Back Room Finishing Touches

Mornin! It's Friday!

(Ooops! This was supposed to be posted Friday, May 10, but I guess I forgot! Here it is now!)

This week I did a lot of finishing work, mostly in the back room. I extended the white semi-gloss paint over all the windows so they look to be the same height as the doors.

I trimed 5 of the bamboo blinds with the big miter saw.  I had a bit of a mishap, when I didn't remove the liner from the blind and the saw blade caught in it! Whew! That was a scare!  I hadn't thought the liner would be in the way, but it was, so I removed it and finished cutting. A few slats were broken, but they are hidden by the top curtain. 

I also finished the blind liners.

I had material I got in Cobourg, ON (where HH's sister lives) many years ago. We used it to drape over a cedar bench HH built that we used in our living room for a love-seat.  Now that I've gotten a couple "new" chairs, we put the bench outside w/o it's cloth cover!  Anyway, I had this material that I thought would be great for a blind liner. I'd already sewn 2 liners, and had  6 more to go. I ended up just cutting the fabric to fit with no hemming! I figure, it looks fine as is and won't be washed much (or ever ;-)) so it's good to go! 

I sewed the liners on with 3 stitches at the top and 2 at the bottom.  I had to do one over b/c I did it with the liner on the outside. And another, for the back door, b/c I attached it too tight and the blind wouldn't go all the way down. This was quite a disappointment b/c I had trimmed the top a good 6 inches and it was too short. Luckily, the bottom was hemmed with quite a large foldover, so I undid the hem (while watching "Glee") and re-attached it.

As I put each blind back up, I hotglued the window treatment to the drywall screws that hold up the blinds. Still not exactly sure how I'll finish those up... I'll probably just leave them as is for a while. :-)

Now, I have one more window to finish and the side door. I have enough material to sew together a liner for the window, but then I'm out of fabric for the door.  I went looking in my fabric bin and found the curtain with the people on it, that matches the window treatments. I temporarily hung it on the door. Here's how it looks from the outside.  

It's an ok look, b/c this door is in the breezeway, and is different.

I have 2 curtain panels so I tried the other on the back door. (If I used this on the back door, I could take the liner from it and use it on the last window, instead of using 2 pieces of fabric sewn together with a vertical seam running down the middle.) Here's how it looks.

I'm not sure I like it... Here's a pic with the plain liner.

Yeah, I think I like this one.   I do enjoy having the liner on the side door.  Before, I'd have to hang my bathrobe over the door at night to block the outside light when I was going to sleep!

Another project I worked on this week, was the baseboards for the back room.  I'd bought 1x6's a few months ago and finally got around to finishing them.  I read about coping, and realized with just using straight boards, I wouldn't have to miter cut them at a 45deg angle. I could just butt them up against each other.  So, I did. I still need to actually attach them to the wall and caulk....

 I don't like using the big saw to cut angles like that.  By not doing the corners I would only have to cut 5 angles to go against the doors. (I already had one cut for the side door for a total of 6.), instead of  13!  

Once I got all the boards cut and set off the fire alarm from the hot smoking wood! I lined them all up in the front room

  and primed with the BIN shellac primer.

Then, after 45 minutes, I painted them semi-gloss white and put them where they're supposed to go. Here's one by the back door with the angle cut.

I can go ahead and attach 6 boards and do the caulking.  But I have to leave 3 to finish later.  One on the right of the side door b/c it still needs to be leveled. And 2 on the wall to the kitchen b/c we need to widen out the doorway there.  I also notice when looking at the pic above, I need to find a little piece of molding to go under the back door. :-)

Oh, and one more thing! I finished painting DS's door! Yay! I feel like this was a pretty busy week with a lot of little projects. HH is working on the front room (our bedroom) so hopefully when that's done and DD's room is done we can just move our living room into the finished back room. 

Here's what still needs to be done:

1. Attach baseboards, 
2. Caulk baseboards
3. Attach moulding under back door.
4. Level, square up side door.
5. Attach trim to side door (after #3)
6. Widen doorway to kitchen (probably way in future)
7. Touch-up paint on floor
8. Eventually install crown moulding

Um, I think that's it.  Well, the chair also needs to be re-covered, but I think that's it!! :-)