Master Bedroom 2008 Goals

We are planning on moving upstairs by the spring, so hubby has decided we will turn our room into a TV Family room. The wall we have our closet on will make a nice back drop for the 65 inch flat panel he wishes he could have... Maybe some day before our children give us grandchildren! LOL!

So the To Dos in here are:

move everything out
Take out partition wall in closet, fix wall, paint
Remove closet shelving, install upstairs
New window treatments
overhead lighting
finish ceiling, drywall, paint

Upstairs:
Change hot water lines
Remove old washer lines
Remove old furnace
2 New windows
Electric Fireplace
Move Furniture that is upstairs around
Move Furniture upstairs

The great thing about this is that we are giving ourselves a HUGE master suite upstairs. My sewing stuff is going to be set up in half of the kitchen. The counter & sink area will make a perfect coffee center & wet bar area. The old dining room will be where we put our bed, tv & fireplace (electric with a mantel). The living room is where the desk is & the computer will go there too. The bedroom will get my closet shelving, house our extra bed & storage until we figure out where it will go permanently. We will have our own bathroom too.

All we really have to do besides move stuff is to run a duct line upstairs. There is already a duct we will use as a guide to run the new one. Figure it'll cost about $75.

Master Bedroom Work

We are still working in the Master Bedroom.

The walls are no longer wallpaper, I painted over it with Kilz Casual Colors. I think the color we chose was Cappuccino Spice, I couldn't find it on the website, but it looks exactly like it sounds!!! I like the Kilz One Coat. It covered the peach wallpaper well. It took more than one coat, but the second was really only to touch up brush strokes, it wasn't an overall 2nd coat. We used the same paint in my kitchen (red over wallpaper) it didn't cover as well, but I was in the hospital (had the Princess & dh had friends help him) when it got painted so I don't know why it didn't cover. The kitchen was a Satin & we used Semi gloss in the bedroom (wanted Satin, but think the semi reflects more light so the flaws aren't as obvious!) could be the difference.

We still need to wire for an overhead light fixture so the ceiling is still incomplete. DH is in the process of changing jobs & our time has become tight. I am happy that I finished the walls, so I could hang my clothes back in the closet. We also need to beef up the crown molding, it is quite wimpy!

This picture also shows one of the 2 leaded glass windows we have in the room. What's missing is the ugly blue roller shade hung just below the leaded window.
Shop at Wal-Mart for Kilz Casual Colors.

Not sure if I posted a picture of the surprises we found in the apartment when we took down the ugly 70s paneling so here:

We found 2 of these "holes" from old windows & lines where old walls must have been. The air leakage around these old windows was terrible, so we filled in with insulation everywhere we could feel a draft & even where we couldn't. Then we put the paneling back up (on this wall only) & painted it. It is so much warmer in the space.

That said our house is celebrating it's 140th birthday this year! So I guess we shouldn't be too surprised by what's behind the walls!!!

Shopping for new blinds

I was checking out Guaranteed Blinds. I am looking to replace the 4 roller shades in my bedroom. They came with the house & are blue. There is NO blue in my room anymore. The blue carpet, GONE, the peach & blue wallpaper, now Cappuccino Spice.

I am not sure which direction I am leaning. Dh is getting a day job, so no one will be sleeping until noon in there (at least not regularly!) I don't want to do mini blinds, even the Faux Wood blinds don't seem to fit, plus that is an awful lot of "wood". The window trim is about 4" wide, the base molding is about 6" & the floor is hardwood.

I think I am leaning towards Roller Shades in either a copper or tan color. Similar to what we already have, but maybe a more neutral color. The blue ones really stand out. Of course one of the windows is HUGE (over 4' wide) so to replace all 4 with completely new blinds is going to cost at least $200 and that is for the cheapest styles...

I have considered just replacing the material on the rollers I have. If I can find the right one I might co that direction, but I am bad in the fabric store...oh gee darn another excuse to go!!!

Up on the roof...

I really need to pick myself up a copy of The Complete Photo Guide to Home Improvement: With 300 Projects and 2,000 Photos (Black & Decker Home Improvement Library) by Creative Publishing international. I think it would be extremely helpful to me!!!

There are just so many projects we need to tackle here. I even got hubby out on the side porch roof just the other day! We lost part of our gutters, since they were just hanging by a strap I didn't want them blowing around possibly scratching the roof up. So up he went. First we tried our ladder, not exactly the best option, the ground is still really soft. So I suggested he go out the window in the upper bathroom. He had to remove the lower pane to do it, but he did!

I am constantly picking on him about his fear of heights, kind of like then why did we buy a 3 1/2 story house??? We don't exactly have the hire it out budget, at least not for the simple things...

Right now I think we are waiting for direction! We have lots of things we are "into" but no real idea where to go next... We need to finish the ceiling in our bedroom, we got half way & stopped because I decided I want to wire for a light fixture. So we need to buy wire & such before we can move ahead in there. We need to finish taking down the drop ceiling in the front room. We are going to paper that (with the embossed tin tile looking stuff) wire for overhead fixtures & eventually build our own box beams. We are also going to pull up all the carpet in the living areas. Seal the floor in the living room & probably paint the floor in the front room... I need to get the kids toys organized again & get the room cleared out before any of that can happen...

I guess I am having a Spring yard sale!

It rained in my Bedroom

So these are the before pics... All this work because our flaky former tenant left water supply lines for her washer on the floor, still running...
We only caught about 2 gallons of the gross water, the insulation was soaked & so much of it ran right through our floor into the basement there must have been tons of it.

Of course this happened at 8:20 PM with me home alone with the kiddos, cuz dh was at a meeting... I am running around trying to find the key to the apartment, buckets & the phone number for where the meeting is all while trying to get the Prince to finish his reading homework & get to bed. Why does it always seem to happen like that...

We had to take down half of the ceiling because the insulation was soaked from wall to wall. Just to the right of the most damage is MY CLOSET! I am now living with my clothes on a couch outside our bedroom, because I can't put them away until we have finished the ceiling including paint. It was a week ago yesterday that this happened & I don't see us finishing this job before the end of the weekend. I'll just say that it didn't make for a romantic Valentine's Day...

So we have been busy trying to repair this mess. We are using dry wall instead of ceiling tiles. It was the cheaper option (replacing the damaged tiles = $144 + staples for half of ceiling, dry wall = $79.76 + screws, tape & mud for whole ceiling). The real deciding factor was that the store only had 2 boxes of the right tile & we needed 4. Choosing to drywall was certainly not the easiest choice. We are cutting the sheets in half so I can help. I don't think I'd be able to lift an 8 foot sheet of drywall over my head & hold it until it is screwed in enough to let go while standing on a ladder hoping the 3 year old is distracted by the DVD she is watching...

The bright side to this (I am reaching here, give me a break!) is that we used the undamaged tiles to replace the disgusting tiles in the bathroom. I still need to paint them to seal them so the new ones don't mold like the old ones did, but it looks 100% better.