What started out as a 1 week project is now about 90% complete after 3 1/2 months…
A long, long time ago, we decided to repaint our bedroom. The master bedroom was a very dark red when we bought the house, and the effect was like living in a cave. New brighter paint was in order.
Simple enough, yes? For some folks maybe, but I can’t do things the easy way, so the answer is actually “no”. Because if we were going to paint, we should fix the baseboards, and if we were going to fix the baseboards, we should really look at repairing the doors, and if we were going to repair the doors, why not remove one of the two entry doors entirely and if we were going to do that, we should really get more usable space in the bedroom by converting the closet to a pocket door, and if we were actually going to do all that, the door casing really needed to be redone at the same time, and then we should definitely hang a new light/fan that is actually in the center of the room. A lot of overhead for just changing the wall color, but so be it.
Here’s couple ‘before’ shots:
One big job was removing the door and transom that led to the atrium. Taking the door out was easy, furring the sheetrock out to meet the existing wall was a pain in the neck.
With that entry door gone, it was also time to swap out the big unattractive hollow core closet door with a space saving pocket door.
Removing who-knows-how-many layers of paint from the doors took a month of Sundays:
One of the skilled assistants:
Fixing the baseboards was another big task. The old baseboards no longer presented a profile from the wall. Previous renovation had simply added additional layers of sheetrock and plaster to the existing walls until the baseboard was almost recessed into the wall. Removing the old trim and repairing the wall to leave an even surface for the new baseboard was extremely long and slow work. After the baseboard repair, it was on to two coats of primer and a nice light blue for the walls. Again, skilled assistant #1 was invaluable:
Painting is hard work, and the little guy wore out pretty fast:
At long last it was time to start replacing the baseboard!
I went with a very tall baseboard design to cover the line where the baseboard repair and wall met. We’ve got 12′ ceilings in the bedroom, so a tall profile isn’t out of place. Here’s a dry run mockup:
I’m using corner posts because the walls are too wavy to trust to miter joints, and I’m using plinth blocks to anchor the door casing. To offset the big thick feel of the baseboard, I made the corner blocks and plinth blocks tall and narrow. I made the corner blocks out of cut down balusters, routing the tops with a simple profile that is repeated in the plinth blocks. To give the base some depth, I used a 8″ high plywood backer with a groove cut in it to accept a ply cap. That was fronted with a 5″ piece of base and topped with Howe casing.
Skilled assistant #1 helping with baseboard fabrication. Note eye protection.
Here’s the first sign that at some point the bedroom could be finished and habitable:
To further break up the baseboard, I painted the plywood backing piece the same color as the walls. Made a big difference and accentuates some of the moulding detail.
The bedroom is not 100% complete, but it is close enough we could stop sleeping in the living room at long last:
Replaced all the doors (some were $10-$20 doors from the Habitat for Humanity resale shop, one was a $100 brand new door. The $100 door was bought after I cut my existing door big to little the wrong way. After I cut that door exactly wrong after we spent untold hours scraping a century’s worth of paint and varnish from it, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth, some thrown things, as well as some language that won’t be repeated here.
View of the pocket door and the reclaimed corner of the bedroom where the second entry door used to be.
Trim details:
Window sill:
I cut a new sill, as well as support blocks and new trim. The blocks and the corbel are functional, meaning they are actually holding the sill up, a huge improvement over what we had.
Over the entry door transam, we used a stained glass film. The light here is not very good, the colors are quite nice. For being one of the easiest parts of the remodel, it really looks good, one of my favorite parts.
Another of my favorite features are the door hinges on the entry door. When we took down the old door, I noticed that the white painted hinges had a little detail under the 40 coats of paints. A little scraping and picking confirmed my hunch- the hinges are vintage and very ornate. Lots of elbow grease later, the refinished hinges are back in action:
Jennifer made curtains and a matching headboard for the new room. The headboard was last seen as that ugly plain old hollow core door to the closet. Much nicer now, I think. The lighting doesn’t help here, but the top panels of the curtains are cut from the same material as the headboard. Very classy.
The last little touch: a reading corner with two kozyndan prints that have been waiting for framing for at least two years:
