Building Bonus Room Built-Ins Part 2

You guys! Remember when I said, look for another post in the coming week? That would have been around the June 10th mark. Well, it is way past that date and here we are! There were business trips, parties (hosted and attended), events and board meetings in the last 2 weeks that really slowed down our progress. Not to mention full time jobs, church and having a 3 year old. I'm not complaining, just trying to justify to myself why things take us so long, like sitting down to write a post!

But we did make progress throughout that time. When we left off, Paul had started the initial framing for the shelving:

The next night after this photo was taken, Paul finished out the base framing work:

Looking amazing, right?! Well, my biggest fear about tackling this project from the beginning was that the built-ins would look homemade, DIY in the worst way. That they'd be rink-a-dink and that I'd regret taking on the task. I know Paul is capable of doing good work, but if we we're going to be spending the money on these materials I really wanted it to look professional.Well, 3/4" pine shelves don't scream "professional" when it comes to finished built-ins. That's what most of them are constructed of anyways but we needed to add the face trim (thank you college education for teaching me about millwork). So we added 1/2" x 1-1/4" trim pieces to the faces of the entire unit. By adding these pieces we immediately went from "OK" looking shelves to the professional look I really wanted. I didn't take a picture of this in progress but I was fooling around with what to fit in the shelves and this photo shows the unit with the face trim pieces pretty well.

 

Those are some substantial looking shelves!

We filled all the nail holes we had made using our favorite tool in the whole wide world (our compressed air nail gun) and then primed the entire unit.

  

We primed before caulking because we wanted to see exactly what needed to be taken care of. It's hard to see in the picture but because this house is old, not everything on the wall is exactly 100% level and plumb. Our shelves are, but that left some joints that would need some paintable caulk above the windows, below the sills, along the edge of the wall, etc. 

While Paul was out at a board meeting, I sat to the task and got the joints finalized (with him taking care of all the top shelves when he got home)!

Up next we quickly sanded the entire unit for the final prep stage and got the base and toe-kick re-attached.

And then it was time for paint. So here's the deal. I go into painting, excited and ready to see great changes. And about, oh, seven minutes into the task, whether it's rolling or taping, or priming, or cutting in, I think to myself, "I think I hate painting more than pretty much anything else." EVERY SINGLE TIME YOU GUYS. It's like giving birth. I forget how terrible it is until I'm in the middle of the pushing and there's no going back! The paint can has been opened, the brush and the roller are already full of paint. It would be stupid to spend the next 5 minutes cleaning up and closing up when I've accomplished barely the same amount of effort on the actual painting part. So I tend to start rushing. Which turns out to sometimes be a really terrible thing. So this time, since I was so adamant that these look good, I figured I better not mess them up when it came to the paint portion. What most would consider the easy part.

So we turned on some music and we took our sweet time. And I'd be lying if I said it still didn't suck. 

But there they are, fully painted, fully done.

 

  

I've already got them pretty well filled up. The top rows could use some work and I need to hang that picture frame you see in the back of the shelf so you can actually see it. But pretty minor stuff.

The room needs crown molding now, which we've selected. We're debating doing the whole room now vs. adding the crown molding piece to this unit only and then coping the remaining pieces when we're ready to tackle the whole house. 

This is by far the best project I think we've done. Maybe not the most impressive compared to some of the things we did for the house during construction but definitely my favorite.

More photos soon!

Building Bonus Room Built-Ins

Did you hear that? Was that the sound of power tools you heard late last night? I am excited to announce that there is a project in the works at the house. Like actually in the works. It's not a concept in my little head or a savings account waiting to be funded before proceeding. It's a full fledged, power tool project.

When we were originally remodeling the house, we had this extra room on the first floor. It was in the back corner of the house, off of the living room under an arched wood casing. There were built-ins on one side of the room, which we could tell were not original to the house and 5 windows between the other two exterior walls. The room was sunken about 4" and had rotting wood wainscot and the remnants of what appeared to be a fabric wall covering. The trim was all painted a lovely shade of "nicotine white". I didn't really have a plan for this room but figured it would come to me at some point.

We decided that because the built-ins were not original that we'd remove them. I left a house with beautiful built-ins and while these were relatively well built they just didn't give them same look that the rest of the house was giving off. Once they were removed we decided we'd open a path between the kitchen and this room in order to create a full flow for the whole first floor. Previously if you wanted to get to the kitchen from this room you'd A) go through the living room, up two steps, down two steps, through a small hallway and into the kitchen or B) go through the living room, go through the entry, go through the dining room, through a swinging door and into the breakfast nook/kitchen. That seemed insane to us considering how much time we spent in the kitchen and in the living room. So we punched out a wall.

Then we removed the rotting wood paneling and started to raise the floor so that it would be level between the kitchen, this room and the living room.

 

The drywall was an interesting issue in this room but the crew did a really great job working around the windows and previous paneling quirks. I had big plans to install a long window bench similar to what I did in the kitchen along that small wall with the two windows above. More storage!!

 

But when we got the pricing back for the cabinets, we decided to nix the extra bench and hold off on making any decisions for this space until we knew what we'd do with it. We could always add the bench later if we wanted. But for the last year, this room has served very few purposes. It is the home of our piano which will stay in this location and our old dining room table, which will not.

You know those great built-in bookshelves I mentioned from our other house? Well those were full of books. And we ripped out the built-ins in this house so we could have a convenient access to the kitchen. And you know where all of those books have been sitting for almost the last two years? In boxes. BOXES AND BOXES OF BOOKS. With no built-ins to put them on. Face palm.

I decided instead of a window bench of storage (because hello existing built-in cabinets upstairs) that we'd build ourselves some built-in bookshelves on the wall opposite of where they were when we bought the house, around these two windows:

A few months ago, I sketched it up, measured, drafted and then we waited for a bit for that ever important funding part. That came quicker than I expected and the next thing I knew we were at the lumber yard picking out our pieces. We got them home and laid them out in the only room really available for 12' long lumber, the dining room.

We removed the base and quarter round from the surrounding area and back wall and cut the overhang of the window sills off on the two outside edges.

Then we built the framing for the base and first shelf.

And when I say "we" you all know I really mean "Paul" right? Much to his delight I do a lot of supervising.

Before I knew it last night, he had made quite a bit of progress.

We actually got two more boards installed before bed last night, the two vertical pieces that rest right against the window frames. Tonight we finish the main construction of the unit itself (saw cuts, nailing, screwing, etc.) and then the rest of this week will involve some of the ancillary items. We need a nailer for crown molding at the top, the base will need to be reinstalled on the face and adjacent wall, the HVAC needs an elbow and a face plate and I need to start prepping for primer and paint and the actual painting.

When we wrapped up last night I just sat on the piano bench and stared at the wall for awhile. Then I went to bed thinking about the wall and I woke up thinking about the wall. We've got to get this thing done so I can think about, you know, another project or something.

More to come in the next week!