Renovations: The Guest Room

The 1st Guest Room

1/24/2007-4/5/2007

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1/24/2007	And so it begins again. We received an email that a dear friend and her family will be coming to stay with us in April. Of course, that means we have to whip the guest room together now because there's absolutely no point in waiting another moment to begin getting ready for guests. I'm on vacation. I took my last three days of available vacation to take on this project. Really, I don't mind. We've needed an appropriate guest room for ages. Sixteen rooms and after three years we still haven't set up our friends and relatives to have a cozy place to crash. Shame on us.
1/25/2007	2:21PM- I'm taking a well deserved coffee break while I let the dust settle. The wall around the sliding glass door is useless. All of the lathing strips were cut with a saws all when the slider frame was installed and I've had to nail them all in just so the new dry wall will have something to grip. The old plaster came off in heaps, completely rotted by time and very possibly exposure to moisture from an old roof leak. I still have two small sections to excavate and have no doubt they will be bad but at least they are small. I should be finished with prepping the room within a few hours if all goes well and then I can begin hanging dry wall after I reconfigure the cable lines. Joy, oh joy.
1/26/2007	Pretty decent progress today. The big wall is well along the way and the wiring is all updated. I also set up a spot where I can split the cable in Christina's room and add service to the guest room without much of a problem. Most of the insulation is up, too. I'm hoping to get through the rest of the dry wall and wiring tomorrow so that I can focus on trim work and priming all day on Sunday. The ceiling has to be skim coated to level it all out so that will take quite a bit of time. It may be wiser to apply adhesive tin plating instead. It would definitely look better, especially with all the light that the sliding glass door lets in. We'll see.
1/27/2007	Not a bad day other than having to make about 50 trips up and down the main staircase. All of the dry wall is stored on the veranda and the green room stairs are blocked by all the guest room furniture which poses two problems. First, it makes the winding trip through the house twice as long carrying dry wall. Second, it forces me to track dust throughout the house as a very frustrated Beth does her best to keep it clean. You may notice in some of the photos that there isn't a single full sheet of dry wall in the room. The reason for this is simple: the passages are too narrow. This doubles the amount of trips and also forces me to have to do a lot more mudding at seams, but that's just something I'm physically dealing with now and will no doubt mentally deal with in therapy sessions at a later date. The wiring is now properly rerouted through the joists and the cable is out of sight. This leaves only the two smaller walls to dry wall before I begin all the finish work and can then prime and paint. Why does this sound so simple? I know it won't be. Something bad always happens.
1/28/2007	Not a bad day of progress unless you consider all the math involved with cutting drywall to match a sloped ceiling with a soft curve. Actually, I happen to be one of those rare individuals who likes measuring every 1.5 inches and then being forced to use a freaking saw to make my cuts. It's what I live for. No, really. We've decided that we just can't live without a tin style ceiling so we took a trip to Lowes and checked out styles and prices. Man, that crap is expensive! It would have cost $580 to do this room which measures 10X15' so we nixed that idea and settled on faux panels which we'll do a faux glaze because we're such faux people. If we get any negative comments on it, tough. The price is under $250 and the room is rarely used.
1/29/2007	Nice little diversion today. I was creating a channel for the wiring above the door and spotted some weird stuff behind the lathing strips. After removing a couple I found the king of all rat nests. The debris filled an entire kitchen garbage liner and Beth said it smelled like hamsters. Blech. Well, at least it looked like it hadn't been used in a while and I'm sure the bombs we've used in the house have killed anything with lungs.
1/30/2007	I did absolutely nothing up there today. We had the house appraised and I felt that was more than enough stress. The nice woman who did the appraisal was knocked out by what we've done so far, which is always a nice thing to hear.
1/31/2007	Nothing much today because I'm in my final days of working with ServiceForce. Nice company, but I'm getting my subcontractor's license and don't have the time to work any other way. It just takes too much time away from this house. I have no doubt that tomorrow will be even less productive, but by Friday we should start seeing some big changes. I'm only working a half day then. So, with a little luck the guest room will soon be history and the veranda and the 2nd bedroom's closet will be next. It will be nice to see that happen because after that will be the landing and that, ladies and gentlemen, will mean 23 West C Street's entire interior is completed! Of course, 21 West C Street will still have a ways to go. There's the bar and the office and the green room and the master bath and the dressing room and the.....
2/5/2007	It's been going slowly, partially because of the extreme level of demolitions that have to be done and partially because, hey! I get busy sometimes. Three walls are now excavated, dry walled and have their first layers of joint compound. The sanding to follow will be a long, dirty process, but that's okay. I can already see how great the room will look when it's finished and it already has a brighter, cheerier look. No idea how long this will actually take, but it's nice to know that when it's done we'll have a room we can put our guests in that we can be proud of.
2/6/2007	Hardly any work done today. Too many other things to do with the artic blast that has hit the area. We woke up to -11º weather this morning. Also, I'm working on getting my construction license in order right now. Lots of paperwork and running around. I'll be very happy when all of this is done and I can start making some real money as a contractor.
2/8/2007	Headline: Anna Nicole Smith was found dead in a Florida hotel today. Such a shame. The only real progress report on the room is that all the walls are up and ready for sanding.
2/9/2007	Sanding.....and sanding......and sanding..... Well, at least I walled off the chimney, too. It looks nice now that it isn't encased in that cheap paneling and the rooms temperature went up the second it was closed off. I'd hate to think how much of our heat was going outside all this time. Probably a lot. This should also reduce the draft factor in the house.
2/10/2007	The sanding is finished and we started putting up the Armstrong 1240 tin style ceiling. We stopped when it started to collapse. The end.
2/11/2007	We had to get out of the house for a while. There's a massive snow/ice storm on the way and so like good little lemmings we ran off to the grocery store and bought an abnormally large amount of food. During the morning hours I was able to get up the remainder of the first of four boxes of tiles. They really look great and this room is definitely going to be one of our better products when it's completed. We're very excited. Christina seems to be completely oblivious to this entire chapter. I'm not going to tell her, either. I'll just see how many months, possibly years it takes for her to realize the room is made over. Teenagers.
2/12/2007	7:30 AM...We now have two and a half 15-foot rows of tiles up. That means the room is 1/4 of the way finished and as the ceiling slopes downward it should become less difficult and at the same time less dangerous to put up more. It's 7:30 AM right now. My hope is to have all of it up by the time Beth gets home from work, maybe to even have it painted. 2:15 PM....Making strong progress. Ceiling is almost half up. Had to go into Frederick to buy more adhesive. 4:35 PM....Almost three quarters of the way finished. It's much easier going now that I'm at the side of the room where I can actually reach the ceiling and instead of putting up tiles three at a time I'm now putting up six. 8:15 PM- Can't move. Tired. Bone weary.
2/13/2007	The ceiling tiles are 100% up and I finally assembled my router table. I was able to create all the moldings I'll need for the ceiling and finished just as the artic blast from Canada hit. We're expecting an intense ice storm tonight, possibly 2" in thickness.
2/15/2007	My arms are killing me. If anyone ever asked what I would charge to do a faux bronze finish in their home I would say $12 per square foot. I swear, the only diversion I have upstairs is our old TV and only the FX network comes in clearly. This means I have to suffer through crappy daytime shows with eardrum shattering commercials every ten minutes. I have no idea why FX thinks commercials have to be aired loud enough to drown out an air raid signal unless it's the obvious fact that most people probably watch their shows as an alternative to taking an overdose of sleeping pills and the sponsors demand that the near dead be resurrected through volumes loud enough to grab Helen Keller's attention. I'm also sore because the sun came out today and melted the top inch of ice pellets into an impenetrable sheet. Sure, it looks kind of pretty and I have to admit, it was kind of cool reliving the days when I could walk on the crust of a snowfall without breaking through, but the magic seemed to vanish as I fell on my ass and slid down the many hills that make up my backyard. All I could think was, "My God! Help me! My bones break so easily now and my Floridian bride has absolutely no idea how to come to my aid if I need help." Fortunately, my decent came to an abrupt halt as I flew across the rocky outcroppings of the stone border the maniacs who used to live here created at the bottom of the hill. I'm just thankful that I didn't helplessly spin causing me to have to stop using my skull or I'd probably still be laying out there, my eyes pecked out by crows. Anyway, the room looks kind of okay today. How's that for an update?
2/16/2007	Lots of stuff completed today and the light at the end of the tunnel, while still a pinpoint, is now visible. All of the upper moldings are completed leaving only the floor and two of the four doors. The floor slopes so cutting in some of the floor moldings will be a little tricky, but not impossible. (Nothing is impossible for CARPENTER MAN! tah-tah-tah-DAHHH!) After that it's just prime, paint, clean up and put in the new doors! I'm guessing it will all take about four more days. As usual, I'm already looking forward to the next renovation, which will be the veranda, however my lovely bride is insisting that this room be 100% completed before I do anything else. I can't blame her.
2/19/2007	It's 1:30 in the morning and I'm sitting here with insomnia trying to resist the temptation of going upstairs and rolling out the primer on the walls. I have no doubt that this would wake up Beth so I'm going to settle for a few minutes of writing. I spent all day putting up the last of the moldings and priming them today. Beth seemed to be very pleased with the results and with a little luck I'll be splashing on some color tomorrow. That's when the real difference will happen and the room will start taking on its personality. Can't wait!
2/20/2007	Tired....so very, very tired... The first coat of paint is on the walls. I'm hoping that it will only need one coat of paint, but that's a lot to hope for. As usual, Beth was completely correct that the moldings should remain while so white they shall stay. I like the separation between the metallic ceiling and the soft color of the walls. It defines the room's contours and the moldings don't get lost in a blur of color.
2/21/2007	It's just so pretty. There isn't another word for it, really. Well, 'expensive' would also fit. I just made another run to Lowes to pick up the baseboard molding wood, which totaled $130 in raw form. That brings the total for this room to well over $1,000. The only real comforting thought is that the final purchases that will be made will be hinges and knobs for the new doors since the doors are already here in the house. Maybe we'll buy some really fancy doorknobs just to be extra stupid. Pretty. Expensive. We'd better get some guests soon or I'm going to be pretty pissed off.
2/23/2007	Long day today and all of it spent on my knees. I started the floor moldings and only the pictures can show how hard this part of the job actually was. There were all sorts of adjustments, special cuts and compensations that had to be made to create the illusion of having straight walls and floors but it went okay in the end. I've noticed that I'm using more and more caulk at this stage of the game. Every time something doesn't meet up just right I mutter, "No problem. I'll just hit that baby with some caulk and it'll look fine once it's painted. I went through two brand new tubes of caulk today.
2/28/2007	The going is slow right now. I have to be on my knees for up to 6 hours a day to scrape gum, dirt, paint and who knows what else off the wood floor. This can't be done in a haphazard way if it's to look good, so each inch needs to be approached with care and hard work. After it's scraped I follow up by scrubbing the grain out with a stiff brush and wiping the debris away. It's a foul task but as each section is completed I chemically seal and restore the wood and the results are beautiful. I have about 24 square feet left to do and only hanging the doors will remain to be done.
3/6/2006	So close and yet so far. Most of the room is completed. The drapes are hung, the floors are shining. The only things left to do are to finish framing the attic door and hang the original access doors. I found one of them in a stack in the attic among a pile of old doors, most of which were warped and ruined. I'm installing old skeleton key locks with crystal door knobs in them to give that room a trued 'bed and breakfast' feel. It should look nice when they're finished and painted.
3/13/2007	These freaking doors are driving me crazy.
4/5/2007	Funny that my last entry here involved doors. While working on the Master Dressing Room, I just walled off one of them. For now, the Guest Bedroom is accessible only by way of the Green Room staircase. If you open the door between the Guest Room and the Master Dressing room you'd only see the boring side of a sheet of dry wall. We'll later remove the actual door and install a display shelf or something but for now we'll just leave it as 'The Door to Nowhere'. And if we have guests? They'll have complete privacy in exchange for a long trek to the downstairs bathroom.