An Update! (Life, mostly DIY remodeling and college)

HELLO, I’m still alive, just not very active – as you can see! Still, I do read y’all’s blogs every now and then, and I’m still alive, if eaten up by college and a lack of interest in beauty products (it’s still there… it just comes in phases).
That being said, for anyone who remembers me and is interested in what’s been happening, here’s a post for you!

I’m still working on my room. I know, right? A two week project stretched out for 8 more months. Insanity. Last time I updated you guys, I had just put the drywall up in my room. There was still a ton left to do – and here it is now!

(hint hint I’m nearly done)

I finished chiseling out the door and patched in drywall there. Then I mudded all of the joints and skim coated the walls. This took forever – at least two weeks. You water down joint compound, trowel and feather it onto the walls, then go back and sand it smooth. Then you clean it, and start on another layer. Rinse and repeat until I had probably 18 layers on the irremovable glue areas, and I wish that was an exaggeration!

Over the course of around 800 years…

You thought I was joking when I said 18 layers? I wasn’t. This wasn’t even my final form the final layer, I did a few more.

I even did the closet, because why not.

Although the glue didn’t entirely disappear, I’d say that the skim coating kind of faded them – like turning the opacity on a layer down from 100% to 40%. It’s still there, but it doesn’t jump out at you like it used to!

Primed and painted all the walls. Including the closet! This was quick work and only took me over a day.

I don’t think I took any pictures that captured the color right…

This is the actual shade and this is exactly what it looks like on the walls! A blue-toned baby pink. It’s definitely not white, but it’s not too in-your-face, either.

Here were the contenders for the closet!

I went with the jade. I did another coat all over and touched up several areas after this.

Alright, you may have noticed – my floor is crooked as hell. It always has been, with deep areas and an overall skew to the floor. I wanted it just a bit flatter so I didn’t have to keep shoving things under furniture so they didn’t fall over when my room was done. So I put down a few layers of underlayment, screwed right into the subfloor, ripped up so I could layer it more heavily in the deeper areas to help level things out a bit. This took about two days and I took a few week’s break afterwards.

Here’s the first layer!

All my layers down (up to 4 in some areas) with the concrete starting to be poured (see below). And also, a slightly truer to life picture of my walls.

Then I poured concrete over the whole thing just to make it smooth enough for the actual floor to go down. I didn’t do a pro job and there was some cracking after I got the real flooring down, but as it was just a spacer, it wasn’t a big deal. This was a surprisingly quick job and I finished it overnight. I don’t think I took any pictures of it. 😦 Then I screwed down a layer of underlayment to make things perfectly smooth.

Supplies not shown: drill, screws, Southern Gospel music.

Then came the long break, as I needed my mother’s help with this and we were both in college full time.

Thennn with the help of my mom and aunt, I cut up a bunch of pieces of plywood, sanded them, and nailed them into the subfloor. Then I whitewashed them in my room, stained them with some deep purple paint in the closet, and rolled three layers of polycrylic on them. The wood cutting took a few days, the actual painting process took a day, poly took about four days, and then I was supposed to let it cure for about two weeks. I think it took closer to three months before I got back to work in my room. And I didn’t take a single picture of the process. I know, my blogging rights should be revoked. 😦 Here are some pictures I took later.

There’s a layer of sawdust on everything, but you get the picture for the closet floor, right? A deep, muted plum stain.

It doesn’t look this crummy in real life, but here’s some of the main room floor I was working on. Way more grey/white in real life.

I  started making my trim. I just used a bunch of 1x2s and 1x3s (and another one, which I forgot because I lost the paper that had all the measurements hahaha), cut them up with my miter saw, and nailed and screwed them into the studs. This took over a week? I worked on it off and on.

I didn’t go for the mitered corners since it’s not my thing – I like the clean, modernist vibe this has.

Then I went back in and became a wood filler and caulk machine. My floors and walls were still so uneven that I had giant gaps in some areas, so whatever I couldn’t fix with a slim piece of wood –

Score. Had an almost exact 1″ gap here… which I fixed by gently hammering in a 1×2. Seamless enough and keeps out the cold!

– I fixed with liquid insulation and/or caulk.

I cut away the excess with a utility knife and then smoothed it out with, you guessed it, wood filler.

The gaps in the wall were this nutty, yes.

We’re only on layer 20 here.

At this point, I felt like Red Green with his duct tape, only instead of duct tape (clearly it was a missed opportunity), I had caulk. Layers and layers. And a few more layers.

And lots of crummy Western movies to keep me occupied in the background as I told myself “if it can’t be fixed with caulk and wood filler, it can’t be fixed at all”.

Westerns and Star Trek, naturally. Have to keep the morale up somehow.

I also installed some shelves and closet rods in my closet.

The chandelier’s just hanging out in there while it waits to be installed in the main bedroom. And ignore the layer of dust on everything. 😛 I swear I’ll take good “after” photos when it’s all done!

Then I painted all the trim and doors a nice, off the shelf semi-gloss white.

You can barely even tell how half-assed this was.

The silver slab to the right is the inside side of my closet door – the other side is a glossy white. (see below about closet)

I also filled the old closet door holes during my wood filler spree so I can add actual pulls to them. I can’t remember if I ever mentioned this, but I took out the sliding door hardware and rehung my doors with hinges and about half a dozen cabinet latches, so they open and close like normal doors.

I took a break, came back, and started working on my furniture. I also went ahead and replaced my window screen and cleaned my window with all my might. I touched it up with a bit of paint too, because why the hell not. I still think this was one of the funner things – right after insulating the walls and cutting and installing the trim.

Dirty side…

… Clean side!

Y’all don’t know how happy I am with my clean windows.

The frame and a fairly accurate picture of my flooring! (The other side of the frame was painted white)

Replacing the window screen is a pretty simple DIY. Here’s a tutorial: http://www.realsimple.com/home-organizing/home-improvement/do-it-yourself-save-big/replace-torn-window-screen All I used was a spline, a flat-headed screwdriver, a new screen, a butter knife, and a pair of everyday scissors. The final edge of the spline wouldn’t stay in, so I glued it in place before I installed the frame.

Done!! I can actually enjoy the view now. 🙂

Aaaaand I’m STILL working on painting my furniture. I’ve got two weeks left before my next term. I just put primer on the body of the dresser and finished putting polycrylic on the drawers, so it’s safe to say that my dresser will be done before I start my next term, at least! I’ll make a before/after furniture redo post when I’m all done.

I also removed the seat and upholstery from my stool and two chairs. I’m going to reupholster them as soon as I grab some foam, so that should be done before my term starts, too.

Trump isn’t addressing the real problems the average American faces – like homeless people breaking into your home and reupholstering your furniture.

Still, I did get a fair amount done, even though it really should have only taken two months instead of eight, heheh. So here’s what’s left!

• Paint the body of the dresser and poly it.
• Sand off the top I put on the desk and repaint and poly it.
• Install the new light fixtures. Actually read how to do this myself so I wouldn’t have
• to rely on my mom so much, but she’s still going to oversee it – have to wait until
• she’s out of college next week though.
• Paint the chair and poly it.
• Touch up the stool a bit.
• Cut a new seat for the fold-up chair (it was split, but the chair was only $4 and I have leftover plywood and a jigsaw, so it was a nice buy!).
• Reupholster the two chairs and stool. Already have the material for this. Just need to sew the welt cord and get the foam.
• Touch up a few areas of the floor and walls that got dinged or painted.
• Touch up the ceiling while I’m at it! I still haven’t gotten around to that, haha.
• Install the roller shade and sew up my curtains. Real quick, easy peasy stuff that shouldn’t take me more than a few hours. But since I’d rather not clean sawdust off of freshly-hung curtains, I’ve been saving this for last.
• Finally, cut up the wood and build my bed. Then prime and paint it. This definitely won’t get done until after my next term starts – the rest could all be done beforehand if I’m ambitious enough, but this will be too intensive of a project.

So since I’ve taken over most of the family duties due to my parents working and being in college, and my own term starts in just two weeks, I can’t say how much I’ll get done. But it’s been fun, and I’m glad I went this route rather than just tolerating my room as it was before.
Before

My room aka the storage room.

Right now

The silver slab to the right is the inside side of my closet door – the other side is a glossy white.

It’s been a heck of a learning experience! Not just in the usual learning how to actually remodel a room, but in terms of how to budget for expenses (and curb expenses period), how to keep motivated and keep yourself disciplined (which actually helped me out in college quite a bit haha), and how to actually judge my own style. My closet was an experiment – jade walls, purple floors, and silver trim can’t be called anything else. I was testing to see how bold I could go and still like it, since my favourite colours are pastels, and I ended up loving it. I love the baby pink walls and glossy white trim paired with the driftwood-y grey floors. I was worried my love of whitewashed, driftwood floors was just a result of being trendy, but I’ve loved the look since I was young, so I think it’s safe! I’m really digging my room, and I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel, so I’m feeling awwwriiight.

College has been fun too! I took Composition I, Principles of Accounting I, Macroeconomics, and Astronomy. I ended up loving macroeconomics and astronomy and looked forward to whenever I had to study for them or have assignments due, so I’ll probably throw in similar classes later on when I see I have a particularly tough/stressful courseload. I’m actually looking forward to starting back in two weeks with a strong accounting courseload.

So yes! Aside from the everyday stuff of finances and doing chores, that’s been my life lately. I’ve still been looking at makeup goodies, and ordered a few Besame goods for Christmas/my birthday, but for the most part I just like to ogle rather than own nowadays. (Although those Bite beauty double ended holiday lipsticks are adorable or what??)

How the hell have you all been?! 😀