Now I see the progress

I've done a bit of work on the Lily in the last few days. I've wallpapered the 2nd floor bedroom and the living room. They turned out nicely. The first picture shows the bedroom. It's a nice pink colour. The second picture shows a picture of the living room walls. You can see the foyer through the archway in the far wall.











I decided to go ahead and put the last partition on the main floor. This was such a pain in the you know what. It's a wall with tabs, that is being placed where there is only room for the wall without the tabs. I had to use a hammer to slowly get it into place. It really mucked up my floor. Times like this make me thankful that I decided not to stain the floors and put the floor in later.











Now my foyer is closed in and I can only do work on it from the front door. Which is kind of tight. I'm glad I put the ceiling paper on prior to adding the last wall. I do have one small part to wallpaper still but that won't be a problem. I have to put flooring down, trim at the ceiling and baseboard, and put in the window. Then the foyer will be done. For some reason there is a little gap where the stair meets the floor but it doesn't seem to be putting any other walls/floors off, so once I put baseboard it will be covered up. It's really moving along now......

Moving Right Along

Hi everyone! Well I was feeling a little better today and decided to work on the Lily for a while.

I finally finished the second staircase....man that thing gave me so much trouble. Nothing seemed to fit properly. Thankfully you really don't see the stairs of this staircase. You mainly see the back and side. Not that it doesn't look good, but if there are any imperfections, you won't really see them. I really like the built in shelves in the back of the second floor staircase.


I put in a partition on the main floor between the foyer and the living room. It gave me a bit of trouble getting it in the slots but it looks great now. It's starting to look like a house.


I got up the courage to wallpaper today. Because the foyer will be closed in soon, I have to complete that room before I can move onto the rest of the house. I had to first make sure that all the windows were painted inside and out. This house (unlike other houses) the windows are set on the outside of the wood. Other houses, the windows are set inside the window frame. This means that the wood would show through the window, so I had to make sure that all the wood was painted in the window frames.



Then I wallpapered the foyer......there still is another wall to close in the foyer but I am going to paper it before it goes in, and make sure that the whole foyer is done before I do that. I like how it turned out.


While I was on a roll, I decided to wallpaper the second floor hallway. It was a big space, and I needed to match up some areas which I found challenging......(wallpapering is NOT my thing...LOL) I eventually got it done, and I like how it looks. I can hardly see the seam.


I've been painting the stairs to prepare them to put in the house. I've nicknamed them the straw, 'cause they just suck up all the paint. It's going to take many many coats of paint. See you all tomorrow :)

Building Error puts stop to construction......

Ok, maybe the post title is a little dramatic, but there was a small error. The second staircase has a built in shelf on the back of it (one of my favourite things about this house), and I put the shelving part together last night.

Today when I did a dry fit of the shelving to the stair sides, the back of the shelves were too high, which would cause a problem fitting my risers and treads (as you can see from the 2nd picture).

I figured that this was a simple fix, just need to sand it down. After all, this wood breaks if you touch it right ?!?! So it should sand down easily. Well, let me tell you....there was cursing. I used my dremel first, that barely took down any of the wood, then I got out my bigger electric sander, and that did not work either.....Suddenly this became the strongest wood ever known to man. I ended up having to cut it down a little at a time with a sharp exacto blade, and even that was a struggle....But I am happy to say that I finally got the wood level, and my tread will not sit flush on the riser.

However, that being said, the stairs are still not together. I've got to wait for the glue to dry before I can start gluing in the risers and treads.

I did prime the house though, and that is one of those things that I hate to do so I am glad it is now out of the way.

Stairs

Well, today I decided to tackle the job of putting the stairs together. There are two sets of stairs in the house, from the first floor to the second floor and the second floor to the third floor. Seems simple enough, BUT...I have been doing some reading online and have read many horror stories about the stairs. Knowing that I can't really proceed until the stairs are in, I can't put it off.....I tried stalling. Noticed there were some gaps here and there and decided to do some spackling. I love the spackle that I have. It's called DryDex and it goes on pink. Then when it's white, it's ready for sanding and painting. I mostly love it because it's pink.........


.........anyway, the stairs. So I started punching out the pieces for the stairs, and of course they are not all on the same sheet.....they are all over the place. I felt like I was on a treasure hunt, I've never been so excited to find a piece of wood, but honestly it's like an Easter egg hunt. Did I mention before how horrible the wood is....well actually most of the wood for the stairs was in good shape, except the risers. They were bad. Here you can see how splintery it is.


Putting the stairs together is time consuming and you have to try to keep it square while doing it. While it was drying I placed it in the house where it should sit. I figure that ought to keep it square enough.


After lots of sanding and gluing and taping and waiting, the first set of stairs are done. This literally took me hours....and it was not even a fraction of how bad I thought it was going to be.


My plan was to start on the second set, but as I was punching out a riser, a splinter of wood hit me in the eye. That kinda killed the mood......until next time.