Finishing Touches

My pantry is getting closer and closer to working as it is supposed to, as a pantry.  Imagine!!  The walls were finally done to my satisfaction but the trim wasn't finished and everyone was out of town and/or busy.  That meant it was me, the miter saw, the coping saw and a whole lot of prayers!  (see, when I bought the trim, i thought that there would be people around to help me, so i bought exactly as much as i needed.)  I started with this . 

(sorry for the bad photo, it's all i could find.  in my next life, I'll get better at "before" pics.)  Thankfully, my lil' brother let me borrow his fancy saw while he was out of town.  Let's hear it for his bravery!  I love this saw and would LOVE to have one of my own eventually.  It makes cutting the mdf boards easy and leaves a smooth pretty cut.  After many prayers, a couple of extra cuts and plenty of caulking and touch up I ended up with this.

The straight sides are the simple pieces in trim.  The hard part is getting the corners to look good.  I think, for my first solo trip, I did pretty good.  Thoughts?

A Definition...

Several people have wondered about a recent post where I used the term "crap" moulding. (As a disclaimer, I'm not in the habit of using bad words. Crap is as severe as I get, thanks to a job where I have to watch my language and a mother that still gives "looks" for poor choices. You have no fear of this turning into a foul mouthed blog.) I love the look of crown moulding, but the steps to going from the picture above to the picture below are long and tedious. For starters, you have to purchase the stuff. When I fell in love with it a year ago, it was $3.25 for 8 feet worth. Now, it's almost $6 for the same 8 feet. Unfortunately, with 2 rooms down, I'm not changing the look now! After I feel the pinch of paying for it, I have to then find someplace to lay out 8 feet long planks and get them at least double coated with paint. After painting, they have to be cured and flipped over. When painting, some of the paint drips down and creates little bumps on the back of the piece. This prevents the moulding from sitting flush against the wall. So, each and every little bump has to be shaved off with sharp blade. Fun stuff... Now, the beams are ready for installation. Ahh, the oh so fun installation. Yuck. For starters, it involves coping and other impressive yet tedious cutting. We also had to build a template to make sure that the angle is consistent the entire way down the wall. (I'm telling you, fun stuff...) Once all that is done, it takes a series of ladders, nail guns and anti-gravity boots to get the moulding adhered to the wall. The only step left is to fill the top and bottom with caulking to seal the seam and make it look "purdy." Only then does the crap moulding become crown moulding. Side Note: You may notice that I spell moulding in the typical English way, instead of the American way of molding. While I would LOVE to visit England, my spelling preferences have nothing to do with a presumed love of all things English. Instead it stems more from a stubborn refusal to put anything having to do with mold into my home, no matter if the difference is simple spelling. (sometimes my stubborness causes me an issue or two...)

Subtle Changes

Well, it's been a whirlwind two days of work, culminating in a sore booty and swollen hands. It's a small price to pay for new doors, installed baseboards, a less smelly fridge and a recognizable guest room. Dad came up from Houston in and around shifts to help me take care of a million little things. It's the little things that finish a room, but it's also the little things that will cause you to drink excessive amounts and spin around in a room pulling your hair out! (Not necessarily in that order!!!) He worked on getting the upper shelves of my ClosetMaid Selectives closet organizer installed (plug for Uncle Bri!) While he was cutting and measuring, I second and first coated the hall closets. (Yes it was in that order. One closet had already been coated once by my SIL Jes.)

As I was sitting on the floor inside the closet painting the walls next to the door, I was considering my logic in painting a wall no one can see. Then, as your mind is want to do during jobs such as painting the inside of closets, it started to wander. And then I was thinking, what if one day, long after I was gone, someone had to hide from the bad guys in that closet. And what if their last thought in life wasn't of their family or loved ones, but instead of the fact that whoever owned the house before them never painted the inside of the closet??? I simply couldn't let that happen. Therefore I had to paint the inside of the closet and thus my ponytail in the process. (Okay, I confess, I've been watching Criminal Minds a lot lately. Great show, but spooks the heck out of me and keeps me awake at night! But it's addictive and I can't turn it off!!!!)

Okay, enough with the morbid thoughts, onto baseboards. Oh wait, I was thinking some morbid thoughts while doing those darn things!! First of all, let me explain a few things. I picked a really pretty, 5 1/2 inch tall baseboard made of MDF. Medium Density Fiberboard for those wondering. It's flat on the bottom 4 inches and then has a lovely curved piece at the top. Unfortunately, this curved part, combined with my fabulous "square" walls/slab, note the sarcasm, means that all corners aren't simply a matter of 45 degree cuts. Instead each piece has to be cut on a 45 degree angle and then coped back. No, my baseboards don't sit and talk to a therapist about coping with their life. Instead, you take a VERY thin saw and cut off the excess behind the pretty front of the baseboard. If you're totally confused, I recommend googling this old house coping baseboard. Bob Villa I ain't! After tons of this tedious work, a very patient Marc and me cursing the man who originally built the house and it's completely un-level slab, we have the results shown in the pictures. I must admit, I love the look!!!



One of the biggest jobs that we did this week was installing the new front and carport doors. (The back door was already replaced by Brant and Terry last month and greatly appreciated!!) When we removed the decorative trim out from around the old doors, the entire jamb fell out onto the floor. Anyone notice a problem with that? There were NO nails, screws, glues, anything holding the door jamb to the walls of the house except for the piddly trim. Hmmm, wonder about the safety of that!! Fear not now, there are a TON of 3" exterior screws now holding the doors and the hinges in place.

The sore booty came in response to the fact that I have no upper body strength! In order to drive the screws into the pre-drilled holes, I had to do a deep squat and lay on the drill. I apologize now to the entire town of Brenham for having to see me in that position!!! My SIL Jess came into town to help and among other things graciously painted the wall color around the door before we put the trim on. I just realized that I didn't shoot the door from that side, but now you'll have something to look forward to in the next blog!!

One of the biggest jobs I completed solo this week was to scrub out the entire fridge from top to bottom with bleach and simple green. This resulted in a sparkling clean fridge that no longer smelled like fish, yuck, but also resulted in sore hands from holding the scrub brush. The fridge, under a minor layer of stickiness, is actually a gem. When new it was apparently a top line model that I was blessed enough to pick up for a steal at $100.





This is a new gadget from Uncle Jeff in Colorado that came down on the last Purvis express jet. It's a organizing bin that the Container Store would be thrilled with. Don't let the lack of labels fool you, all of the little bins are full, with more items waiting. The lack of labels comes from the fact that I have no idea what the difference is between the screws/nails/wall anchors/wire nuts/s-hooks/cup hooks etc. are.

Again, while working with everything, my mind wandered and for those who know me, I went directly to where in the world these names came from. For example why is a 16 penny nail, a 16 penny nail? What makes wire certain gauges? Who was the person who decided that a 1 gauge was a 1 gauge? Why does wire get thinner the bigger the number? Do nails go the same direction? Big number = small nail? These are the things that keep my mind busy at night... On that note, I'm sure there are tons that I've left off, but I will have to cover it on the next edition. Have a very Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year!!!