Tag: DIY

Craft Room Project: Working On Stair Trim

I’m slowly chipping away at my list of things to get done on this project. One tiny, or not so tiny, headache at a time.

In order to get the carpet installed on the stairs going to the basement, I have to trim out those stairs and landings because it was all left completely unfinished beyond the door that used to go to the basement. It really shouldn’t have been a major headache, just a bit more math and angles to figure out.

Of course, it couldn’t actually be that easy.

Between our original builder not giving a big enough gap between the stairs and the walls in places (partly because of slightly bowed walls, part just not quiet measuring correctly) and our contractor building my new closet right up against the edge of the stairs, this became a bit of a nightmare.

The reason for that is that the design of my stairs in the rest of the house has a wide board that sits in that gap between the wall and the stairs to edge out the stairs. When you don’t have enough room, getting that board in place isn’t easy in the least.

The first one, we didn’t have any real problems other than figuring the math and angles, like expected. It went it relatively easy. The second, we ran into issues with a couple of nails that stuck out into that gap from the stairs as well as a super tight fit because one of the stair treads was almost too close to the wall. Putting that one in scraped the hell out of my wall, but it went in.

Middle Section Of Stairs With Side Boards
Middle Section Of Stairs With Side Boards

The third I had to shave off the front corner of the stair tread just to get the board to even come close to fitting, then I had to pound the hell out of it to get it into place. Even then, because it ends right at the edge of the angled wall in my room, I won’t have room for the trim that should go around the outside of that board to finish it off, forcing me to get creative to give that a clean edge when it is all said and done.

The last one? That one is the one where I had no gap. I had to cut that board in the contour of the stairs themselves since I couldn’t slide the board next to them, which was so not fun as the front edge of those stair treads are rounded. It was such a pain in the butt. It was kind of like having to cut my own puzzle piece and expect it to fit perfectly. Thankfully, I figured out how to get the correct shape to make a pattern to cut from. Even that only worked because I had a paper thin gap between the wall and the stairs and I was able to trace it. Shockingly, it worked on the first attempt.

Lower Section Of Stairs With Side Boards
Lower Section Of Stairs With Side Boards

What made all of this even harder was the fact that every single wall had something different that had to be worked out, so every one of them looks a little different, either at the top or the bottom.

I have a huge mess on my walls from bumps and scrapes and these boards will need a lot of touch ups, but they are finally in. I still have to put up the trim along the exposed edges of this to finish those off and put in the floor trim on the landing, but I’m ready for carpet. Thankfully, the top section of this stairway was already finished out, so I only had the two sections.

Today I’m working on that trim. Once that is done, I have to go through my priority list and see if there is anything at all that would prevent me from trimming out the doorway. If not, that is next up and the cats can finally get back into this space again, which is very near the top of my “need to get done asap!” list of things to do.

After that, I switch gears to work on getting MCG’s room ready as she will officially be moving in at the end of this month.

Craft Room Project: Extended Floor Finished

You know I couldn’t stick with a plan. My life just doesn’t work that way.

Again, I rearranged my priorities and the things that needed to get done to fit those priorities. The cats getting access to the basement is still a priority, but the things I needed to get done for that to happen have changed up a little.

I realized that the mess of cutting the flooring was not something I wanted to attempt if the cats could get into the basement because that would end in disaster. That meant I had to finish the floor into the other room. Hubby very generously gave me his last vacation day and the two of us spent 12 hours getting that room done.

Flooring Done: View From Craft Studio
Flooring Done: View From Craft Studio

Originally, the floor stopped just at the wall between the two rooms. Now the second room is done. All that is left for the floor is to install the transition pieces where the floor stops and there won’t be trim or anything else for it to butt up against.

Flooring Done 2nd Room
Flooring Done 2nd Room

Even this, though, required a bit of a plan change. When we were cleaning the space to prep for installing, we realized that the floor dipped too much around the sump pump pit and that the pit came out of the recessed area into the room more than we realized so we couldn’t just go against that wall on that side (left side of the first image). We talked about several things as a fix to the issue, but I finally decided that I’m just going to build some low bookshelves that would sit in front of the concrete walls and would end at the floor edge.

The goal is that we don’t want to have to hire anyone else to come in and build more walls. We hadn’t intended to fully finish the rest of the basement, but do a sort of semi-finish that we could do on our own. The bookshelf solution allows us to keep to that plan. We may need someone to build the closet around the sump pit area, but that is all we want done.

Now that the floor is down in both rooms, the bulk of the mess is finally done. There are some things that will be messy, but a lot of that is going to shift to the garage. I have some painting I need to do on the rest of the trim pieces and boards I need to work with. I’ll be putting plastic down on this new floor to protect it so I can do that in all that open space.

Once the paint is done, it will leave putting the stair trim up and trimming out the upper door. I think that is the point I need to be to let the cats back down. There are still a lot of things left to do to finish off my room, but I’m pretty sure that most of that can be done if the cats are down there. Maybe.

I have to get to that point before I can work on MCG’s room, which is my next step. We will be helping her move in at the end of the month, so I’m on a deadline to get her space ready.

Sadly, I cannot shut my silly brain up. I keep coming up with ideas for all of these spaces and each new idea is that much more work. This is becoming the never ending project. At this rate, I just might get lucky to get into my room to actually work on something other than building it by Christmas.

If I’m lucky.

Craft Room Project: Finally! Floor!

Considering I really thought at one point I’d be able to do the floors first, this has taken 6 months to come about. I’m utterly exhausted and every single muscle molecule hurts, but I have a gorgeous floor.

I’m going to celebrate by doing absolutely nothing for the next day or two in an effort to give my poor old body a much needed break. Even after that, I may not get back to my room until next week after our visit with MCG and her family.

Seeing the cabinets and then the counters go in felt wonderful, but seeing the floor finished? I’m ready to move in and get started working on projects. I’m not quite there yet, but I am definitely on the down hill slope of this project.

Floor Installed: Closet & Stairs Area
Floor Installed: Closet & Stairs Area

Craft Room Project: Counters

I am a solid, walking ball of pain today. Every muscle in my body is screaming at me to to just sit down and not move, something that isn’t going to happen any time soon.

I never imagined that staining countertops would be such a harsh activity on my body, but apparently rubbing stain in, wiping it off, then sanding between coats of poly on 6 different surfaces is a lot of work. And I’m feeling every tiny twitch right now.

But, I have stained countertops.

I’m not in love with them, because they came out a little darker, streakier and spottier than I had expected after my test run. They still look pretty good, just not quite as nice as I’d hoped. I’m going to live with them and just say they have a slightly “rustic” look because my alternative is to sand them down and start over. I don’t dislike them enough to make that worth it, so I’m keeping what I have.

That said, my table top came out amazing and so did the two non-butcher block surfaces I stained. When it is all in place and functioning it is still going to look nice. It has taken 5 coats of poly, so far, to get these where they are. Fingers crossed #5 is the magic number and I’m actually done.

The goal is to try and get them anchored in place today. I’m now officially in a time crunch to get this done. I have a little over a week before we have our visitors here. I know the whole thing isn’t getting done by then, so I have a plan to get to a stable stopping point for now.

    1. Get the counters done and in.
    2. Get the stairs trimmed out and ready for carpet.
    3. Get the floor in this room done.
    4. Reframe out the doorway to the basement and take off the temporary door.

If I can get all those things done, then we can FINALLY move the cat boxes back down to their little room and out of the room that will become MCG’s when she gets here in the fall. I want her to be able to see that space when she is here in a week as a decent, clean space instead of the mess it currently is.

This is all assuming no more major bad days, but this list should be doable. It does mean I’m working my tail off until then, because I don’t even have that full time to work. I have several things I still need to do to get prepped for the visit and that is going to knock off at least a couple of days.

I’d love for the carpet to be able to go in before they get here, but I doubt that is going to happen. There will still be a lot of work left to actually finish this room, but it gets me to a good pause point that still looks mostly finished.

Oh, did you see the doors? They went up perfectly! I’m over the moon happy that I switched to the hidden hinges as it allowed me to make micro adjustments to get them all lined up the way they needed to be. The entire space is starting to look amazing!

I might be scarce here for bit so I can focus on this, but I’m sure I’ll try and poke my head out every once in a while.

Craft Room Project: So Many Problems

The last several days have been a roller coaster of problems.

I spent an entire day working on getting the crown molding up on the installed cabinets only to burn through an entire piece of trim just trying to get the angles right. Of course, I had to make my life exceptionally hard by choosing a trim that isn’t true crown molding that already has the tilted angle built in. I fell in love with a flat trim instead and had to create an artificial angle for it to sit against. My first attempt proved I had that angle ALL wrong, even with Hubby’s math brain to try and help me out.

After getting to the point where I was ready to burn the whole project to the ground, I finally got two pieces to sit at an angle while creating a right corner AND the edges hit flush the way they were supposed to. So, instead of trying to get the trim to fit a predetermined angle, I had Hubby figure out the angle I needed to be at to fit that corner.

The next day, I was still extremely hesitant to cut another piece of trim after the previous disaster. I even had BG double check Hubby’s math just to make me feel better. Thankfully, those wonderful brains were correct and I now how some pretty good looking crown molding on top of my cabinets. They aren’t completely perfect, but really close. Close enough a little caulking and some paint and you wouldn’t ever be able to tell unless you got close.

The whole thing was kind of a nightmare. Crown is made the way it is for a reason and doing it the way I did was probably not the best of ideas. I really don’t recommend it unless you are WAY more skilled than I am. Sure, it looks really pretty now that it is up, but it was such a huge problem to get it that way that I’m not so sure it was worth the entire day that I wasted the first go round.

I will have to repeat that process for the remaining 2 upper cabinets, but they aren’t connected so it didn’t matter if they were up when I did these, making it easier to get that installed before the counters. At least now I know what I need to do, though I do have to do an inside corner for those that I haven’t done yet, so there is still some fun to come.

I had really thought that once I had the better second day when I finally got that figured out an installed that yesterday would be smoother sailing. Nope. That great idea I had for the kiln shelf? Isn’t going to happen.

The slides I bought to get the shelf to pull out like a drawer won’t work for a number of reasons. After spending yet another day doing all kinds of things to try and get it to work, I finally decided to just chuck that ideal all together. I’ll now have a designated shelf in the new closet for the kiln and I’ll use the cabinet that was supposed to be for the kiln for something else. I didn’t see the sense in wasting any more time on something that wasn’t going to work out well when I could just shift my plans and do something different that would still serve the purpose I need.

After what ended up essentially being two wasted days, I’m now kind of terrified of trying to get my doors hung on their hinges, which is what I should be working on today. I’m actually really tempted to just wait and focus on something else, but I really can’t. Not if I want any shot at all of hitting the date I set for myself to get the bulk of this project done.

I’m am so close, but it feels like I have the most difficult to get right parts left. The kind of parts that if they are messed up even a little can make the whole thing look really bad. Or will require me to completely rebuild doors or something equally horrifying.

I’d say that I’ll be keeping all my fingers and toes crossed, but I think that just might make it kind of hard to use my tools and that would guarantee that I messed up the next part.

But isn’t that crown molding pretty? Okay, so you can’t really see the details, but… it really is.

 

Craft Room Project: Doors & Hinges

I don’t have a photo to go with this post because, even though I’ve gotten a lot done in the last couple of days, it isn’t really visible progress.

I finally started working on building the doors for the upper cabinets that are in place. Of the 6 I need installed before I can work on the counters, I have 5 assembled. I have one more to glue and clamp and they will be ready for touch ups and paint.

After I worked on the first two, I did a check and realized that there is no way that the hinges I bought are going to work with the way I designed these cabinets. At least, not in a way that doesn’t leave a gap. So after much debating and research, I caved and went with a hidden hinge. I will lose that little pop of color on the white cabinets, but the overall lines will be cleaner and a little easier to finesse.  This is one of those times where form should not come before function.

I did a little practice test of my drawers to figure out exactly how I want to build those. The test came out great, but I went with a much more entailed process that makes them more labor intensive. The upside to that is they will be stronger and more durable.

The test also gave me the idea to make some lidded boxes, similar to the drawers I built for my recessed shelf area, to use on some of those open lower shelves. I’ve been a little unhappy with the fact that all those were open and dust is one of my biggest complaints, so those boxes will solve that and give an little extra something visually to the space. I won’t be building them anytime soon, but I love the concept.

Once I knew for sure the design, I got all the pieces cut and ready for the main container part for the actual drawers. I’m waiting to start building those until I get an insert for the file drawer and to figure out how I want to divide up the other two. Just getting all those pieces cut and grooved for the bottom panels took about half of my day today.

I’m estimating having the doors built, painted, and installed by mid-week. Hopefully, if no other random things pop up to pull me away, I should be starting the counters by the end of next week.

The one thing that will delay that is if we get any cool days at all in that time as I still need to get out and finish painting the new garage door. I have the main sections done, I just need to paint the trim, but it has been brutally hot and not even morning shade has been comfortable enough to work.

It has been awesome working in the basement, though, because it is down right cold. I keep joking and telling everyone in the house that if they get too warm, they can come down and keep me company, but I might put them to work. Funny how no one has come down for more than a few minutes.

Too Many Projects

I have had so little time over the last several days to get work done on my room. Instead, I’ve had to focus on getting some things around the house taken care of that have been a bit neglected. And it seems that every time I turn around there is something else that needs my attention and time.

Yesterday, I started the chore of finally getting the new garage door painted. Unfortunately, it is stupidly hot and humid out and there is only shade on that side of the house until about noon, so I only have a few hours to work each day. All I was able to get done was a single coat of paint on the main parts of the door. The second coat will go on today, then I have to do the pain in the butt trim, which will almost definitely need two coats as well. I’m looking at at least a couple more days before it is finished.

The plan was to work on the garage in the morning and the basement in the afternoon, but the heat zapped me and I had no energy for much. It isn’t helping that I’ve reached a stage where I feel like a permanent sore muscle and every single thing aches every day.

I’m also trying really hard to not spend time focusing on the massive list of projects I have yet to get done, some of which I’m on a deadline for as they are in preparation for MCG moving in this fall. There are way too many and I really need to keep my focus and attention on the basement right now, but I’m starting to stress about getting it all done.

The low energy and the extra distractions have just been killing any progress on my room. I’ve gotten the touch ups done on the installed cabinets and painted all but one of the beadboard panels so they are ready to become doors. That’s pretty much it and it’s annoying me that I’m behind where I want to be.

I’m hoping I can be more productive today than I have been, but I’m not holding out much hope. The heat has already hit the miserable mark today and I haven’t even started working yet.

 

Craft Room Project: Lower Shelves Are Done

All of the lower shelves are finally installed!

I spent a portion of today cleaning up some of my filler spots and getting the upper shelves to sit more easily in their cabinets. It was some tedious stuff, but I’m now ready to do the paint touch ups on all the cabinets that are in so far.

The last part I got accomplished today was getting the last upper cabinet installed that I could get up before the counters go in.

Oh, I also got my under cabinet light installed. It turned out it was a massive pain in the butt. I started it yesterday, ran into all kinds of issues, one of which is the fact that I am perfectly capable of being a brainless twit (no, you will not have a current in a wire if the light switch is off), and had to call it a day before I even hit noon just so I wouldn’t completely screw something up. I have a few things to do to finish it, but it is hooked up and mounted. I’ll need a new wall plate that I can cut a notch in for the wire. It isn’t the prettiest solution, but it will be okay by the time I get it done.

Tomorrow, I think I’m going to work on those touch ups and start building the doors for those cabinets that are already up. I was considering starting the counters but I realized that I really probably want to get those doors installed before I put the counters in place.

Little by little, this is looking more like a usable space.

Craft Room Project: Putting In Shelves

Yesterday felt kind of like I was taking a break. In part because the day before with the cabinet install, I’d about done myself in and I was dragging hard core yesterday. I didn’t have the energy for much, so I focused on getting some residual painting done.

I also did my final stain test. Since I’d had to cut a section off one of the counters, I had the perfect opportunity to get a true test and I took advantage of it. I did the full stain and poly process to see how it would turn out and I have a winner and a final stain color.

Final Stain Test
Final Stain Test

The gray block on the right is what I’m going with, though I might let it sit just a little longer to get it a tad darker. You can see that it is lighter than the floor (bottom of photo), but that is what I wanted. I didn’t want to go as dark as the floor as I felt it would overpower the room. It compliments the floor, but still shows the beauty of the butcher block design. Even though I love this, I’m still nervous. Those counters make up a significant amount of space in the room and it would suck to get them all stained and end up hating it. I’m pretty sure I’ll be okay. I’m just having a harder time visualizing this in the space than usual. I’m not quite ready to work on the counters yet, but getting this done and set made me feel so much better now that I have a definite plan for them.

Today I finally started to get the shelves installed in their units.

Starting to Install Shelves
Starting to Install Shelves

As usual, it seems like I made the job harder for myself than it should have been, so this felt extremely tedious. I made several mistakes along the way. Some were easier to fix than others, but all are fixable. I got the first two units completed when I ran out of screws. I used the very last screw, the exact number I needed, on that second shelf. I guess the Universe was telling me it was time to quit for the day.

I have two more that I need to finish up tomorrow. Since I’ve been doing the needed filling and caulking as I go, I won’t have much to do to finish other than clean up those filled spaces and do a little sanding. After that, those base cabinets are done except the two that still need doors.

It doesn’t really feel like I got much done the last couple of days, but there is only so much this poor old body of mine is willing to do without a much bigger break than I’ve been giving it.

Craft Room Project: Cabinet Installation In Progress

What a difference a day makes!

The underlayment is down. All but 3 upper cabinets are installed and the base cabinets are installed or in place and waiting to be screwed in. I still have to put the permanent shelves into the base cabinets. There are a few things that still need some paint, like the shelf edges and the dividers on the big beast cabinet, but that is about the extend of what is left on those.

The final 3 upper cabinets don’t get installed until the counters are stained and attached. I discovered today that the back counter top doesn’t actually fit and I’ll have to cut it down. Turns out the two tops that I had that were supposed to be the exact same size weren’t. The one I’d originally fit that counter against was the one I cut for the other wall. It is so frustrating as it is only off by about 1/8th of an inch. So much for uniformity.

I will also have to put up the shelves in the corner and between two of the upper cabinets after those go up. The last stain test is also underway so I should be ready to work on the countertops soon.

All of this was one day’s worth of work with a whole lot of help from Hubby. I was shocked at how much got done. There are a lot of places that will need trim or touch ups, but this went together really well.

Next up is going to be working on some of those touch ups, getting those lower shelves in place and starting on the doors. It’s getting SO close!

 

 

 

Craft Room Project: Helping Hands

Yesterday was a phenomenally productive day. I was able to get the equivalent of probably a little over 2 days worth of work in. It’s amazing what you can get done when you have an extra set of hands to help with the work.

BG had casually mentioned the other day that she likes painting, which I had my doubts on as she didn’t get far in helping when I worked on her bathroom, but I tossed out the offer to help me anyway. I figured I could give her the simple pieces like painting the shelves while I worked on wiping down the walls so I could work on touch ups and painting the areas I’d left thinking cabinets would cover.

We started in the garage with what I had left of those cabinets. She got all the shelves coated while I finished up the last 3 cabinets. She worked on the shelves I had set up and prepped in the basement while I worked on the walls. By the time I had a couple of walls ready, she was done with the shelves and wanted to paint the walls, so I let her have at it.

Because we were moving so fast, already had my green paint out, and were looking at needing to stop to wait for that whole round to dry, we decided to just go a head and work on painting the stair walls. I’d put those off until I got closer to the end because I tend to bump them when moving stuff up and down, like all that wood. I’m far enough into this that whatever bumping happens now will be minor and easily fixable.

The plan was to get as far as the remaining paint in that can would get as we were close to the bottom. I worked on edging the walls out (and DAMN! there are a lot of edges in that space!!) and BG followed behind me with the roller. We got probably 3/4 of the walls done. All that is left is the smaller wall with the railing that still needs some patching and the upper funky sections near the ceiling by the door.

In all, I finished painting every cabinet, the walls are ready in the room, most of the stairway walls are painted, and probably about half of all the shelves are done. Basically, I’m ready to put the underlayment down and get most of the upper cabinets mounted, which is getting started today. I need some of those unpainted shelves done before I can mount a couple of the lower cabinets, but I’ll be working on those in between hanging the uppers.

I was absolutely stunned at how much got done. And BG? Holy crap! She put in about 5 and a half hours of work right along side me yesterday. She will probably never say she wants to paint again, but she didn’t complain one bit yesterday until we were almost done and that was just to let me know that her hands were starting to cramp.

While the cabinets went relatively fast, those shelves are taking forever because I only have so much room to lay them out to work on them. I didn’t think I’d be at this point for another few days, if not a little longer.

Yesterday was a really good day. I lucked out that she wanted to help. I also lucked out when my seriously broken brain didn’t absolutely screw me up. I’d gotten another can of paint because I ran out of what I was using for the cabinets. For some reason I asked for satin instead of semi-gloss (which is what I’d been using). Thankfully, there is no real noticeable difference between the two, at least in my color, so I didn’t have to go get another can to fix the mistake.

Sadly, things like that are becoming my norm lately.

 

Craft Room Project: Cabinet Paint Round 1

The cabinet painting is well underway. This is all but 6 cabinets and these all have a full first round of paint including edging out all the corners and seams. The other 6 are set up in my garage. I have all the edges as well as the top and bottom painted of the upper cabinets on those.

Today, I’ll be doing the first layer of paint on the 6 and, at the very least, the second coat on the ones still in the basement. There are also a whole lot of shelves and support pieces that need to be painted. I’m pretty sure I’ll get close to getting all the cabinets painted today, but all those shelves may take another day to get finished.

Just seeing the white in the room instead of the bare wood has made a huge difference in how the space looks, even with the cabinets out of place. That has been the change I’ve been waiting for and it is everything I’d hoped it would be.

At this pace, I should be able to start installing these by Monday. I’ve got to figure out how to get all of these out of the room so I can finish painting the walls in some places and put down the underlayment first.

They won’t all be able to be installed all the way just yet, though. I’ve got to get the counters stained and mounted before I can get a few of the upper cabinets installed, but I’m so close!

Craft Room Project: Cabinet Side Faces

I have all the side faces built and 4 of the 5 installed. Those 4 are facing the outside of the room, the part you’d see when you first come in the room. The last one that I have to install tomorrow faces the inside where my jewelry bench counter will be, the same side where the recessed area is (the far side of the upper cabinet in the right photo).

I am kind of blown away at how much I’m loving how this looks. Even without the paint, it looks so good.

I started on the tedious process of filling any holes, seams, and gaps in the areas that are to be painted, but I ran out of my wood filler, so that ended my work for the day. It was still some amazing progress as I’m back to being able to see some real, visible results.

I realized that I’ve goofed in a couple of places. The first goof was on the upper faces as they were supposed to have a wider board across the top than what I used. It isn’t a huge deal and is most likely one of those things that no one would notice except me, so I’m not too upset, though I don’t love that it will be a little narrower than I want after the crown molding gets installed. I did catch it in time not to make the same mistake on the bottom cabinets, which have a wider piece along the bottom to compensate for the overlap of the floor and base trim without loosing too much of that height.

The other goof was in on my cabinet I modified to add shelves to one side. I accidentally made that open space a little narrower than it should have been. Since this is supposed to be the cabinet I store my kiln in, that is a bit of a problem. It is still wide enough for the kiln, there just isn’t much extra to give me room to grab it to put it in or take it out. My fix for that is going to be to cut another board for a shelf that I put on rails like a drawer so that I can just slide the shelf out when I need to move the kiln.

It will be an extra piece I have to deal with, but I’m actually going to like that better. It will make it so much easier to move it around as I need it than the original design. Sometimes it pays to make mistakes.

And as a side note, someone had commented on one of the previous updates. It had ended up in my spam folder and, somehow, I accidentally deleted it instead of approving it. I’m so sorry! I really didn’t ignore you.

 

Craft Room Project: Feeling Satisfied

There have been several moments in this project that just gave me that deeply satisfied sensation. Today was one of those days.

Seeing that face on the side of the cabinet kind of changes the look of things, making it feel more finished than it has so far. It was so exciting to see it go on and how well it fit. I’m feeling all kinds of happy camper vibes today.

I realized after I got the two faces installed that I built yesterday, that I’d forgotten I was putting a face on both sides of one of my upper cabinets, so I have one more to build. I did get the other two built today, including one that has a center division. It went together much easier than I expected it to, so that also made me really happy. Even more so knowing that I have a door that will need to be built the same way and feeling confident I’ll be able to pull it off.

The plan for tomorrow is to build the final face and start prepping the cabinets for paint. I have some cleaning that will need to be done to get the layers of dust off and several places will need to have holes filed or places that need a little sanding.

I think I’m beginning to see light at the end of this particular tunnel.

Craft Room Project: 2 Out Of 4

It really doesn’t feel like much, but it is progress. 2 of the 4 faces are built. They should be ready to attach to the sides of the cabinets tomorrow.

I was hoping to get more done, but I’d forgotten how much room it takes to have these clamped while the glue dries, so I only got around to the two. I may rearrange the order I do some things tomorrow so I have the room to get a little more done.

The goal for tomorrow is to get quite a few of the side boards for the doors routered out so they are ready to work on as that is part of the mess I really want to get out of the way before I paint. The last two beadboard panels need to be sanded so they are ready for paint. If I can get those things done and get these two faces mounted, I can end my work time tomorrow building the last two faces so they are ready to be mounted the day after.

If all goes well and I don’t run into any hiccups and I can get everything cleaned up well over the weekend, I should be able to start painting by the first of the week. It might possibly also mean I will start mounting cabinets by the end of next week.

Craft Room Project: Last Cabinet Adjustments

For all intents and purposes, the cabinets are built. I had the one cabinet left that I needed to modify to add a divider and shelves to, and that got finished today.

Final Cabinet Modified
Final Cabinet Modified

I had originally thought I’d just leave this open, but the plan is to put my kiln in this cabinet and that left a whole lot of unused space. I decided to add some selves to make the whole of the space more usable. This one had been bugging me because I wanted to work on it, but couldn’t until I moved the counter top off to get to it. It feels awesome to finally have that one done.

I do still have to build the drawers for another cabinet, but decided that they really shouldn’t get mounted until I have at least the inside of that one painted. I will probably go ahead and start work on them, but once they are built they will be set aside for now.

The only thing left to do before I start painting is to build and attach the faces to the sides of the cabinets that face the room. I have 4 of those to put together, two of which I already have the pieces almost ready to go.

I keep going back and forth on where in this mix I’m going to start working on the doors as there has to be at least one round of paint before I can do those. I keep thinking I want to do those after the cabinets are actually installed, but the thought of still dealing with all the dust mess once I’m in paint mode makes that an unappealing idea.

The last thing that was holding me up a bit was getting the counter top cut. Hubby helped me with that last night and it came out amazing. I was so nervous I’d screw it up, but it was a breeze to do.

Last Counter Top Cut and Test Fitted
Last Counter Top Cut and Test Fitted

It has been shockingly hard to shift my gears to get back to working on this. I’m still struggling to find the energy to do much each day, though I’m not really sure why. I’ve had plenty of rest since recital, so I shouldn’t still be feeling so drained.

I’d planned on getting a lot more done today, but I hit my wall early. I’m hoping that changes soon, or it is going to be a struggle to get this done by the time I want it done.

Craft Room Project: Prepping For The Next Phase

And BG’s dance floor is no more. Well, for now at least.

My plan was to take over her space once recital was done so I could actually have room to work on the next steps, which is building the doors, painting the cabinets, and getting everything ready to start installing. With the cabinets sitting in their places, I ran out of room to work comfortably, especially with the saws, so that was the best solution, but I had to wait for her to be done using her floor for a while.

Hubby and I had originally talked about just getting a few more boxes of that flooring to get it to the walls and give that space a more finished look as we didn’t plan on finishing the rest of the basement. The farther I got done on this project and the closer I got to working on the floor, the less I liked that idea.

Even though we aren’t officially finishing the space, I didn’t want it to stand out like a sore thumb in comparison to the rest of the house. I’ve spent the last 20 years gradually weeding out the bits of oak we had so that everything would blend together and not look like a mishmash of different styles (joys of combining two full houses from people with different styles). I only have a couple of pieces left and I have plans to refinish or paint them in the very near future. It defeats that purpose to have this be a huge portion of the basement floor. That and the options for tying the two floors together weren’t great.

So, after much discussion and number crunching, we are going to extend the floor I’m putting in my room into that space to give it a more polished look. It still won’t be fully finished, but with the floor and the panels I got by mistake for my doors, it will still be a nice, clean semi-finished look that will blend with the fully finished room.

It also gives BG a better floor to dance on. She discovered that the one I pulled up was just a bit too smooth and was still way too easy to slip on when wearing certain shoes. The new floor has a bit more texture and will provide just enough grip to make it a great dance space.

I won’t be tossing the old floor, though. I’m going to, eventually, put it in the cat room. I’m okay with that since there is a door to that space and it won’t really get seen. It will make it a bit easier to keep that space cleaner as well. I still don’t love the floor, but it was cheap and it will do the job without messing up the overall look of the finished space.

All of my saws have been moved and set up in the open area and I’m working on cleaning up everything in the new room so I’m closer to being ready to paint. I still have to add the shelving to the one remaining cabinet before I can paint. The one counter top still needs to be cut as well because the counters will get stained somewhere in there along the was as well.

I’m still debating on whether I need to do the drawers now, or wait until later. They aren’t critical to be done before I paint and I really need Hubby to review my designs and math to make sure everything is right, so I’m procrastinating on those.

I hate that I’m back in a no visible progress place for this.

 

Craft Room Project: Only 1 And A Half Cabinets To Go!

I am SO close to being done with the build phase of these cabinets. There is only one more that I have to put together (I already have all the pieces cut), one that is already built that I need to modify to add a center divider and some shelves (that would be the 1/2), and I have 4 drawers to build (which I didn’t add to my count) and these are essentially built.

Of course, I still have doors to work on, but those are going to be a breeze in comparison to the cabinets themselves. There are also the “faces” I have to add to the sides of the cabinets that will show to the room, but I’ve been keeping those parts in the door grouping because they are pretty much the same thing.

I was working on my second to last cabinet when I goofed on my measurement of the back panel and cut it too short. Of course, I had exactly the right amount of that panel material left to finish these cabinets and that goof means I now have to run out and pick up one more sheet. It also meant I couldn’t get that last one finished today.

Even with the goof, I feel really good about what I got accomplished today.

There are only a couple of days left in this week that I’m going to have uninterrupted to work and next week won’t see much getting done at all because it is recital week and I have so many things I have to do to help BG get ready for that. As soon as recital is over, though, it should be smooth sailing for a while as I have no more commitments until MCG and her family come in June.

Craft Room Project: Ready for Cabinets Phase 2

Another materials run is done along with a major cleaning and rearranging of space.

I was forced to rearrange my space so that BG can get access to her dance floor again. With recital only a few weeks away, she is going to need it for practice. The shift causes me to lose close to half my space that I’d been working in. Most of that was for storing materials, but a portion was where I had my miter saw set up.

The new arrangement is a lot more crowded, which may start to get interesting as I work on the remaining base cabinets. But, it should only need to stay this way for a few weeks and I should be able to reclaim the dance floor area after recital again.

After looking at what I have left on the cabinets, I think I have a total of 4 phases for building and one for doors and drawer faces. The first phase is done. This second phase I’m starting now should finish up the rest of the base cabinets.

Based on materials, I’m going to say the remaining upper cabinets and shelves will be a phase and the final full cabinet will be the last. Looking at sizes and numbers, I don’t see how I can do the materials for both that cabinet and all the upper cabinets at once, so I’m going to have to split those.

The materials for the doors and drawer faces won’t be nearly as large as I already have the bulk of those.

If I look at how long it took me to do the first phase, about a week, and apply it to the other phases, I may be looking at another 3 or 4 weeks of cabinet building. That said, there are a whole lot of things on my calendar over those next 3 or 4 weeks, so that may be an ambitious estimate.

I am trying to set a goal of having the majority of this entire project done by mid June as MCG and her family will be in town towards the end of June. Ideally, I would have the cabinets all done, painted and installed, the counters stained and installed and the floor in. The closet layout isn’t important and neither is expanding the dance floor to fill that room, but I do want the worst of the mess done and gone and the space ready to use by the time they get here.

Again, that may be a really ambitious goal, but I’m going to work my ass of to try and hit it.

Craft Room Project: Part 1 Back Wall Lower Cabinets Done

The last several days have been really productive. And things are starting to take shape.

All of the lower cabinets on the back wall are mostly done. I still have to build the drawers for that section. The shelves also need to get installed, but that part doesn’t happen until they get mounted on the wall at the very end.

There are some gaps that will get taken care of at install with some trim, but they are all fitting really nicely. The one place I’m struggling with is the slightly raised area on the floor. It may be that the underlayment will help to level that out a bit, but I won’t know until I get to that part.

I’m also seeing a couple of places where the wall isn’t completely straight. That may force me to do a small piece of trim around my counter after it is installed, but I’d figured that might be an issue so it was in the “might need” side of my plans.

I have all the pieces for the first upper cabinet cut, but I realized when I went to get started building it that I was no where near confident enough to attempt to do all the holes for the shelf pins freehand. I did some research and found a tool that allows you do to those with a hard to screw up guide, but now I’m waiting for it to show up before I can finish that one.

Really, once that cabinet is built, I’ll be ready to start the next section. My current plan is to see what materials I have that will work on any lower cabinets on other walls and see if I can use some of that extra up before I do a materials list for the next phase. I’m also probably going to work on building the drawers, so that piece can get done. Most likely, I won’t work on the faces until I’m working on all the doors, but this will get that section mostly completed.

Pretty much every day after I’m done for the day, I’ll just stand there looking at it all in shock that I’ve actually built all of this all on my own.