Beige. I think I'll paint the ceiling beige...

That's how She Who Must Be Obeyed greeted me this morning. It's a punchline from an old joke, buts it's somewhat appropriate.

A long time ago, She Who Must Be Obeyed removed the fabric covering the ceiling in a couple of rooms. The fabric was falling down on its own, so it needed to come down. The plaster underneath was in surprisingly good condition in most places, but it was a little discolored in some spots and had never been painted. I filled the cracks and repaired in where necessary, but didn't paint it. That's this weekend's project now that the woodwork painting is done.

I've already primed the bare plaster today and will be doing some more prep in the other bedrooms this evening. Tomorrow it's ceiling white rather than beige...

Finished Millwork

Wow! Luke's painting of the woodwork is fantastic!

Here are a representative before picture (some windows were worse!) and after picture.

Now I'm on the hook for the next bits of work...

Painting the Millwork

Luke has been over all last week preparing for painting the millwork we installed. He's filled the gaps, cracks, and places where the surface was uneven. He's primed the bare wood, some old and all the new moldings we installed. A couple of the rooms already have a first finish coat applied. He's spraying the paint so that we have a nice smooth, hard finish. He has everything tented, bagged, taped, or covered so paint goes only where it's supposed to.

It's looking fantastic!

The Steam Box

Every once in a while you have to channel MacGuyver...

This is the steam box I fabricated. It's just a couple of pieces of PVC pipe. The inside diameter is a little bigger than the molding we needed to bend, but I should have gone a little bigger so the steam circulated easier. There's a cap at the far end to let the chamber fill with steam. The far end it also higher so as the steam cools, the water can run out and down the drain. The 2x4 is just there for support - the PVC starts getting soft as it gets warm. ;-)

Then we just needed a way to fill it with steam. I found some vinyl tubing that fit the outlet on the steam source and the other end was inserted into the PVC pipe.

Don't tell my mother-in-law, it's her clothing steamer...