The Master Dressing Room

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12/31/2007      This is being written in partial retrospect, four days after the work was actually done.  Beth has taken her first real vacation in what seems like ages and decided that the one thing she really needed was to see her house pushed further toward it's finish.  The idea was to complete our dressing room, however that didn't happen.  We fixed all the dents and imperfections in the walls, tore out all the cheap moldings that had been hung to impress renters, and then painted the room. 
    At that point, Beth decided that Christina's 18th birthday was more important so we shifted gears and gave her bedroom a total makeover while she was in Florida visiting her Dad.  That part of her vacation went well and Christina was very pleased with her new mature-looking bedroom.
1/2/2008      When our home was a duplex the right side had a house fan which was installed in what is now the dressing room's ceiling.  The idea behind a house fan was that when this monster of a fan was turned on all the windows had to be open so that a draft would come up through the house and dump all the hot air into the attic and out its open windows.
    I spent a great deal of time yanking the old thing out, framing up the opening and dry walling it shut.  I also ran some wiring for the new lighting.  This was all followed up with the installation of the first few glue-on ceiling tiles, the same style we used in the guest room.  We also made the trek to Home Depot in very windy 28 degree weather and purchased some moldings that will be placed around the two doorways and two closets, and bought our new lighting fixtures while we were at it.
     Busy day.  This room isn't as bad as some of the others and it will be nice having most of the second floor completed when it's finished.  The big 2nd floor jobs are still ahead of us.  You'll see.
1/5/2008   Incredibly trying day.  The wiring in the main light switch was all botched up so I had to figure out what the previous 'electrician' had done in order to make it work, and then run the new wiring across the ceiling.  This involved turning one fixture into two as you'll see in the photo page.  I ended up cutting out parts of the ceiling, building cross beams to reattach the dry wall and all sorts of other challenging little things.
    Yes, I also installed more adhesive ceiling tiles throughout the day.
    The biggest event was closing off the doorway from the dressing room to the guest room.  There's now a big wall where there was once a door.  It looks nice but it also looks kind of creepy because it's so different after almost 4 years.  And now the only way to access the guest room is up the green room staircase in the rear of the house.
    It's nice, though.  It would make a wonderful nursery or office, but we like having a dressing room since it's only the three of us here and soon there will be only Beth and me. (But not soon enough, let me tell ya!)
    I almost forgot.  I was installing the 2X4's in the door frame so that I could hang the dry wall on them and one of the boards slipped.  I ended up drilling a nice hole right in-between my left hand's index and middle finger.  It doesn't really hurt but it's really gross looking.  I can see down into the hole.
1/6/2008    Christina turned 18 today and we celebrated by taking her out to lunch at the casino and giving her some money to lose so we could show her the evils of becoming an adult.  This lesson fell on deaf ears because she won $100 and now she wants to become a professional riverboat gambler with a handlebar mustache.
    When she made this announcement I beat her mercilessly.  I couldn't do that until today because her Dad could sue me, but not anymore.  Now she's my bitch.
    Of course, I'm kidding.  I would never squelch the dreams of a young adult and have always had a policy of supporting and nurturing all of my kids' dreams and ambitions, even the really stupid ones.  To show Christina I was behind her every step of the way I taught her how to shave her upper lip to encourage hair growth.  
     Tomorrow we're having her name legally changed to Rhett and buying her a white shirt, a vest with a gold pocket watch and a derringer.  Beth is also teaching her to smoke cigars.
1/7/2008     Beth is as sick as a dog and I had to take her to the doctor today.  Don't get me wrong:  I love my wife dearly and taking care of her is a privilege, but checking on her every ten minutes kind of got in the way of making any real headway, so I focused on doing things that took lots of drying time in-between so that I could tend to her needs such as making her lunch and then holding her hair while she vomited it all up.  She actually looked pretty gross at around Noon and I was getting a little worried because she was sleeping a lot and was all pale and waxen  from her fever.  Man, was she ever out of it!  The only happiness in the house was experienced by the cats who thought she made a fine place to stretch out and catch a few Z's.
6/4/2008  I can see that I'm a little behind in my writing.  This is due in part to my having returned to college, and in part to the fact that I'm basically behind on everything.  The dressing room is still coming along, but it's a lot better than you'd judge from reading any of this.  The ceiling is all in place, but still needs to have its metallic finish put on.  Most everything else is completed, so by Christmas it may be completed.