Week 20, or “The One where I write big checks to sub-contractors”

 

Nursery = DONE!

Now, by “done”, I mean that it has 4 sheetrocked walls, refinished hardwood floors, closets that can hold clothing, wires that are in the wall, and no lead paint. “Done” does not mean that it has furniture.

A little history on the nursery: when we moved in, the house was divided into 2 apartments and this room was our master bedroom. Here's a shot of the day we first saw it:

So, a few things you can notice here – the floors needed to be re-done. The electric boxes are on the outside of the baseboard, as opposed to being inside the wall. You probably can't tell, but the walls are plaster- not a bad thing, but they weren't in great condition.  And here's the scariest part:

What you're looking at here is the HUGE crack in the ceiling where the plaster had separated from the lathe. Just what you want to sleep underneath, right?

So, pretty much the first project we undertook in the new house was having this ceiling removed and replaced with drywall. Of course, the drywallers royally screwed up the floors, which then REALLY needed to be refinished, but we were out of money, so we compromised and basically had them cleaned really well by a company called “Mr. Sandless”. More on that another time, basically it's not worth your money. We also re-tiled a fireplace because the old tile was broken and gross.

Here's the fireplace side of the room:

After demo, before shiny new tile

After!

The rest of the room..... not so "shiny"

Not the greatest picture, but ya know. This was after we'd done the big renovation and were using this room as storage. Also, I'm noticing that we never painted above the window trim. Psh, details.

So, fast forward a couple years: that room sits, pretty well unused except to hold random stuff, until we find out we're preggers. We wanted to get this room as “done” as possible so that Aardvark wouldn't have to be uprooted someday so we could re-do floors or walls. We hired our contractor to remove all the moldings and install sheetrock over the plaster. We considered ripping all the plaster out and insulating the walls, but decided against it for a couple reasons – first, the horrible mess that is plaster demolition, and second, the fact that this room stays warm in the winter and cool in the summer on its own. While he was at it, we had him install beadboard in the closets, move the electrical outlets up into the walls, and replace the baseboards. Once he was done, our favorite hardwood repair company came in and refinished the floors. Russell painted the walls "Sea Mist Green" - we don't know the gender yet, so we figured this could go either way.

Here's the final result:

Looking into a closet - hard to tell, but that's beadboard on the walls

All of the original woodwork went back up seamlessly

By the way, if you're wondering why that door isn't painted white: That poor little door is the ONLY one that has been left unpainted in our house's 110 years. I know it doesn't match, but I just couldn't take white paint to that beautiful finish. Someday, I'll have the time (and patience and arm muscles) to refinish all the other doors to match this one. :)

Oh, beautiful hardwood floors. I love you so. 

I am in LOVE with these floors. Don't let anyone tell you your hardwood floors are too far gone - these are 110 years old and look how stunning they are!

So, now we are on to actually putting furniture into the room. We're thinking a crib, dresser which we'll use as a changing table, glider for late night rocking, and some kind of toy storage.