Scary Cabin

A 3 day weekend.

We pick up the action right where we left off, working on the ceiling beams. There was still a bit of paint stripping and wood filler work to do so we got right on that. While the paint stripper worked it’s magic, Genny started sanding down all the filler and basically smoothing out the beams. Then the ceiling got a final cleaning with Murphy’s Oil soap. We blue-taped the ceiling & walls and put the first (primer) coat of paint on the beams. Even with just primer, they look so much better. That, along with some time visiting took a whole day. It doesn’t sound like much when written out like this. Of course we also hung the new ceiling fan (sans blades). Yeah, that’s what took all the time.

The next morning a fresh coat of white trim paint was applied to the beams and now it looks really good. After lunch, the masking tape comes down, and a bit of touch up and the ceiling is done (by some definition of done anyway, there’s still some caulking to do). We start the afternoon with a new project, the floor. After a couple of false starts we get the first couple of rows of laminate down and from there, it gets a bit easier. When we stop, we have about 7 1/2 rows down and it’s starting to look like a floor.

But you can’t guess what we’re doing the next morning. Yup, that’s right, more laminate. It takes most of the day, but the floor is down. It’s really amazing how a bit of paint and floor transforms the room. There’s still a lot of finish trim work to do (casings, baseboards, caulking, etc.) but the downstairs is really starting to feel finished and not like a construction zone.