The Home Stretch

This week I made Home Depot / Lowes trips 50 and 51. My friend Jessica suggested I purchase something awesome on my 50th trip. If a new filter for my shop vac and some more trim is considered awesome then mission accomplished.

I did purchase some planter boxes for my deck this past week.

Saturday I started with the last of the grout. All of the tile around the mirror and sink needed grout. Unfortunately I also had to cut out some grout that got a lot of paint on it when the ceiling was being painted. The mirror worked out real well. Here are a few shots.

After the grout I moved onto the last of the trim. As expected there are a lot of weird conditions around some of the doors. I had to rip down several pieces of trim because there are several spots where a full piece will not fit. Trim is pretty easy... but filling and sanding all of the nail holes is a pain in the ass. Then you have to wipe all the dust off and vacuum before you can paint. The bedroom and all of its trim is done. The last thing I had to do was put the access panels in.

All of the trim has been installed and filled in the rest of the space. I need to let the wood filler dry before I can sand and paint. Next I painted the wall adjacent to the stairs. This is the one wall that is not white. It is a light gray. I guess gray is the color theme of the project. I like to think I'm a good painter... which I'm not. So I usually don't tape. I didn't tape any of the walls in the living room and looking back I'm not sure how I got them so straight. I was off to a bad start with this wall so I decided to tape this one intersection. I painted the wall and all the edges. Mostly without tape. It came out pretty well. I go to pull off the tape and it pulls up the paint below it. This paint has been on the wall for 3 days. I'm not sure how or why this happened. Here are a few shots.

I guess I'll have to sand this paint off so that I get a clean transition when I try to repaint.

Lastly I started to install some of the cover plates. You would think that would be easy... but when you are close to the end, nothing is easy.

I'm not sure if the boxes were installed too far into the wall or the drywall was set too far out... or both. About 1/3 of the cover plates will not fit. I have to pull the receptacle out about 1/4". I tried to do this and got a nice shock... I decided I was done for the day. Next time I will be sure to turn the power off before I touch the receptacles.

Substantial completion.