A Not-So-Dramatic Makeover

So it’s been a bit, and what I’m about to write about is old.

After we finished the bedroom, it might have been a good time to stop working for the holidays. But I was thinking about the unfinished state of the linen closet. I wanted to do it twice before, but life (as in mad rushes to move roommates in) kept getting in the way.

We had a spare bookcase after the new ones were built, so this was our chance to put the linens somewhere else. (Also, sneak peak at our almost-ready home office as it appeared in November)

So, it was an interesting job. This closet is original to the house, so nothing inside it is anywhere close to flat or square. When I built the shelves, there were awkward gaps around everything, and I had no choice but to make even worse awkward gaps around the casing. Also, small bits of plaster would fall out from these gaps on occasion.

Massive amounts of caulk, and some left-over epoxy wood filler where the old door strike was, made it all presentable. Well, presentable enough for the inside of a closet.

But working on the closet got me looking at the rest of the hall. The walls were just primed, there were carpenter pencil marks everywhere, half the woodwork was painted and the other half was only primed. Really not a good look.

The plaster around the closet door cracked when the Irishman installed the woodwork. I gouged out the cracks (no they weren’t nearly this bad) and patched them with flexible spackle, so we’ll see how that lasts.

And maybe the worst part, I got blue paint from the bedroom woodwork outside the lines. Just in case the transition from the most finished to least finished space in the house wasn’t abrupt enough.

And how’s it look now? Well, we painted it all white. You have to trust me that it looks good because you probably won’t see a difference in this picture.

Does this mean we’re done? No. The banister is unfinished, there edges of the brick wall have gaps that I still plan on mortaring shut eventually, and the rigid downrods on the IKEA ceiling lights don’t work so well with a crooked ceiling. Also they’re big and we’ve smacked things into them a few too many times. But at least most of the room is finished now!