Progress

This first phase of the remodeling project has taken longer than expected. It was slated to be a two-week project, which granted was an optimistic estimate. About a month later, it is half-way there.

To be fair, I'm making the decisions as I go, some of them not fast enough. And, I have thrown in extra items that were not part of the original plan. Plus, we had to fire the first trim guy, after struggling for a week and half to get him to do things right the first time.

Here's the progress report:

Electrical - Completed. The original quote was for something like 12 additional outlets. I added 40-some outlets, including TV, phone jacks, including cat 5 writing for a LAN line, and general plugs in every room. The existing plugs were either in weird places or not grounded (two-pronged instead of three), or both.

Closets - The doors will need some fine-tuning in the end, but they are up and framed, the sheetrock is finished and textured and the baseboards are in. The inside shelving, rod and drawers are not yet in, though they have primed the shelves.

I also got a shock last Friday when I peaked inside the original coat closet and found that it is no longer deep enough for a rod and hangers. Apparently my expectations for a 6-ft wide bedroom closet and an adjoining hallway closet deep enough for hanging anything was completely unrealistic. Just a complete miscalculation which I cannot account for.

Trim - This is where the focus is this week---getting all the trim up. I'm adding two items to the baseboard throughout the house. My dad found a nice little chair rail-type piece to top off the baseboard, which gives it a lot more charm and elegance. Plus, I'm adding a shoe mould to the bottom of the base.

Any missing chunks of baseboard need to be replaced. And, I am adding crown mould to the tops of all the windows and doorways and to the ceiling.

Walls - For the most part, the walls and ceilings are patched up and textured in every room. We do need to troubleshoot some areas, where bubbles have formed in the top layer of the sheetrock or the wall isn't as smooth or level as it should be

Painting - The painting was supposed to start today, but we started on the door/window moulding instead, so it will likely start tomorrow, which is fine because I picked up my paint selections only today after tons of hand-wringing.

Fireplace and mantel - still gathering the materials for this.