Another very productive weekend

We did lots and lots this weekend. Since our last post, I got the crown molding installed. That wasn't too quick, because I'm using that lightweight plastic/sawdust stuff, which resists water much better than wood. It crawls around on you quite a bit, especially when you're cutting angles.

Yesterday, we had an early dinner planned, so we decided to get all the paint retouched. Much simpler sounding than it really was.

I caulked all the seams of the trim and started giving it another coat of paint while Jeff touched up the walls. I found that making edges with even the good blue masking tape just doesn't work well for me. Even when the edges come off clean (which is only about 50% of the time), your line is still ragged from tearing. I prefer a smooth but not entirely straight manual cut-in from here on out.



Got most of that done Saturday, but discovered that the semi-gloss wall paint looked absolutely horrible in the daylight where we'd touched it up with foam brushes. So I hauled out a roller and gave everything another going-over. Much better.

Then Jeff got into the de-popcorning business in the master bedroom closet and the stairwell.



He's getting awfully good at not damaging the tape underneath.



This image doesn't begin to do justice to what an enormous difference it makes to have that popcorn off the ceiling over your head while walking the steps. It's not a huge stairwell, but it looks much bigger now, even while brown and ugly.

While he scraped away muddily, I laid the bathroom floor tile.



I like the pattern a lot. It wasn't the easiest thing I've ever done, but I had the nice bonus of tiles that are extremely high quality and pretty good to work with.

Next, grout. Then baseboards, toilet, sinks and the crown over the bathtub (which has to be glued on, natch).

Getting there!



Oh, and I made another pie. Coconut cream with meringue, modified from a Bon Appetit recipe. The meringue wept a bit, but it still tastes really, really good.