Month: August 2011

We spent the day finishing up the closet today.  We started with a trip to home depot to buy the supplies, we went with ClosetMaid metal shelving.  Then Ryan sanded the walls of the closet and we installed the new light.

Finally we got to installing the closet system.  Here are the finished closet pictures!

We ended the day by packing up and heading out to NY to see our nephew.  The plan was to have a BBQ on Sunday but with the hurricane coming we may have to duck out tomorrow night instead of staying around through Sunday.  We’ll see what the weather looks like tomorrow.

 

A late start today and a trip to home depot but we still managed to get quite a bit done.

First we got the door frame installed, it needs to be firred out for various reasons (we changed the wall to 2×4 instead of 2×3 and we used the layer of cedar all the way up to the frame so the trim will go over that).  So the frame is installed and the door pretty much fits 🙂  Somehow the frame shrunk a bit, it was probably put together loosely and we tightened it up with screws but we can shave down the door just a bit and it will fit great.  Plus multiple layers of paint doesn’t help.

Then we put up the crown molding!  Once that was up I got the final coat of joint compound on the ceiling (helps to hide any gaps from the molding).

Then I stripped the parts of the door frame that needed to be cleaned up before we could fir it out.  And finally I proceeded to sand down the floor (slow to do with just an orbital but it’s a small floor).

Once the floor was done we put up the firring strips on the door frame so we could install the plinth blocks and the quarter round.  We need quarter round to close up the gap from the floor to wall and we decided to clear coat the quarter round along with the floor so we installed it as the next step.

Finally a finer sand on the floor and quarter round then a coat of poly that can dry over night.

 

The plan is to do the ceiling in the mornings (sand/prime tomorrow, paint wednesday) and a coat of poly on the floor at night.  Since the humidity finally broke i’m optimistic this will work out – we’ll see!  Our ultimate goal is to sand down the cedar walls and install the closet system on friday before heading to NY – we’ll see how this all goes.

During the day Tues, Wed we’ll work on window panels.  Not ambitious at all 🙂  Thursday the cousins are over for the day so we’ll be taking a much needed day off, plus this weekend we’ll have time to relax back in NY.

Tomorrow is our anniversary so after a long day at work we’re going out to a nice dinner.  Now it’s off to bed, i’m exhausted!

My dad gave us some used cedar that he had planed down a while back. It turned out to be just enough to finish our entire master closet! There were some splits and rough areas to cut around but in general it was in great shape and we were able to use a lot of the split/scrap pieces on the short sections by the door.

So after putting a skim coat on the ceiling this morning we got to work on the cedar walls. By 5pm we were done! In plenty of time to get cleaned up and head out to Chunky’s for dinner and a movie (went to see The Help – which was great!).

It’s very hard to photograph a closet – so these are the best shots I could get of the wall with the door (also finished).

Great progress for a 3 day weekend!  I’m going to do a second skim coat on the ceiling tonight before bed and a final coat in the morning.

So far the cost of this closet remodel is the cheapest project we’ve done so far:

•  demolition = $12
• wood for reframing door = $18
• drywall = $13 (mostly scraps)
• cedar = $0
• joint compound = $7

So far so good!  Although the closet system we picked out will cost plenty, all in all this will be a relatively cheap remodel compared to the rest of the house.

Tomorrow I’m hoping to sand the cedar walls to smooth them out just a bit and we’re going to put up a molding at the top since the cedar didn’t butt up tightly all the way around.  We also hope to work on the diningroom window panels tomorrow.  Can’t wait!

It’s that time of year again -our August work on the house stay-cation.  We started out pretty strong too.

Main goal this week is to get the window panels finished (diningroom ones) and secondary goal is to make progress on the closet (master bedroom).

Friday we started out strong, I managed to finally vacuum the house and  we demolished the wall between the closet and our bedroom (there was significant prep work involved in moving stuff out of the bedroom and protecting things from dust).  Then we started reframing the closet door (to center it).

The day flew by but we managed to keep it all clean (dump run before it closed got rid of the plaster and lathe). Today we continued the closet work, finishing the door framing and putting up new firring strips on the ceiling (the original ones were all over the place).  Then we used our scrap drywall pieces and started drywalling the closet.

We ended up needing to buy 2 pieces of drywall (just 4×8) to finish the closet and I ended the night by taping the ceiling and a few of the larger seams.  The walls are going to be covered in cedar so we’re not really finishing them but the ceiling will get a skim coat I’ve decided.  (I’m not very good at doing just seams).

Tomorrow we’ll get a skim coat on the ceiling and start with the cedar boards on the walls.  We’ll see how that goes and what the weather is like for the week.  We still need to get out and finish window panels but it would be nice to also finish the closet just about.