poplar road

When Richard ripped out, re-wired, and re-insulated the family and dining room walls he did the office as well, and added an interior wall to divide it from the family room, using the back of the fireplace as the line. (And using the fireplace mantle to store all his stuff.) This photo is from December 11th as we were finishing the dry-walling.

We also replaced two rotting original windows, one in the dining room, which we promptly finished in time for the holidays, the other the 5' x 10'3" single-paned window opposite the fireplace. The replacement had to be aluminum rather than wood, which meant it had to be in three panes instead of one as you can see below. It still needs caulking inside and out before Richard can do the trim.

After the holidays we primed and painted the office walls. We actually used a primer almost the same dark shade as the paint, and it still took two coats of each, with a third top coat on the main wall. We decided to hold off on the final coat on the walls shown, because that corner of drywall will have to be pulled down when we finally get the electrical upgrade later this year. It's also the reason Richard didn't immediately finish the trim around the windows – he wants to find a way to make them easy to remove for the upgrade without damaging them. I'm really looking forward to having the window sills, as are my plants. And yes, the walls are all a deep cranberry red.

All this month I've been eyeing the paint to finish the last two main tasks, the floor and the fireplace. The same paint, actually – I picked it for the fireplace first and we ended up using it on the family room/dining room floor. (It's decking paint, and has held up well so far considering we didn't exactly let it dry untouched for the 3 days recommended.) But the rough stone hearth, poorly covered with white paint and silicone by the previous owner, and then made extremely filthy, was a bit daunting. And, after doing the great room floor I wasn't so sure of my choice of "cardamom" brown. So I've been stalling.

Finally, on Friday I began with a bristle brush and a can of primer. I got most of it cleaned and then primed in white, but I wasn't confident about standing several rungs up on a ladder to reach the central portion near the ceiling, so I left that part for the weekend when Richard could help. I also wanted his opinion before starting the brown.

Instead of cleaning and priming the last bit for me, though, Richard invited the neighbour over to take a look at the thresher once he and Rob got it settled Sunday morning; and while Rob fed his newly acquired "24" addiction, Jonathan wired my office for phone, fax, and internet that afternoon. Thank heaven. I'd been paying for the second "data" line for months and we hadn't figured out how to connect it. Richard knew the electrical panel was in bad shape (for example, why is the power for my temporary office in the back connected to the entry hall light and not the rooms in between?!), but Jonathan taught him a little about the phone cabling, and it turns out there's a lot of redundant wiring there, too.

So the office cabling was done, and we added all the single and double covers for the sockets and jacks. The room looked better already! But there was still that patch over the fireplace, and rather than tackle it in the dim lighting, we settled onto the couch to start season one of "24" from the beginning. (Sharon and Pat, we thank you for the loan of the DVD, but now we're addicts! I can't handle the suspense, and this is no 2-hour movie. Once we figured out each "hour" was a few minutes short thanks to the commercial breaks, we figured down to the minute how many episodes we could watch before bedtime. Tonight I'm working on my blog because I can't go to bed yet, I'm far too wired!)

Luckily I had most of this week off work, having banked some extra hours the past two weeks. With Richard working long days at the office, I puttered around, caulking all the nail holes in the moldings around doors and windows, sanding, and painting with the white I used to finish the office door. (It's still on the sawhorses in the picture of the walls above.) But I couldn't wait forever for Richard to climb up and finish the fireplace section for me, even if we weren't enjoying our nightly "24" fix in front of the TV. So I hauled out the ladder and did it myself, and moved on to the cardamom paint yesterday afternoon.

From white to taffy brown, it was a bit more than I could visualize at first. I chose the colours for the room based on a couple of pastel drawings of mine that were based on Degas paintings. My first choice for the fireplace had been a smoky grey-blue, also in the drawings, but Richard vetoed that instantly. This brown was as close to the central colour in my images as I could go and still work with my pine and birch furniture. Next week (I hope), you'll see the result with the room mostly complete and our things moved in. Right now, after one coat of "cardamom" and poor light in there, it's hard to see if I made a good choice or not. We shall see. I can tell you I'm not looking forward to doing a second coat. Reaching out over empty space from 5 feet up a ladder isn't my favourite activity, and as I suspected, painting stone is nasty. I've scraped off far too much skin, for one thing.

But I'll get the second coat on the fireplace done tomorrow, and we'll caulk and trim the windows on Saturday. Should get the French door hung as well. Then every last tool, nail and rag comes out of there, and I prime and paint the floor. It's hard to be patient with paint that has to dry for 24 hours for the first coat, and 72 hours for the second, but once the bookcases go in, that floor had better be cured. We'll hardly see the walls for all the books. As with everywhere else, there will still be touch-ups to the ceiling, and other moldings that will have to wait a while; we need to find something to cover the space between the bricks of the fireplace and the edge of the drywall, for example. Moving in, however, is definitely on the horizon. I can hardly wait.