Monday, April 28, 2008

NYC in 10: Trim, Trim, Trim.

First, before the trim talk, last night I started working on the kitchen tile. Ugh.

It was a pretty straightforward job: peel off old tiles, lay down new tiles. Not too hard, right? No, not utill Nate decides to start doing things the right way. I already had a good part of the kitchen re-tiled but then, behind the fridge, I realized that the sheet vinyl underneath was coming up from the floor. "I should really peel that up first" I thought. Big mistake. I spent the next two hours redoing the work I had already done. Peel off the new tile, chip away at old sheet vinyl, replace tile. After about a third of the kitchen the sheet vinyl stopped coming off, so I had to use my scraper to kind of taper the edge off to the wood floor. Then I could transition from vinyl tile over wood to vinyl tile over sheet vinyl. Here's a photo of that transition.

By the way, check out how amazing that sheet vinyl was. I want to meet the person who decided that was the best option for their kitchen. Seriously.
Here's a photo of the part of the floor that is done. The rest has to wait until the subfloor dries out from the leaky shower. Yeah, that's on my to-do list too. Just imagine white cabinets and window trim. The hardware we picked up today was the wrong size, so we'll have to exchange that. Yeah, I forgot to measure it and just took a guess. Of course I was wrong.But, back to the main topic of the post: TRIM!!!

Yesterday Mom and Dad came up and helped me get started with the trim replacement. After a trip to the Depot to get lumber, Dad and I started cutting trim while Mom primed the boards. We replaced all of the missing baseboards and quarter-round trim on the first floor. Photos:

Today they came up again with my brother and sisters. After another trip to the Depot, we started with the crown moulding. After about a hundred bad cuts, we finally got it up. We've got some filling to do at the corners and seams, but it's good enough. Yeah, I don't think we have a future as a father & son crown moulding company. Next came the cap moulding over the window and door trim. Check it out!

After we finished, we moved upstairs and Mom primed all of the wood. We need a little paint yet, but we're on the home stretch.

Upstairs, Dad and I hung the trim around the North West bedroom door (inside and outside trim) Next we hung up the door to the linen closet. It went up really easily, much to our surprise. It only took, like, 20 minuets to hang an 80 year old door in a new frame in an 80 year old house. Everything just lined up level on the first try. After we put the trim up around that door, the family took off for home. It feels so good to have this much progress happen in two days. I'm feeling a little less stressed out. Next step? Finishing the baseboards and quarter round trim on the second floor, priming, then a couple coats of paint. Then big old before and after pictures. I love nothing more than some good before and afters!

5 comments:

Sandy said...

Looking good, Kiddo!

Muskego Jeff said...

You're lucky you've got family close by to lend a hand. My family lives too far away for that kind of assistance. Good thing, though. I'd probably "accidentally" use the nail gun on 'em after about 3 minutes.

Jennifer said...

I'm SO jealous of your easy door hang... OUR 80 year old door hang in a 90 year old house in a new jamb did NOT go so well!

Jen @ RamblingRenovators said...

Everything looks great! You're lucky to have a handy family.

BMack said...

That old sheet vinyl is awesome....I think we have the same pattern in our kitchen.

Oh and by the way....when I said awesome, I meant ugly.