Home Improvement - Master Bedroom & Bathroom

Finishing up project complete!

I painted the bedroom and bathroom about 2 years ago and have loved it, but it never felt quite finished with the doors and trim not painted.  I didn't consider it too much for several reasons, but recently I decided that everything in my house with the fake wood and printed paneling must go (and Tom finally agreed), so this is a continuation of my paint marathon.  This project I did not look forward to, and yet it was one that I was very eager to complete and I am so very happy with the end results. This picture shows the big rips out of the trim on the bathroom doors where I put painters tape when I painted the bathroom.  Yep, you can't even use painters tape on fake wood trim.  So as if the doors already didn't look bad enough I had bit chunks torn off the fake papered wood. (The bathroom is lavender so it's weird it looks blue here between the doors.)

These back to back doors is one of the poorest designs in the house.  The knobs are always getting smashed into each other if you have the closet door open and someone comes in through the other door.

Outside door.

White is just the happiest color in a room.  It makes it so light and so much bigger and brighter and cleaner.  Makes the lavender walls look that much nicer.

Ugly wood closet doors before.

Ugly printed paneling inside closet.  I almost didn't paint these closets after how much work it was to do the bathroom closets.  Let me just say it was worth every effort!

Before. (Imagine the whole bedroom just like the inside of that closet...and the bathroom, and the other 2 bedrooms and closets and bathroom...for 17 years plus.  Yep, pretty sure I never want to see that paneling again in my lifetime)

During...yes, mess.  I was smart and only did one half of the closet at a time.

After!!  It's a bright and beautiful room now!

Tom's side of the closet.  It will never be this clean again!  He is not an organizer and he likes to keep everything.

I took this picture for how high I had to go to get the wood trim painted next to the ceiling.  I was pretty much done when Tom was home looking oddly at the ladder and finally said, Oh! That's what's wrong!  The ladder is upside-down!  Oh bother!  Well, thankfully the Lord has been watching over me with his angels and I have been safe doing these projects.  But it does make me wonder if my brain is really capable of this!  LOL!

This is only about a third of the stuff I had in the bathroom closet--so that was a messy and long job.  The inside of the closet was really hard to paint, but luckily I got by with one coat of primer and mostly one coat of paint except a few easy to reach spots for a second coat.

It is super high.  Had to stand on the very top of the red part of the ladder that says DO NO STAND OR SIT ON THIS PART!  Yes, crazy.  But I figured I was inside the closet and didn't have far to go in either direction if it tipped.

And this was the part that I said, "What was I thinking?!!"  How was I supposed to get under here to paint.  Well, basically a belly crawl!  Worst part of the job ever!

Very strange having both bathroom doors off for several days and seeing right into the closet from the bedroom.

Bathroom closet with everything put back in.

LR Project Complete

The living room-hallway project took me a good month before I was completely done.  It took a weeks of prep work before I could paint.  It took a couple weeks of painting with all the doors and closets.  And it took well over a week to get pics and things hung back up, and to order curtains and get them hung, and I feel like those still need some work in draping the scarf.  I am so glad to finally be done, and I've had about a 2 week break although there was the busy Labor Day family weekend thrown in that mix.  I am anxious to get started again because it's rewarding and I really want to get it done, but I also feel overwhelmed at the prospect of it all and how the time will all work out with everything that I need to do in between.  I just have to exert faith it will all work out as it did for this project.

Here are some before and after pics (except for 2 towards the bottom)...kind of hard to tell it's the same wall.

The old color is not the same as the new color...you just can't tell from the light hitting it.

New!

Old

New!

Old

New! Love that the beam is now painted!

Old

New!

Old

New!  Four doors painted white down this hallway.

Old.  Dining room wall and entry to my bedroom.  (yes, I was a little wallpaper crazy ten or so years ago)

New! I am loving the white doors...brightens it up so much and makes the space seem bigger.

Old...we put this one off way too long.

New.  Tom had to have the same exact one.  Boo.  And it was still $36!!  But it's clean! And whole!

Old

New!  I haven't had time to work on the scarf drape...it's not quite how I want it.  And the AC and board in the window really kill the look...but oh how nice the cool air has been.

New!

New!

Old...both bookcases got painted.

New!!

The L.R. Rroject

L.R. meaning Lindsey Rakozy.  LOL.  I like that...but no, L.R. meaning Living Room.

Just a little update for today because I am so excited about it, even though I am exhausted cause I worked from 9am this morning til 10pm tonight with only maybe 4 half hour breaks.  It's amazing I can keep going.

Tom switched from day shift to swing shift so he could help.  He took the coat closet door off and then I put him to work painting primer on the fake wood trim next to the ceiling and also the entire beam going between the living room and dining room.  He had maybe a 20 minute break before the second coat.  When he was done he asked if he was done so he could go out and mow.  I looked at my watch and it was 12:35 and I said NO! You didn't switch shifts so you could help 3.5 hours and then go mow!!  NO sir!  I put him right back to work.  He took our bedroom door off and caulked the framework around the doorway and then we got the ceiling painted before he had to get ready to go to work at 3pm.

I painted 2 coats of primer on each door and started the topcoat paint but will have to finish them tomorrow (with 4 hours drying time between top coats), spray painted all the door knobs and hinges, put 2 coats inside the coat closet, painted 2 coats of primer around the door frame and also the bedroom door frame, a coat of primer around the window ledges and frame plus a top coat, 2 coats of white paint around the front door frame inside and 1 coat outside (it got too dark to get the second coat on)...that kept me going all day...hopping between projects and their dry times.
Oh, and by the way, these doors are the first inside doors we have painted so they better turn out because I have plans to paint all the inside doors in this house.  They simple could not look worse than they do now.  A few pics...cause once we start painting the walls it is going to look very different.

 The beam!!  It's not going to be white but oh it is such a happy thing to get rid of the fake wood. (the white is just the primer)  I love it already!

The bright and shiny ceiling!  I love love love that 'clean' feel fresh paint gives.  The L.R. is very white right now...like it snowed inside.

 The coat closet.  It was so incredibly dirty in there and the walls were awful.  This was such a sore spot with me, but I was very good at ignoring it, especially because the walls wouldn't clean.  I'm wishing I'd done some of this sooner.  Dad said he wondered how he would put his boots in there now. I said, just don't throw them against the wall.

 More bright and shiny ceiling although the light from the window was deterring a good shot of it.  I get dizzy going around and around the edge of the room trying to remember where I laid the paint brush, or the paint can opener, or the hammer, or the step stool....I think I walked a thousand miles today.

Dad working after he tried to quit--lol.  Remodeling is not his thing, he is not enjoying this, especially the painting, but I know he is glad it is getting done and I am VERY thankful for his help!  It would have been very hard and taken a lot more time without him.

I suggested we get a heat pump.  He said definitely.  We should have done it years ago.  What I really like is that he said it will add value to the house when we sell it.  ;)

He put the news on this morning while we were working and after I'd heard the same news repeated for the third or fourth time I turned it to HGTV and there were several episodes of Love It or List It on in a row, so we listened to that for a couple hours.   I told Traci and Eli yesterday that Tom didn't know it but we were doing the TV show Love It or List It...that after we get the house done we have to look at places to compare it to, and then decide to love it? or list it?  LOL!  Love that show!

My Wish With Elbow Grease

Last week I spent Sun, Mon and Tues working on my GD lesson and Wed I went to town.  That left me Thur, Fri and Saturday to start some projects.  Thursday wasn't a very fun day cause these were some projects I dreaded doing.  The 'very easy to put off til tomorrow' kind of things.

I worked on my lesson til Tom got up and I got him to take down the utility room door and it's a good thing I didn't try that on my own because those outer doors are so much heavier than I imagined.  I also needed him to bring up the saw horses to set it on.  He also had to take off the handle, deck lock bolt and hinges.  I had to prep-clean everything.  Then I taped and papered things up so I could spray the threshold, but of course in my haste to get going I forgot a before pic.  It was bad.  No amount of cleaning would make it look cleaner.  Of course now it looks spray painted, but at least it looks clean!

Unfortunately I didn't realize as I was stepping on the newspaper I was tracking silver paint all over the floor and then saw there was overspray but luckily it did come off.  I have a floor cleaning project planned for this week.
I put 2 coats of paint on both sides of the utility door and painted the door frame and this corner of the utility room and a corner of the porch room, and the storage room door.  (look, no more spot of blue paint on the wall!)  Tom promptly sat down to watch TV as I started to work and I decided, no! He was going to help, so I asked him to wash the garbage can and a couple other containers, so he did.  :) 

I even painted the lid of the garbage can.  Since then I have discovered, after doing some research online (which is very addicting by the way looking at DIY house projects) that there is actually a plastic spray paint on the market which I plan to buy and utilize for lots of shabby looking plastic items around the house that are still in good usable shape--just ugly.  I'm excited about that!   
(Wow, that porch room floor looks so clean in this pic but I assure you it is not that clean at all!  But hopefully soon will be.  I learned that you should never use hot water or ammonia based products on linoleum--oops!  So I am going to try some new cleaning methods this week.)
Friday was a good day because I finally felt like I was getting somewhere, and I got an amazing amount of stuff done.  I started on my bathroom cabinets and took towel racks, TP holder, towel hook, cabinet hardward, etc off to spray paint silver, and I spray painted 3 vents, and I took the screen out of the sliding door and spray painted the frame, and put primer on the back door while it was still hanging, and got all but the last coat on the bathroom cabinet and all the doors (3 of them)...
On Saturday I got even more done with Tom's help.  I gave him a list of hard things hoping he'd do them, and he did and didn't even complain.  He handed me back the list at the end of the day all checked off.

We worked hard and long all day--he did have to go out and finish mowing his field, so we did not get finished up til after 9pm so it was close to 10pm when we ate dinner.  I was so tired I could hardly move.  I didn't get a picture of the painted vents but they stand out like neon signs now they are so bright and clean--another reason to try and get the floor looking brighter.
We finished up putting the screen on the screen door today.

Old screen.

New screen!  With freshly painted frame!

Horrible rusty back door.

Freshly painted..but it only has the first coat.  I will add the second coat while it's hung.  Tom had just hung the door and I was too excited to get a picture.

Three freshly painted door!  Looks so sterile!  love it!

Painted the shelf and most this wall.  I have been killing so many little black spiders out there I knew I was going to have to set off a bug bomb...and then when I moved out that shelf to paint it I had a feeling to look at the bottom of it.  Ick!  I was too creeped out to get a picture--I just hurried and got the bug killer spray.  It was covered with spider egg nests and a variety of little spiders.  So, guess I need to bug bomb for sure cause they are probably under the freezer or in the corner possibly?  We hope to move that out and the other shelf and get the rest of it painted, too.

And here are my white cabinets in my bathroom!  Love love love it!!!  But now the doors look worse than ever.  They are next!  (well, eventually next anyway)  I have finally convinced Tom it will be a good thing to paint them and he even agrees to the kitchen cupboards...but that is going to be a massive project because I will also paint the kitchen...but first the living room and front door and hallway and the other bathroom doors, too.
Oh, and the inside of those cabinets got painted, too, so it's all clean in there!

And last but not least, the crowning touch of my day was adding colorful rugs to my Eli-nicknamed-bathroom: The Lorax!  (ooooh they feel so good on your toes!)  I smile every time I go in there!

I am feeling pretty good because I have some of the yuckiest projects out of the way now.  :)