Well, nothing in an old house is ever completely finished. However, we made our goal for the weekend. I wasn’t always sure if we would make it.

Today I finished touching up the wall and trim paint as well as finished painting the door. I fixed the radiator where it was leaking (note to  self, make sure the joint is clear of any foreign material before mating up the radiator to the valve). I also hung the curtains around the closet and on the windows.

I don’t mind doing the wall repair and most of the painting, but I am very glad that Susanna is a good organizer and decorator. It is the little things, like having the couch at an angle vice flat on the wall, that makes the room really stand out. She also does a great job sorting through the toys and getting rid of things no longer needed. Of course, you can see her organization skills in the rest of the house. As far as room colors, we worked together on the paint scheme, and I think it came out very nice. I am certain life would be more chaotic and disorganized without her help – but it isn’t just organizing things, it is finding a way to organize that also fits each room that makes a big difference. Now if could only get her to help with the workshop. And to top it off, organizing and redecorating is something that she loves to do (with the exception of the workshop of course…).

Will’s room is tricky. There is a chimney in the middle of the room. The chimney will be taken out one of these days, but for now it is there. It also has a large closet on one wall that used to have sliding doors. I removed the doors, but that leaves a long unusual space to deal with. We repainted the open closet – it has a lot of colors – blue for the walls, off white trim, gold for the walls and brown on the floor that was previously painted the trim color.

One of the biggest challenges with the room is fitting in his bed and the love seat. With the chimney and the large closet space, his bed really only fits in one of two places (the corner where the couch is or where we wound up putting it). I have tried several arrangements of the room, but I think this one finally got it right.

We repainted the open closet – it has a lot of colors – blue for the walls, off white trim, gold for the walls and brown on the floor that was previously painted the trim color. We were able to reuse paint from other projects. The gold accent color is the paint we used for the top of the walls in the kitchen, and the brown on the closet floor is the same floor paint we used in the hallway/back stairs. The trim paint is the same trim paint that we use in most of the rest of the house.

Even though all of Will’s belongings are out of the guest room and back in his room, I still have some odds and ends to wrap up in his room. I have to hook up the wiring for the new outlets in his room, but that only requires work in the attic, the guest room and basement (I didn’t want to yank power to the guest room while Will was living in it). I also need to reinstall the inside stops on the window next to his bed. That is a quick afternoon project, and doesn’t impact the room very much. I will hang the door tomorrow (I don’t feel like going to the workshop tonight to get the parts needed to put his door back on).  And, finally, I need to finish painting the window on the far wall – I will probably wait until it is warmer and take out the upper and lower sashes and paint them outside.

We are making progress on Will’s bedroom renovation. Today I finished up most of the painting and am just working on the finishing touches to the room.

I am trying something new for the floor. The hardwood floor was in pretty rough shape, but I didn’t have time to completely refinish the floor. So, I lightly sanded the surface (removing any stains that I could), and put a coat of dewaxed shellac down. The shellac dries in an hour or two. I then covered the shellac with a quick dry water-based floor finish from Home Depot. It certainly doesn’t look like a refinished floor, but it looks much better than before. I’ll have to see how well it holds up over time.

Tomorrow I have some touch-up painting to do, including the trim around the windows. Susanna will organize and sort the toys and clothes. Hopefully it will be a nice surprise to Will when he returns home on Monday afternoon.   I also need to finish the electrical work for the room, but that will wait until after next week (the outlets are in, but I need to run a wire to the attic to hook them up).

Several years ago, I painted the back stairs (and the second floor hallway) the same color as the trim (Classic Ivory). That was a mistake. It was much cheaper than getting it refinished, and the original carpet was a disaster, but the paint was impossible to keep looking clean.

So today, I scrubbed the back stairs with TSP, and painted them brown. I think the brown is more traditional and shouldn’t show the dirt as easy. As a side note, the TSP did a great job cleaning off the dirt that had been worn into the stairs, but with two boys and two dogs a light-colored floor is just not a good idea.  I’ll eventually repaint the second floor hall, but that is a little bit more involved process (there are two stairs, so painting the back stairs doesn’t impact anyone).

Before and after pictures are below. They do need a second coat, but you can get the idea of how it will look.  I used “Floor and Porch” paint from Sherwin-Williams.  The paint color is “Tea Chest” (SW 6013).

I was finally able to start painting Will’s room. Susanna had previously painted the ceiling white  while I replaced the damaged wall. We are changing the room color from the previous green-blue to a blue with off white trim, and a gold color as the accent color (the chimney and doors are the accent color, and maybe one of the short walls, we will see when we get to that wall).

I found a section of the wall that missed when caulking the trim, so I will do that tonight before the final coat on the walls.  The trim will need to be painted as well.

The colors are all from Sherwin-Williams.  The walls are “Down Pour” (SW 6516) and the accent color is “Empire Gold” (SW 0012). The accent color is left over from the kitchen, but it seemed to complement the walls pretty well.  The trim will be classic ivory.

It is a cold and rainy day today.  A perfect day to get projects done in the house. I have a project in the works, but I’ll post about that when I”m finished with it tonight.