heap of trash in my bedroom, that doesn't mean there aren't things to be done. There are many little things. For instance, I put all the twist ties on the trash bags this weekend, removed more nails that I couldn't reach before, pulled out some baseboards, vaccumed, removed nails from wood and budled it, etc. Small questions still loom like how do I want to wire for cable and loudspeakers, but these answers should come fairly easily.

There is a lot to do on the design side, an area where I haven't made many concrete decisions. This is why I hired my good friend Bryant Keller to think about these things for me. Bryant's got skills I don't have and for a small sum of money he's helping me along the way with all of the interior design.

After weeks of ON/OFF work, we finally nailed down the kitchen design. Take a look and see what you think. I think it is pretty sweet. Traditional but classy and calming.




I've now started to price it out and this is where I feel that things may fall apart. Again, this is where my contact may come into play. My other friend has an uncle who makes cabinets as his hobby. He's into doing other people's kitchens and has agreed to work with me on mine.

I've emailed him these drawings last week and we're going to price them up hopefully this week. Fingers crossed it won't kill me.

5 Hrs. of Shuffling Trash

Anu came over today and we dug into the trash again. Tying up all the bags was a big help as was vacumming the mess underneath them all. The worst part was the darn nails in the lathe, but they came out with ease and patience. I'm feeling better about this mess and confident a few more weeks of patience will help it all dissapear.

After a fresh mop, the floors are gleaming again and I'm more optimistic about this project then I was yesterday. Time to relax with a movie...