Island Construction: Part 3 (was Island Demolition)

After raising the cabinets, we then needed to connect everything. 

We had to place the new outlet a little off-center, but there was no helping it. 

We secured the cabinets to four-by-four posts, then the posts to the original structure. Then we secured the bookcases to the original structure, with additional four-by-four posts to help support the weight.

Laundry Room Makeover

We just finished redoing the laundry room. Before:

And after:

 
What was involved?


 1. Remove old, cheap, cabinets. Discover the McVicker method of finding the studs in the walls.

2. Get rid of the white paint. I remember when I first thought about a pink laundry room while wandering through a WalMart one night, wasting time during the middle of a hot summer evening with friends. It's probably been three years. I don't know why pink, but what other room can you paint bright pink? The laundry room is only for us, and it's a room we pass through every day (since it's off of the garage) and pink is bright and fun, which laundry, everything laundry is not. The pink is actually Market Flower, a Valspar paint from Lowe's. We've only used Lowe's for paint, because we've had such great results, and the colors are usually fresh and bright. This is in the flat enamel.

3. Replace the light fixture for something that does not cost under $6 at Lowe's.


http://www.lowes.com/pd_74457-43501-FJ05-023WHT_4294925666__?productId=3389244&Ntt=light+fixture&Ns=p_product_price|0

4. Nate pulled apart the exhaust fan and we determined that the outlet was getting electricity, but the fan motor was dead. The fan also looked like the 1986 install, so that's not too surprising. We bought a new exhaust fan at Lowe's. Nate installed it in under two hours, and now we can pull out the hot air the dryer makes during the summer and keep the whole house cooler.

5. Install new, clean shelving, stretching across the whole room.

6. Put the room back together and enjoy!

Things that didn't get completed this go around:

1. Baseboard. We measured for baseboard and will probably buy and paint soon.

2. Flooring. We haven't settled on a new floor, yet, but we will definitely peel up the laminate. At that time we'll also install the new baseboard.

3. Paint the doors and frames with fresh, white, alkyd paint. A must.

4. Replace the door to the garage with something less frightening.


5. Paint the curtain rod. We decided to keep the curtain rod in this room, since I hang so much of my clothing to dry. But, to make it fresh, I'm spray painting it purple. It should be done by early next week.

Project 5: Fix the upstairs bath, Part III

Another project begun during my family's recent visit was removing the old vanity bar of lights from the upstairs bathroom and installing two new lights in its place. The old lights was removed, and a larger hole was cut so that we could better access the original electrical box, and then two smaller holes were made at equal points away from the original hole, and two "old work" boxes were installed.

My grandparents, mom, and N worked on connecting the old wiring to the new, and later that week N and I installed the light fixtures and I began to patch the drywall. N actually cut the piece, and then I glued it in place and began to mud it. It's funny, because since then I've patched two other holes (one in the blue bedroom, the other in the closet of the orange bedroom), so it's been wonderful to know how to fix the wall when it's damaged.









We still have a lot of work to do in the upstairs bathroom, but we're putting it on hold for a while to consider what we'd like for the cabinets/sinks/etc.

Project 4: Redo the second bedroom, Part III

The weekend my grandparents were visiting they helped us install a new fan (actually the old Hunter ceiling fan from my childhood room in a David Weekley house similar in some ways to this house).



N and I picked out a color for the bedroom. We considered the artwork we wanted, the other colors we have selected in the rooms near it (green and orange), and our preference for bright, striking color. This shade of blue is Valspar's Enchanted Sea.

A couple of Thursdays ago N removed the remaining baseboards in the room, and I began taping off the moldings around the windows and doors. After sanding and texturing the patched areas of the walls, we began to paint every area except the patch from the previous door.

I decided to remove the plate for a telephone line that was run into the bedroom, and left it as is in the closet. There was a bundle of wire/cable that ran up from the electrical box through the closet ceiling and into the attic. I simply shoved the cable up the hole in the ceiling, and patched the bed room wall. There was no true electrical box: the phone line and cable were hanging out next to a two-by-four. I kind of made a mess of the wall cutting a hole to pull out a non-existent box.





N sanded down the wall patch (after a disastrous attempt at painting it - did not do a neat enough job with the MUD), and we spread out the patch significantly.







But, not enough. After N finished painting most of the room and everything dried, we realized that it was not as smooth as we had hoped. N sanded the area again, and then applied MUD. Less of the area needed sanding/mudding, which is a sign that we're getting closer to the right job. Here's a spot with a little of texture on (a different texture - the knockback texture without the knockback).



Pictures of the painted room:









Meanwhile, I sanded down the window sills and painted them with the good white alkyd paint. They and the door frames and doors will need to be painted completely.

Project 1: Redo the Half-bath, Part VII

N's spent the days when I'm out of town painting the bathroom the last couple of weeks. It got pretty well covered, and we decided 48-72 hours after the last coat that we are happy with it. There's a spot on the ceiling that needs to be touched up, but overall the color is consistent and bright.

I cleaned off the dust that had covered the light fixture, and then installed the two accent pieces to the ends of the fixture.

Then we gathered together the supplies to install the new switches and outlet. We actually did not have a lighted switch available, but we decided to remove the lighted switch in the master bathroom. It's not a switch that we really need - both of us are used to using it, and it makes more sense in a public bathroom where there are two switches to choose from.

We replaced the lighted switch in the master bath with a regular switch. Then we replaced the two switches in the yellow bathroom. The installation's a little wonky, so we might go back later and fix this, but we weren't sure what to do right now.

Then we tried to replace the outlet. It took seven attempts with the poorly labeled circuit box before we found the correct circuit breaker. Once found, we installed the new, white outlet, and then returned the power to the bathroom. Ta-da!

We tore off the tape on the door, removed the towels that were protecting the floor, and swept up the dust.

We then began to assemble the sink parts, but we hit a snag when we realized that the new cabinet places the sink a couple of inches higher than the old sink, and we'd need a connecting pipe. So, we quit here, to wait for some help from my genius family.