Music Room - Part 5

I made it - it's done!

I painted the doors yesterday and re-hung them this morning.

While waiting for the paint to dry we moved all the furniture back, hung artwork, etc.

Other than the kids' bedrooms, this is the only room where all of the furniture came from our previous house.

Now I just need to put away all the tools, etc before the family comes over tonight.

Music Room - Part 4

I started on the music room back in July.

Life and other things conspired against me, so this has taken longer than expected.  It was my father-in-law's favorite room, so I'm sad he's not here to see it nearing completion.

It took forever to get the woodwork prepared for a new coat of paint.  I tried to disturb as little paint as possible - before starting I'd tested the paint for lead and the top coats were fine, but the oldest coats were lead-based.  So I followed the new EPA guidelines, just to be safe.

The room was an off-white color with a peach undertone.  We've gone to a historic color called "Georgian Green".  It's similar to one of the early woodwork colors in this room.

The ceiling effect is similar to a cloudy sky.  It is made up of several layers.  Two are the same as the woodwork (Ivory Tusk) and the other two are a metallic silver.  I did the first two layers and got frustrated, so She Who Must be Obeyed did the final two layers.

Some of the screws for the window and door hardware were missing or broken (what a surprise!).  So I've had to go to Seven Corners to get various replacements.  Thus the need for more antiquing solution to get the new brass bits to look like the old brass bits.

Hopefully I can get the last bit done tomorrow to meet my goal of having it done by Christmas.

Kid's Bath - Part 13

The linen cabinet arrived last week.  Bill and Johnny picked it up from the cabinet maker, painted it, and installed it.

It looks great and is a pretty good size.  The tall ceilings make it appear shorter than it actually is.

I had to scramble around a bit - I'd forgotten about knobs. I found some at Rockler while I was up there getting some more solution for antiquing brass (for my other ongoing project; blog post coming shortly).

We're nearing the end of this project.  All that's left is for me to install some window hardware.

And the tissue-paper window treatments have to go....  ;-)

Kid's Bath - Part 12

Mirrors!  We finally have mirrors!

We'd ordered some online a while ago.  A long while ago.  After several days, we received the *first* email from the vendor saying something along the lines of, "We value customer service and have received your order.  We anticipate that it will ship on [... some date about a month in the future]."



As the estimated ship date rapidly approached, we received a second email saying something along the lines of, "We value customer service.  Your items are anticipated to ship on [... some date about a month in the future]."

Really?  Good customer service is two emails in the span of a month with no explanation as to why the items are delayed?

So I had She Who Must Be Obeyed cancel the order.  There's only so many times you can shave without a mirror before you slice off some important part of your face.

And I went searching...  and found some different ones at Just Vanities.  So I placed the order.

And within *minutes* I received a response saying that they'd received the order, the items were in stock, and we should receive them within the week.  Oddly, there was no mention of "valuing customer service."

The next day I received another email saying that the items had been picked from the warehouse and would be shipped shortly.  Again, there was no mention of "valuing customer service."

The next day I received another email saying that the items had shipped.  Late in the evening I checked the tracking number, assuming that they'd just have started their journey.  I was surprised to see that they'd already arrived at the Fedex facility here.  Again, there was no mention of "valuing customer service."

They'd shipped them overnight at no cost.

But it gets better.

When we opened them the next day, they looked better in person than on-line and really tied things together in the room.  But... one had a manufacturing defect; the paint was bubbled along the edge of one of the frames.

So I called their customer service line.

The person said that they would ship out a replacement.  And that we should keep the old one; if the manufacturer wanted it back, they'd send a pre-paid shipping label to us within two weeks.  If not we can dispose of it as we see fit.  Again, there was no mention of "valuing customer service."

The replacement arrived within two days  Again via overnight Fedex.  At no charge.

It is interesting to contrast the behavior between the company that started every correspondence with "we value customer service" and the one that never mentioned it once.