House Renovations: Week 8

Two months ago today we closed on the house!

In a way, it has flown by and in a way, I can’t believe we are just getting to the painting part.  But, looking back at the before pics, I know we’ve come a long way, baby.

We are making some big progress now!  And I’m happy to say that this week the wall painting has begun.   Yippee!  Couldn’t wait to get to this point.  We will still have a long ways to go with hardwood floors and the kitchen, but this is a milestone for sure.

Let’s take a look at what all was accomplished last week.

My helper guys, Andrew and Carter, came back to take care of the staples left behind from the old hardwoods that were ripped out.  We figured out that hammering them down would be much less time-consuming than pulling them all out.  That was going to be a tough one, so we opted for smashing them flat and it should work out fine when we put in the new floors.

Dad and I started the board and batten coming in the foyer and going up the main stairs.  We started with the 6” flat 1/2” MDF boards, just like we did in the dining room.  Once he figured out the angle, things went pretty well.

My daddy is still a sharp guy and even if it takes him awhile to figure out the math stuff, he eventually gets  it.  If it was up to me to figure out angles and math…well, let’s just stay we’d still be there looking at the walls.  Math is not my strong suit.   So, he got the right angle going on bringing up the board from the foyer to the top of the stairs.

Bringing both pieces together right at the top of the baseboard where the top stairs meet, the top peak had to be cut.

So, he drew a straight line across it and took it off to saw that point off.  Show you that in a minute.

ln the meantime, I primed the walls so that the blue would be easier to cover with  my trim paint.  Dad started figuring the angles for the battens which will be spaced up the walls. This little gadget (that I can’t remember the name of…an angle something) is adjustable so that an angle can be saved and transferred to the board to be cut.

Like this.  He placed that handy gadget on the batten and drew a line for the miter saw to cut.

A pencil comes in handy.

Some of our boards didn’t hit studs (which my dad totally didn’t like, but had to deal with), so those were glued and nailed in with my handy dandy nailgun.  Dad says, go get your shotgun.  I can tell he really is glad I got that nailgun now, this project went twice as fast with it than without.

We worked up the stair side too, taking that top board up the stairs and down the hallway.  Those angled boards were the hardest to cut, but once he got it, we were rockin’ and rollin’ along.

See all our battens in place?

Mom was there too cleaning up.  She’s the BEST clean up gal around.  That woman knows how to clean up a place.  She really got the floors all swept and vacuumed, ready for painting walls.  We had to get a big head dustmop to dust off the walls for paint since so much dust has been kicked up all over the house.

Board and batten in the hallway.

Now we are working down the stairs on those angled boards. Dad is holding up his level to make sure the battens are level going down.

Once we got one to fit, we cut the rest exactly the same.  That was a total time saver to cut 3 at once and get them nailed in.

One by one, Dad held them in place and I nailed them in with the nailgun .  POW!  I love that sound.  For the most part, we hit studs and only had to glue a couple of them.

It was great to see these all go in place and to get the final one set.  Someone mentioned power tools and YES, we have them all. Power miter saw, table saw, and my handy nailgun with my dad’s compressor.  We’ve got the power and couldn’t get this job done without those tools.

Almost done here.

Back to that door I’m repairing, I added wood putty after gluing these loose strips with wood glue and after that dried, I sanded it down smooth.  It should be smooth enough after one more sanding to paint.

Back to the board and batten, this is where the seams come together on those 2 long boards.  I caulked the seams and that is where the top point was cut off that I showed you above.  That should help show you how that part came together.  I chose a simple shoe molding to trim out the top of this and give it a finished look.  That’s all it needs.

The angle was a little trickier on this part, but my Dad got it done too.  He’s so smart and I’m so proud of him for using his noggin’ and figuring all that stuff out.  Math.  If I can’t do it on a calculator, I’m sunk.

I shot all this in with the nailgun and it’s ready for caulking and painting.   Can I just say, caulking is one of those tedious projects that is not much fun, but SO necessary.  Totally true.  If you don’t caulk your work, it will not look finished, so it is time-consuming, but such an important part of a project like this.  So, caulk that wood!

And yes, that wood trim around the front door will be painted white!  We have some work to do on the door frame.

All the battens in place now.  Also, a tip on working with MDF boards.  We cut all of these strips from a large sheet of 1/2″ MDF and let the guys at Home Depot cut it for us.  Total time saver.  Once the edges are cut, it really helps to take a sanding block and sand down the edges, it just makes them smoother and they will take primer and paint better.  Doing a project like this is very cost effective.  We used I think 3 or 4 sheets for all of this board and batten (dining room and foyer/stairs/hallway) and each sheet is less than $25.

Up the stairs is ready to caulk too.

Dad went on to the next job, cutting in the wall paint that we will start this week.  Yippee, I can hardly wait to get all the walls painted.  I chose Sherwin Williams Moderate White for my main color and it is going to be so light and airy and pretty.

Another shot of the board and batten looking down the stairs.

Around the light switch, we had to do a few more angles and dad did a great job with these as well.  I was very happy with it.

Caulking will hide all of the seams.

Here’s the caulk in place before I smoothed it out.  There is no easy way to work with caulk.  You are going to get your hands messy, no way around it.  Good thing is, it washes off pretty easy with soap and water.  This step makes ALL the difference in the final trim look.  I’ll show you that part later.

One coat of trim paint is up.  I forgot to take a close up of the caulking.

One coat of trim paint on this part too.  I don’t think I’ve mentioned my plans for the stairs.  I have 16 stairs in the house and my plan is to add pine stair treads on top of the existing wood.  We’ll  buy 12′ lengths of stair tread and cut them to fit.  I’ll nail them in with my nail gun and caulk them.  We’ll also add some thin plywood boards for new risers and paint those white.  I will either stain the new pine treads to match my floors or if they don’t take the stain well, I’ll paint them black.  Just like I did in my AL house.  I loved how those turned out and adding new pine treads will be a lot less work than what I did before.  I will most likely add a runner to these stairs too. I’ll be on the lookout for the right one.

This is the view walking in the door.  I love this accent of board and batten coming it, it just adds a lot of architectural detail to the space.

When we placed that long slanted board going up the stairs, we looked at the placement visually standing from the top of the stairs coming in the front door to make sure it was lining up properly with the existing stair railing and it was dead on. We loved that part!

One coat of paint on the hallway.

Looking down to the front door.

And the living room.  Next time you see this room, the blue will be gone!  YAY!   You can see where my dad has already cut in around the windows with the new paint color.  I’m loving it already.  That’s the update from last week and this week is the start of painting ALL the walls.  We hope to get a lot of that done this week.

Look who stopped by for a little visit and house tour?  My friends, Layla and Kevin, were in Atlanta for a couple of days and came by to see me. It was SO great to see them, I just adore these two and can’t wait to hang out with them at Haven next week.

Here’s something else that I’ve been working on last week too.  I got the opportunity to try out a stain from Flood products on my back stairs.  I’d love for you to click over to my giveaway page and check it all out AND there’s a great giveaway going too and you can win a free gallon of stain for a staining project that YOU might have going on!  I’d love to share the bounty with you!

The winner of the Simply Cranberry giveaway is posted here!

Don't Miss a Post, join my list!