Computer room

Scott came up to visit again this weekend and knowing that his arrival was eminent, I spent my Friday "vacation day" preparing the guest room for his arrival. I primed the newly repaired areas of the guest bedroom, computer room and master bedroom, all except for one wall that I need to do some serious sanding of, which I keep putting off because of the dust it will generate.

We also purchased a small Weber charcoal grill, which Eric assembled during the week.

After the primer dried, I used Edgelock blue painters tape on the top edge of the walls, right along the seam of the ceiling, to give a clean and easy border to the paint. I'm not entirely stressed if we do get the paint there entirely perfect, since we will eventually be putting up crown moulding, but this will give an added visual interest until that time. (note: final edges turned out amazing.)

Then I went through and put a first coat of color over all the primed areas, to bring it to a state that matched the already painted walls. At this point, we decided that was good enough to hang curtains so there will be privacy for our guests. We reused drapes from our condo in the master bedroom and they went perfectly with the wall color. We only had to buy one additional panel for the dormer window, which at some point I'll need to ask my sewing-savvy friends to help me hem.

I will be going back with a final pass of paint in the next few weeks to even out the color and make everything perfect. We determined that the time would be better served by finishing the paint on the computer room, which would allow us to move the computers OUT of the guest room, allowing for more room to work when I get to the final coat of paint.

The computer room followed a similar process: prime, tape, first coat color, then final smooth coat for a clean finish. After that and a bit too much retail therapy at Target to purchase the curtain rods and grey-and-white patterned curtains for the computer room. I hung all the curtain rods, because I like using power tools :)

Do not think that I did all the projects this weekend, because that is far from accurate. You get to hear about mine mostly because I'm writing the blog post, but the truth of the matter is that my projects were easy compared to the guys' task. They were on demolition duty with the master bathroom broken linoleum tiles that mostly covered the floor. It took two of them about 4 hours to chisel out that flooring. EIGHT HOURS to remove that floor! Then if that wasn't enough, they got to schlep all the computer stuff downstairs after vacuuming, mopping, then vacuuming again when I made a mess drilling the holes for the curtain rods.

I don't have a great 'before' shot, but this shows where the tiles were damaged and missing right by the tub.

These tiles do NOT come up easy, but rather in teeny tiny bits that need to be chiseled away.

we hate you tile.

the subfloor revealed.

Mission accomplished!

The drywall guys used paper floor covers instead of plastic or canvas. Since I have a roll of kraft paper always on hand, I decided to mimic them.

priming the drywall

more primer over the patches

I forgot to get an in-progress paint shot of the computer room, but this is the reveal after removing the paint. I'm really itching to get the trim around the doors painted a crisp white, but I need to give the freshly painted walls some time to cure before I start putting tape on them.

It is surprisingly difficult to find decent angles to photograph in this room without a wide-angle lens, but I love the added depth and detail the white edge at the top of the wall gives the room. 

drilling the pilot holes. The instructions came with awesome templates for perfectly positioned holes every time. 

I heart power tools. 

We interrupt your regularly scheduled broadcast to bring you this delicious zen. There is a smidgen of a chance that an obsessive artist lives here.

The curtains

I really like the square geometric pattern, which we carried through nicely in the square finials on the rods.

The final setup. This is only a temporary home for my computer, which will ultimately find a home in the art studio. 

The guest room curtains are hung. I'll take down the rod when I'm ready for the final pass of paint.

chillin' and grillin' spicy burgers as our reward for a job well done.