Sunday 28 June 2015

Installing the skirting boards for the boys rooms

I am loving the new skirting that I chose. They are larger than the ones in the existing house and more substantial and give a great richness to the room. It really feels like it is finished off with these on. Take a look:

 Some awesome scribing work in the internal corners by Dave here. He sure is great that this precise and fiddly work.
 Even did inside of the wardrobe in Sammy's room.
 Here it is in Andrew's room.

 The cornice was installed downstairs and I am sooo happy that I went with the more traditional cornice. It looks amazing and I can't wait to see how it will all look once it has all been painted.
Cornice in the dining room.
Cornice in the living room.
After dinner tonight, Dave put the architrave on the living room window downstairs. We had to make the top architrave a bit narrower because it would otherwise hit the cornice.
Adding some architrave on the largest window
 Then added architraves to the smallest windows next to the fireplace.


Meanwhile I had the task of emptying everything out of the roof storage space, down the attic ladder and sorting out what to keep and what to throw away.
Here is some of the throw away pile.
 Mainly baby things, which was pretty sad for me but needed to be done. I have keep a tub of things for each child of special items. I also took the vacuum up and cleaned up the roof. It was so filthy, but now feels much cleaner.

The hope is that as well as being cleaner up there, it will have less wait on the centre of the house which seems to be sinking a bit. We have to re-stump that area soon to reinforce it.

School holidays have started here so it will be bit crazy for the next 2.5 weeks.
Hooray!

Cheers,
Nat

Tuesday 23 June 2015

Trim and other happenings

Things are really moving along well at the moment and at times it is all hands on deck, like getting the undercoat done in Andrew's room.
The munchkins all helping out.
So his room is now undercoated once and looks all nice and fresh, see.
We had a lock down happening at one point on the weekend while the plasterer sanded the back area. We taped it all off with plastic drop sheets.
There certainly wasn't as much dust made this time. I think maybe last time they didn't use the vacuums on the sander so something.

So once that plaster was sanded, I added the final piece of the fireplace. The black surround.
Boy this thing is getting a great workout at the moment as these winter days get colder.

Dave was busy finishing off all of the bullnose window sills, included one in Andrew's room that had to be joined in the corner to meet up with the one next to it. Then w e also added the special scotia underneath to finish off the look.
Image result for ovolo
This is the shape of the scotia that we chose.

Arch on the two high windows

Where they had to join in Andrew's room

Andrew's room window sills.





We need to choose some moulding to go on the top of the archs like this:
CLASSICAL CRAFTSMAN HEADER MOLDING BUILDUP by WindsorONE, via Flickr

I see that Bunnings carries this which will work I think.
Image result for Porta Pine Moulding Clear Insert Mld 23x18mm 2.4m Ins2318 Loading zoom
Anyway I am sure that will be a bit tricky to do but luckily I have a very clever husband who loves doing bespoke work like this.

One thing that needed to be done next was to install the door jams and archs around the bedroom doors.
So we bought 3 door jam sets (one for the wardrobe too).
Door jam set

Putting the door jam together
 We nearly forgot about the block that we wanted at the bottom of the architraves. After seeing the price of pre-made baseblocks, we just made our own.
Our homemade base blocks

One base block installed and an example of our new skirting.
We need to order the skirting this weekend when the good guy at the hardware shop said he would do it for $8m instead of $11. Should save us about $60.
Installing the architrave above the base block
 
 And the after shot!
But like I said we need to add the detail at the top at some stage.

The next thing is to install the chair rail after the skirtings.
Masters have the following available:


Not sure if I love any of these but I might look at Bunnings too and get Dave to get samples from Taits hardware.

Yesterday we spent $600 to get all the antenna points up and working and a new antenna and cables so the TV in our bedroom and current lounge room will work better (used to cut out in the rain and heat). Apparently he had to re-point the antenna to the AMP building in the city instead of to the Dandenongs. Whatever he did it is working well now. I did think it was a bit expensive though.

So with the TV now working upstairs, we took our bedroom TV up and spent the evening filling holes in Sam's room.Still not finished. The gapping of the edges is pretty slow. But I did get to mix up builders bog for the first time so that was new for me. Always learning!

That's about all for now. Take care!
Cheers,
Nat


Thursday 18 June 2015

Choosing skirting boards and chair rails

It is time to do some more of the fun stuff and that is choosing the finishing touches. We are now very close to painting Sammy's room but before we do, Dave has to add the door jams, architraves, skirtings and chair rail.

Our old skirtings in the downstairs area are pretty boring and small. Well they aren't small like the modern types but for a period home they are not exactly high. So this time we want to replace them all and add something a big bigger.

I am thinking I like something like this.
http://www.classicarchitraves.com.au/images/combinations/victorian/p24/V_PK_VA_P.jpg
I like this skirting from Classic Architraves




As for chair rail, I don't want anything to thin, so maybe something like this.
Potential chair rail from Classic architraves
I really love this room and chair rail that I found on Pinterest.
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/16/12/9e/16129eaa7d4116c7629ac9a052cf8992.jpg
Such a pretty room. Love the chair rail and colours.



I wonder if I could convince the kids to go for colours like that. Sooooo peaceful.

The plan is to organise these things this weekend and also to install the rest of the bullnoses for under all the windows upstairs and maybe to ones downstairs too.

The plasterers still have to come back to finish sanding the downstairs. Not looking forward to the dust. I think the plaster dust has already stuffed my new vacuum cleaner.

Cheers,
Nat