Monday, January 7, 2013

Sewing and home improvement

I will start out with the sewing. I worked on the African fabric blocks and here is what I have sewn together. I still need to trim these blocks.

I spent 22 hours this weekend working on the house and getting a handle on all those piles of trim I showed you on Friday. I even had more trim I forgot in the garage and in the office, but now I have it pretty much gathered and organized. Here is some of the trim all nice and labeled. I went thru eveything and wrote on the back side of each piece what is was for so when it goes to the painting station I don't have to remember where it goes.

Here are the painting stations set up in the living room. After priming the wood, I give it a quick sand with fine steel wool, and then give it two thin coats of paint.

So between trim painting sessions I put the final coat of paint on the downstairs closet, installed the flooring, and nailed in the quarter round which I had salvaged, sanded and repainted. So the closet is done! This closet had never been painted since the builder threw on a coat in the early 60's when the house was built. Now it seem so nice and fresh!
While I was putting in the flooring a couple of things finally dawned on me. The peel and stick tile just would not stick to the floors. My house is a bi-level and back in the day the builders did not put vapor barrier under the slab before pouring so there is always ground moisture in the concrete. With that the tile just doesn't want to stick even though I primed the floor. The light bulb finally came on and I decided to put some Loctite Power Grab on the back of the tiles. Eureka! I used my rubble mallet to tapped the tiles down and squash out the Loctite and those tiles are not going to move! I pity the person who ever decides to try and take up this floor!

I also used the Loctite to glue the nailing blocks for the trim at the windows. If you want something to be stuck FOREVER this stuff will do it!

When I was working on cutting the tiles to go around the trim

I was using this

after the utility knife slipped and I cut the heck out of my knuckle it dawned on me I should have been using this to cut the tile

My knuckle is much better today and I think it will be fine a few days.

I also sanded, primed and painted the entry to the master bedroom. Can you believe the living room was painted that horrible purple/red color and I still bought this house? This entry was not here when I bought the place. There was a closet and a couple of crappy cabinets in this area. Also there were two entries into the upstairs bathroom. I had help closing off the one entry, ripped out the closet and put up the
wall to make an entry for the master. I will not be installing the baseboard until I get the floors refinished.
The wall before when the entry to the bathroom was

After

Here is where a cabinet was

and now

My brother is going to come over next week to help me with some tasks that I cannot do alone like hanging drywall and 6' window trim, so the next week will be all about getting done what I can do to prep for him coming over.

3 comments:

Vicki W said...

I feel like I was a total slacker this weekend compared to you!

patty a. said...

Oh, Vicki, the first thing I did when I got up this morning was to take two Excedrin - I was hurting all over! The work load will continue like this for the next month or until the apprasier comes!

MariQuilts said...

Wow..you're amazing!!