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...

Nemesis

After much trial and error over the past few weeks (did you think we were just messing about in those other rooms? ;-), tonight my dad and I finally finished the base shoe in the master bedroom. The big problem was bending the molding along the curved wall.

We tried wrapping it in wet towels overnight. Didn't work.

We tried back-cutting notches along the back side of the molding. Sort of worked, but the top of the molding kept wanting to roll over.

We tried steaming it in a fabricated steam box. That also kind of worked.

Finally, we did a little of each and added a new wrinkle. Back-cut the stock, steamed it, and then put it in a form and let it dry for a couple of hours so that it would hold its shape while we worked it into position.

Of course, the room and curve aren't really symmetrical (and half of the curve is *slightly* larger than a 4x8 sheet of plywood), so we needed to custom make the form for each half of the curve...

"The Doors Don't Match..."

So says She Who Must Be Obeyed.

After some discussion about what *exactly* that meant, it turns out that it means the top panel of the mirrored door isn't the same height as the top panel of the other door. Since nothing is impossible for those who don't have to do it...

My Dad and his friend Frank came over one day this week to flip the door over. The other side of the mirrored door has the matching panel layout. Because we wanted the door to swing the same direction, they had to mortise for the hinges on the opposite edge of the door, mortise for the latch box, and fill the old mortises with a dutchman.

They did great work; it looks awesome.

"A Portal to Another Dimension..."

After we'd started on the closet demolition, my son said, "Dad, that looks like a portal to another dimension." Little did we know...

Yesterday, we installed the chair rail without much trouble. But the "picture rail" has been a challenge. There really isn't any crown molding in the house, but there is picture rail in most of the rooms. Except this one. We'd looked a number of places to find picture rail to no avail. Well, there are a few places that carry some, but it's either not the right style or it's too small. It's way too expensive to have knives cut and a short run of custom matching picture rail made for the little bit we need. So we found some casing that has a similar profile and we've installed that.

OK, so enough background.

First we tried installing it flush with the ceiling. The ceiling is so wavy we couldn't get any joints to match up.

Then we tried using a laser level to shoot a line around the room. For some reason, when we started in one corner and shot our way around the room, we ended up a half inch off. Now I know that gravity will bend light, but NOT by half an inch around a 12x16 foot room! Maybe this is a portal to another dimension...

Finally, we cut a spacer to measure down from the ceiling at each corner and snapped a chalk line down each wall so we had the appropriate quarter inch gap between the ceiling and the top of the molding in the corners. Everywhere else the gap will just float some.

Now this room is ready for paint.

Closet Doors

We finally got the other door on last weekend. And during the week I've been chipping away at installing the casing and other moldings. Now the exterior is completely done. A few small chunks of base molding are all that remain to be installed on the interior - I'll have those done before my Dad comes over today. Chair rail and crown/picture molding this weekend and this room is ready for paint as well.

More Base Shoe

I took the day off to make some more progress on the closet and moldings. Before my Dad came over, I got the filler pieces installed on the back side of the installed closet door's frame. I also started on the base shoe in the family room. By the time we quit for the day we'd finished the base shoe in the family room and installed a few pieces in the master. We'll have to figure out how to bend several pieces for the curved wall in the master tomorrow. I'm sure there will be some noodling time while we install the other closet door.

It's a good thing we don't charge by the hour...

Closet Door

Yesterday my Dad was over and we re-hung one of the closet doors. Solid with that big piece of mirror on it means it's heavy. We still have a bit of adjusting to do with the hinges. They need longer screws to reach through the jamb into the jack stud. And some tweaking to prevent the door from rubbing on the latch side of the jamb as it opens and closes.

The other door didn't get installed because I cracked the jamb while trying to take it apart. It's from a wall that was a little thicker than standard so we needed to take it apart to rip 3/4-inch off the back side. Of course, they used half-a-dozen common nails to hold it together - so I needed to use too much force to get it apart. And I split part of it. Nothing a little carpenters glue won't fix.

The rest of the day we spent installing base shoe. And we got one room done. That room is ready for Luke to come spray the woodwork!