Lots Of Work and Lots Of Mess - Part 1

We built our house in 2005 (by ourselves with the help of Harold's brother in law Tom) and finished most of the interior, except for our bedroom and part of the dining area and basement stairwell.  So finally after 12 and 1/2 years we decided to get the  bedroom done!  It's always been a matter of time and money (mostly money), but this winter we knew it was 'time to do it'.  So out went all the furniture and everything from the bedroom, scattered all over the house wherever there was room to put things.  Harold put up some scaffolding so he could finish the ceiling in relative comfort without having to go up and down a ladder.  (Scaffolding was on wheels, making for easy moving).  He had to re-do some of the drywall taping, as it had come loose over the years.  Remember, we were living with bare sheetrock walls all this time!  We also learned quite a lot about drywall taping over the years, so we needed to re-do what we had previously done.   This was a real messy job!  Drywall dust all over the house, dried up taping compound.........tracked all over.  We like a nice smooth ceiling and walls - none of that "popcorn stuff"!  So it took Harold many days to gets things smooth.  Then, there was painting the ceiling, painting the walls, putting up wallpaper on two of the walls, and some wainscot panels.   In order to properly put wallpaper on the walls, you need at least 2 or 3 coats of paint, plus wall sizing.   Everything took time!!

 We still have a lot to do yet: put another coat or two of paint on the wainscot panels,  trim around the wainscot panels, trim around the windows and baseboard (painted, of course), new curtains and curtain rods, and paint the floor.  We cannot afford any other kind of flooring at this time, so we will just paint the floor again.   Maybe someday we can put wood or laminate in there.   We also need to finish the closet, put the door back on, and finish the doorway between the bedroom and the bath.

When a person has to finish a room from scratch it takes a while!  We also had to buy a new mattress and box springs.  It had been MANY years since we purchased a mattress and we had sticker shock on the prices of mattresses these days!   I was also horrified to learn that today's mattresses are much deeper in construction, so none of my old sheet sets would fit.   I had to buy all new sheets - deep pocket style - and I got sticker shock from buying those too!  Wow, things are expensive these days!  The frame that we had the old mattress on didn't exactly fit the new mattress either, so Harold had to rebuild the bottom of the bed.  We like the old frame we had because it had storage drawers in it, which came in very handy for linens and such.  So basically everything we had to do in that room was a chore!  That's why I haven't been writing on here for a while.  We've been busy with construction projects!  Here is what we can report so far:

Here is the "before" picture. 

We have furniture pieces all over the place.

 

There are bureau drawers all over the living room. 

Once we got the ceiling painted, I began painting two of the walls a light blue.

Then we began putting up the wallpaper on two of the walls.  I bought this wallpaper several years ago on sale (for $1 a roll!) at a re-store and thought I had enough for all of the walls.   Then I discovered the paper had a 20 inch drop match and so I wouldn't have enough to do all of the walls.  This paper isn't made anymore either.  So, paper on two walls and paint on two walls - good enough for me! The wallpaper was supposed to be pre-pasted, but since it was old I didn't trust it, and used wallpaper paste.   That, too, was a chore!

Then we began putting up the wainscot panels.  We used both adhesive and a staple gun.  The wainscot will have a trim across the top and bottom and sides.  We need to do that yet.

Harold measured carefully and cut out openings for the electrical sockets.

The wainscot panels are up and we put the first coat of paint on this afternoon.  Tomorrow we will paint again, and get the trim painted and put on the next day.

When we get everything done and put back together I will post  a picture of the finished room!  Meanwhile we have moved into the guest room - imagine that - we are "guests" in our own home!  Just tearing up one room of the house can sure create a lot of mess all over.  I will need to wash rugs, floors and do a thorough cleaning when everything is put back into place.   We will probably get all this done just in time to create more mess by putting up sawhorses in the living room and grow lights so I can start plants for the 2018 garden season in a couple weeks!  There's always something to do, ya know?  We are very good at making work for ourselves!