25 Sunday Sep 2011
Posted in Renovations
Tags
crown moulding, foam, lowes, parlor, polyurethane, sitting room, stairs
Two solid days of crown moulding installation, but all the rooms are done. I’m dead beat…
31 Sunday Oct 2010
Posted in Renovations
Tags
beadboard, closet, crown moulding, curved, foyer, polyurethane, PVC
Some months ago, I posted that the foyer was done… It seems that I stretched the truth a tad. As it turns out, the closet in the foyer was put to use before it was finished. The graduation party was happening and I didn’t suspect that anyone would stick their nose in it, so it was left taped and mudded. Until this weekend…
I was contemplating what to start next and nearly began work on the side door entrance (it is just downright embarrassing), but providence smiled and reminded me that I really should finish the closet before I start a new project. Besides, I was tired of working around the bundles of beadboard stored in the basement that were destined to be installed on the curved wall. This weekend, I managed to get the wall paint, beadboard, curved baseboard, light fixture, hooks, and crown molding up.
Personally, I hate the looks of the beadboard in the closet. I spent a great deal of time contemplating whether or not I should paint it. Understand that I don’t “do” painted wood except in an exterior application; it’s against my religion. I can honestly say it was supposed to be painted but then I saw the quality of the wood and its many knots and imperfections. If it was going to look even half-way decent, I would be spending hours with wood filler trying to make a decent surface to paint. I was out and the shellac was in. Unfortunately, it looks a tad too “country” for me, but whatcha gonna do?
Based upon my experience with the curved crown moulding to the left of the front door, I knew I didn’t want to spend hours cutting little pieces and assembling them in this stupid closet. My solution was to use a polyurethane chair rail for the wall and a PVC cap mould for the ceiling. I knew that nothing I could buy as a single piece would bend the way it needed to but it seemed reasonable to think that the PVC, since it was solid plastic, could be heated and bent. I built a small jig to hold the PVC in place while I heated it and it worked like a charm.
My solution for the baseboard was to laminate 1/4″ plywood. The grain is running the wrong direction to look like “real” 3/4″ lumber, but again, it’s just a closet. The base cap is yet to be built. Stay tuned…
If I never have to deal with curved walls again in my lifetime, it will be too soon.
02 Monday Nov 2009
Posted in Renovations
Tags
crown moulding, foam, foyer, lowes, picture rail, polyurethane
Yesterday, the vestibule picture rail was installed. Mating the rail to the arch was a head-scratcher but it worked out in the end. I really like the look and utility of picture rail. I suspect that I will hate it when it comes time to paint…
18 Sunday Oct 2009
Posted in Renovations
Tags
crown moulding, curved, foam, foyer, lowes, oak flooring, polyurethane, shellac, staircase, stairs
I spent the entire weekend doing the drudgery tasks that go with DIYing. Here’s a quick recap to get caught up.
1) Painted the crown moulding with a white semi-gloss. It looks much better now.
2) Watched the installers put in the new office carpet. It looks great, but I remember it being more on the gold side than green. But it looks WAY better than what was there before…
3) Started shellacking all the trim. I invested in a breathing apparatus that is designed for organic vapors. Holy Cow! Where had that baby been all my life? Now I can shellac for hours and not become dizzy or get a headache.
4) Finished repairing the stair panels. The panels are 1×10 or 1×12 3/8 thick pine boards attached to a half-lap pine frame. The original carpenter had secured the panels to the frame with screws around the perimeter of the panel. Either pine behaved differently back then or he just didn’t know any better. At any rate, five of the eight panels had split. Most of them I was able to cut along the crack and glue together. The others, I simply tried to stabilize by gluing the cracked end but leaving the panel intact. My solution was to eliminate all but the screws in the middle of the far end of each panel and secure them with new blocks rabetted to hold the panels in place yet allow them to move with changes in humidity. Once these panels are reinstalled, I won’t be able to easily remove them to do any repair work so I’m hoping this will be a long-term solution.
5) Put up another wall’s worth of wainscot and finished adding the last outlets.
6) Tore out the bottom landing of the steps in order to finish adding insulation and a vapor barrier.
7) Since the steps were out, I decided to remove the oak flooring back about two feet or so. When the wall dividing upstairs from down was added, they patched in flooring around it. With the wall gone, there was a long, rectangular bare spot in the oak flooring. When I patched the oak back in, I was able to close up that gap. It looks okay, but not perfect.
I’m hoping that the trim will start going up sometime this week. Enough chat, on to the photos…
08 Thursday Oct 2009
Posted in Renovations
Tags
…up the house. Finally got the last of the crown moulding up today and put up one coat on the ceiling, frieze, and remainder of walls in the foyer. Being on vacation is a wonderful thing! I spent extra time caulking the top and bottom edges of the crown moulding to fill any cracks. That really made a difference once the paint went on.
The blue tape in the photos is where the picture rail will go. When I first put picture rail up in the office, I become an instant convert! My daughter’s room remodel included it as well. She loves to change her pictures around and I don’t have to put any holes in my pristine sheetrock to accommodate her desires.
The stencil arrived in the mail the other day. That’s going to be a challenge, but it will look nice when it is done.
You may notice areas where there is no sheetrock; that is for the wainscot. I’m off to Iowa tomorrow to get more out of the house. At first, I was planning on building a paneled wainscot up the stairs, but have decided to settle for antique bead board instead. I guess there’s nothing saying I can’t switch it out some day. (Yeah, right!)
04 Sunday Oct 2009
Posted in Renovations
Tags
border, crown moulding, curved, foam, foyer, lowes, polyurethane
Miss me? Finally, an update worth posting! The last month has been somewhat of a complete loss as far as time for projects has gone. Now that October is here and the November deadline is looming ominously on the horizon, my motivation has suddenly kicked in.
I was finally able to finish the mudding, sanding, and priming of the sheetrock in the foyer. It was all I could do to force myself to sand as it is without a doubt the most distasteful part of DIYing. And now it is DONE!!! Today, I finished up the crown molding. I chose extruded polyurethane foam from Lowe’s because of the design and that it would be easy to work with. However, it was a little pricey by my standards, but it sure dresses up the entryway. My intent was always to go just a little further with the details since this was the first chance to set a good impression of the house.
And now for some images of the foyer crown molding. When I purchased it, I thought that it was flexible enough to go around the curve. Unfortunately, it flexed in the wrong direction; if, for example, it was to go on the inside of the archway, it would have worked perfectly. However, the radius worked in a different direction and against my plans. It occurred to me to try and heat it with a paint stripper gun, but I opted not to even go there since I wasn’t sure how it would react to the heat. I was concerned that the foam might shrink since that is how it typically reacts in intense heat or open flame. So, I opted instead to cut it into small sections and attach each separately. It’s not perfect, but a coat of paint and I suspect that no one will really notice. The discoloration along the molding edges in the photos is due to the adhesive that I used.
I checked out the product web site for installation tips and found many other moldings that are way cool. If you are in the market for some replacement moldings, this looks like a great source.
Now it’s on to painting! Stay tuned…
