Crossing some more off the list...

I was able to cross a few more things off the punch list today and, boy, does it feel good to be back at this! Hooray for home improvement!

First, I finally got sick of my towel on the counter and hung up the towel bar. Good deal from Target:
Then I grouted the floor under the heater (sorry for poor quality photography):

And then the corner by the shower:
After lunch, I tackled the closet doors. As I said yesterday, these were a donation from The Amazing Sarah, and are perfect! It took me a bit to scrape off the gold paint with which someone at some point felt the need to embellish the doors. Then I had to run to HD to get some new hinges that would fit since they're pretty narrow. Then it took me a while to hang the doors by myself, but I did it, by golly:
They, along with the trim and wainscoting, will now need to be painted and that's about it. I do have some quarter round I need to put up along with the last little piece of chair rail and then that's it, folks. I will wait to put up the final, final, final pictures (and budget) after the tub gets refinished but it feels nice to get back in the swing of things!

Still Kicking!

I admit it. I was burned out - emotionally and home improvementally - but I have returned, fair readers! After a several month respite during which I licked my wounds and contemplated the universe, I have returned today to finish ye olde bathroom renovation! As I've said before, I really only have a few hours left of work to do so it felt really good today to get back to working on about half of what's left. Here's what I tackled today:


I apologize for the fuzzy picture (my camera died last month so these are from my phone), but I finally tiled that spot under the heater that's been driving me nuts. You can see the not-quite-after shot below:

I'll grout tomorrow. Then I can put the cover for the heater back on and get it painted, along with the rest of the trim, probably next weekend. I have been contemplating building a cover for the heater so it will look more like the vanity so that's why there is a bit of a space with the baseboard there on the right.

Believe it or not, I also finally tackled my "gap" problem! Wait, that deserves a few more exclamation points (!!!). I guess I needed the months off to ponder this problem because when I went about tackling it today it really only took about 45 minutes to fix. You see below the nagging corner:

I shaved off some drywall there in the middle, put on some corner bead, and found some tiles (gasp!) that were exactly the right size for the remaining gap between the old tile and the edge. Quite pleased am I. I will grout this tomorrow as well:

Then I can put on the last piece of chair rail on the side, paint up the whole mess, and be done with it.

The remaining things may get done tomorrow, if I feel up to it. Really, besides the painting, I need to cut the bottom of the closet doors that Sarah gave me, install them, and paint them, and then put up the quarter round between the top of the tile around the tub and the ceiling. I'm planning to have the bathtub dude come in a couple weeks and resurface the tub once all of this is done. And, then, guess what? I'll be done, done, and done!

Post Script: For my very loyal readers, I wanted to mention that Mancha, my cat of 15 years, had to be put to sleep a couple weeks ago. She had been very ill with kidney failure for several years. She was a loyal home improvement buddy, always wanting to hang out for painting, drywalling, and general companionship, and was therefore a frequent feature in the blog. She will be sorely missed.

Stairs After

I did find a "before" picture, after all. Boy, do I not miss that ugly old carpet. So, here's what the stairs look like now, painted and refinished:

I wonder what else I can get to on my punch list this summer. I know I need to finish the banister and newel post - waiting for a day that I don't mind the stink as much, probably. I do need to do something about that bathroom upstairs. I think I'm going to have to face reality and just pull down some of those tiles [insert very sad face here] and redo the corner as it was supposed to be done in the first place. I'm really not motivated to demo even a few of my beautiful tiles so maybe I will need a few drinks in me to work up the courage first.

Primed and Ready: The Stairs Edition

As you may recall from last summer, the upstairs floors and stairs were refinished. Beautiful, yes, thanks to Don Dickel. One project I put off and put off was priming and painting the stair risers, which were not refinished.


So, now returning from a short trip back to Washington to see my mom graduate from community college at the ripe young age of 77 (see below), I have decided to get on top of my punch list for the house.


Yes, this also means I am taking a respite from the bathroom final details - I'm still not feeling motivated enough to pull out tile and fix my errors...perhaps soon.


I was absolutely certain I had a "before" photo of the stairs before I began priming them but, alas, such is not life. To make matters more complicated, my trusty old digital camera took its last sub-par photo while I was in Washington. So, instead, the below photo comes to you courtesy of my cell phone, uploaded to Snapfish. It's actually not a bad photo, really. Anyway, you see the primed stair risers, ready for painting.

If I finish both coats of the paint today I'll also post those. Off I go...

Still alive - but barely

Well, loyal readers, I am back. How long has it been? At least a couple months, I guess. There's been a lot of activity in the Bangor Foursquare. Unfortunately, little to none of it has surrounded progress toward finishing the bathroom. Mostly, the activity in the house has focused around domestic drama. In the spirit of over-sharing with complete strangers on the Internet, Mrs. Foursquare will soon again be Ms. Foursquare - hopefully getting to keep the home into which she has put so much heart and soul over the past two and a half years; here's hoping, anyway.

So, today, I made a meager attempt to get back into the groove and finish up some loose ends. There really isn't much left to do, thankfully, but what is left is perplexing. As I think I mentioned previously, I literally worked myself into a corner during this renovation. As you see below, I wasn't thinking through some of the details as I went along and didn't plan for how I was going to marry the tile board with the side of the wall separating the room. Now, I have a wonky gap between where I ended the tiles abruptly and the edge of the drywall on the side of the wall:

What I was hoping would work was a similar set up that I have on the other side of the tub area, next to the window, as you see below:
Unfortunately, however, this solution doesn't look like it will work on the other side. So, I'm stuck. I'm loathe to pull off tile and/or drywall. Yes, I know, lazy craftsmanship (or craftswomanship, in my case), but I just don't have the heart to do it. Maybe this means that I'm not yet ready to really finish this project. Hmm.

In other, happier developments, however, Sarah from Bangor Bungalow came over a few weeks ago bearing gifts:

These doors are going to be absolutely perfect for the closet. I need to cut a bit off the top and bottom to make them fit and then paint them and get rid of the gold accents someone put on the glass but they will then be exactly what I was hoping for. Thanks, Sarah!

So, once I muster up the wisdom and courage to figure out my gap issue, and trim these doors, all I will need to do is put up a little quarter round where the tile meets the ceiling around the tub and then paint the trim and wainscoting and I will be done, done, and done. I'm hoping to get the tile resurfaced in July or August and then we will call it officially over. As always, I appreciate any potential soutions to my gap issue. If nothing else, from this renovation I will have learned to think through every little detail before beginning a project. These few things left have really been frustrating and they were all of my own making. Live and learn - or, rather, renovate and learn.

Bathroom Reno: Update

I have lost count on the bathroom renovation. My lack of recall may be linked to the noxious fumes that I woke to this morning emanating from my heaters. When I went downstairs to the basement to investigate, I was certain the fumes were coming from the general direction of my furnace. Nothing spilled or leaking - but definitely caustic. It smelled like gasoline or burned rubber. Not good. And, you've got it, probably not cheap to fix either.

So I called the nice people over at Dead River Company to come look at it. Have I mentioned before that I am from the Midwest? We Midwesterners know nothing about heating oil - I grew up with natural gas and electric heat. Here in New England, we feel the need to be even less environmentally conscious. Believe me, my investment in heating oil is not without misgivings - I have tried to convert to natural gas several times but, believe it or not, they stopped running gas line about a block from here and will not extend it until 10 people on the block sign up so no go on the natural gas. But I digress.

It appears that the smell (which the repair dude said he could not smell - eek!) came from the nozzle not firing as well as issues related to some soot build up in the chimney. I have no idea what this is going to cost me - hopefully the bill will take a while to arrive.

So, while I waited for all of this to happen today and for my headache to subside, I decided to work a bit more on the bathroom. There hasn't been much to report as of late - a lot of uninteresting things like adding the millionth coat of JC to the tub ceiling or to the corner bead. I did finally get the overhead light installed last week - I needed some longer screws to get it affixed to the ceiling, but here it is in all its old fashioned splendor:
Today I was able to sand the last coats of the JC around the tub surround finally paint (yipee!). You can see the fruits of my labor - it needs another coat but you get the general idea:

So, what's left? I will put some quarter round between the tub walls and the tub ceiling, some outsider corner moulding where the drywall meets the tile and then I still need to paint the trim and beadboard. I also have yet to find some replacement closet doors. I'm really not liking any of the styles available at the box stores and I refuse to spend a lot of money on doors for a closet. I'm considering trying to be creative and cutting out the slats on the old doors and seeing if I can replace them with some frosted glass or frosted plexiglass. I guess if I screw it up, oh well, since I was going to ditch them anyway. Here's to an evening of oxygen-rich air!

Bathroom Reno Weekend 6

That's Mancha, chillin' in the window that is indeed open. It's a beautiful day today in Bangor, Maine and while Mancha soaked up some rays I put in a few more hours on the bathroom. You'll notice I'm counting in weekends now since the day count thing isn't really flying any more.

A combination of sexy and very unsexy work today. First task was filling nail holes with some painter's putty. I got frustrated trying to use the big knife to fill in little holes in awkward places so I used my finger instead. I now am missing some skin on those fingers so I guess I wasn't supposed to do that...um, yeah.

I then put on my last coat (woot! woot!) of JC on the tub surround ceiling. I am admittedly getting much better at skim coating and felt pretty happy with my work today. I'm sure that once I prime it and see all the imperfections I will be pissy but for now it's okay. My plan is to use some quarter-round for that gap between the ceiling and the tile.
I then figured out a quasi solution to my tile-meets-wall problem area by the window. I was generally displeased with my attempt last week to resolve the problem, which entailed putting in some edge tile and then grouting the strange gap between the field tile and these new tiles. So, I bought some trim and put it up today. Once the adhesive dries (I couldn't use nails because it's over tile on the top half of the wall) I will prime and paint it and caulk around the tub edges. I think this will be a better solution to my lack of planning - but we'll see.

I then did a little touching up of paint, particularly behind the toilet, which was really bugging me.

And, then, most sexy of all - I put in the new vanity lights. It was a breeze to take out the old ones and install these new ones (Hampton Bay Classic Collection from HD). My only complaint is that they had little stickers on the metal pieces warning you about wattage for bulbs and now there is adhesive that I can't get off but I'll figure something out.

So, tomorrow (if I'm up for it), I'll put in the new overhead light, prime the tub surround drywall and maybe paint it, and perhaps paint the trim as well. Only a few things left to do after that: closet doors, threshold, something around heater (maybe), and then some towel bars. I can then call this renovation d-o-n-e.