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All The Trimmings

At 26 days into the master closet renovation we were feeling pretty good about the progress we’d made, but  we couldn’t slow down now because there were only 11 days left (minus 3 days we were out of town so really 8 days) until my parents showed up!  Are we gonna make it?!?  Time for Mace to break out his power tools and for me to get out the paint rollers.  Here’s what we had to do:

  1. Build the closet frame (or door jamb)

  2. Add casing (or trim) around the frame

  3. Prime the walls (1 coat)

  4. Prep windows for paint

  5. Build and install box around baseboard heater water lines

  6. Replace round ceiling vent with square vent

  7. Paint the room walls (2 coats)

  8. Paint the closet walls (2 coats)

  9. Paint all the trim (2 coats)

  10. Hang crown molding

Earlier in the project I had been able paint the ceiling (I was constantly after Mace about wanting to paint because of the dry time between coats) but thought I’d share an action shot.  A fresh white ceiling can make such a difference in making a space feel updated. Mace also did wall repair from those beautiful, original curtains.


ceiling paint 2

Since you can’t build something out of nothing off to the store we went to get materials and painting supplies.


crown and molding supplies

Here’s a shot of Mace prepping the frame wood for paint and cutting it to size.


Preppring the frame 1

While he was doing that I was priming the walls where any repairs or new drywall was hung and there were also some heat marks on the wall above the baseboard heater so I hit those too (you can see the old drapery repairs spots around the windows).


priming walls 3

priming walls 5

In an effort to make my life easier I got one coat of paint on the frame before it got installed. I set-up a make shift paint studio in the basement (no paint on the carpet!) and also stained and polyed the new shoe molding for the closet.


Painting frame 2

painting frame 3

The next day we tackled building the frame.  Because the opening of the closet is so big the frame had to be built in the room. And Mace got to use his new nail gun again (his selling point for the purchase was that he’d use this tool all the time).


Building frame 1

building frame 2

And here we are installing the frame, it was a 2 person job and there was lots of figuring, shimming, and making things level before it got nailed in place. This task is not quite as easy as setting it up and nailing in place!


Setting frame 1

I mean you know its hard work when the shirt comes off!!! (note the shims and level in hand)


setting frame 4

Once I was released from my assistant duties it was back to priming the walls.


Priming walls 1

And at the end of the night this is what we had.


Installed frame

I mentioned before we’re changing all of the vents in the house from round to square. Easy right, just switch the vent out? That’s what I thought but not quite so simple. You have to get a new transition boot that the square vent can attach to (the existing one is round). Takes some time to make that change and then you also have to make sure when you make the ceiling hole a square shape that is it also square to the room and not at a weird angle. It also means your cuts need precision otherwise you’ll be spending a lot of time patching the ceiling (which we did NOT have to do). Everything takes longer than you think but here’s our prep work for the vent (you can see the square boot that channels the air into the room in the pic).


Light change and new vent

Next we were onto adding the casing to the closet opening.  Nothing like making precision cuts in the dark (all went smoothly)!!


cutting trim 3

Then installing and filling in the joints (also sanded before I painted).


Installing trim 2

Installing trim 1

Nice sharp miter joints (devil’s in the details)!


installing trim 3

And now we had a cased opening. Still needed to add the new base molding in and around the closet.


Installed casing

Here is the box we made to put around the baseboard water line. And based on the blue tape I’m sure you can guess what I was up to!!


Box over hot water pipe

Yup I had started painting the trim!


Painting Trim

I got 2 coats of the wall color around the top of the room before the crown was installed so I didn’t have to do as much cut in painting later. It was amazing to finally get some color in the room! I painted out the closet too and decided not to go with white and do something with a hint of color but still neutral. And we got the new vent in, I was so excited at how much better it blended into the ceiling!


Prepping walls for crown 3

Mace also got the windows prepped for paint.  They needed to be caulked and have the holes filled and sanded from previous window treatments.


Prepping windows for paint

The first coat of paint went on the crown before it got installed, its easier and faster to paint it like this than when its on the walls (I think the Giants were playing that day).


Painting crown molding 1

Now on to the crown install!! Mace had done crown maybe once or twice before but this time he wanted to try installing it using a different method for cutting the angles. We get the first piece up no problem (note he was able to use the nail gun for this project too, haha!).


Hanging crown 1

I couldn’t wait to get the walls painted after seeing how the color popped against the crown!


hanging crown 2

On to piece number two!! Well we didn’t get as far that night as we hoped. There was something off with the angle Mace cut using the new method (I might have been annoyed he didn’t do it the way he was familiar with).  Fortunately Mace’s friend John is a fantastic carpenter and was so nice to come by and help us figure out the angle issue. That first joint wasn’t perfect (which really annoyed Mace) but now he’s refined this skill and wants to tackling more crown in the future.


hanging crown 4

Once he filled it in with bondo and we painted it you can’t tell (below pic isn’t painted yet).


hanging crown 10

All the other corners were spot on with the angles.


hanging crown 3

Here are some pics of John and Mace working together on the last piece of crown. With this installation method the last piece has to be cut in the middle and then you fill in the joint with bondo and it looks seamless.


hanging crown 6

hanging crown 7

Needless to say after the crown was up I had paint roller in hand to finish the first coat on the wall that night (its not even dry in this pic)!!


Finished crown and pain

All the nail holes had to be filled and sanded and both the top and bottom of the crown caulked.  Second coats of paint and touch ups around the room were needed (we wanted to get it ALL done before we moved in) but now we could see the finish line.


Painting crown

And I was super excited because the organizer had arrived in time to be installed (when I placed the order it said it would arrive later than we planned). Two days left!


Mace Pics 831
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