The basement #3: strip tease

Almost 5 years back, my wife and I figured out how we’d like to remodel our bedroom. (we had chosen the smaller bedroom, closest to the bathroom, via an adjoining room. Leaving the larger bedroom for the office, company, and eventually, children.

Our parents all said we should take the larger room, but with my wife’s handicap (and not wearing her lower leg braces at night) – a shorter “commute” is better. Besides, if you shut the door to the adjoining room, It was more like a Master Bedroom suite. We liked it. Apart from being tired and bored with the white walls and off white trim or our roughly 12×12 cozy space.

We moved into the “real” MBR, and then the implements of destruction started swinging. Pulling down the drywall on the walls and ceiling (which looked about to fail), tearing everything down to the studs. I had a nice (Large) pile of debris out the window to the backyard by noon on Saturday, day one of our vacation.

As luck would have it, our little one (about 6 months old at the time) got sick. She wasn’t much of a complainer – she’s always been a trooper – just really sleepy. Progress was halted to 2 hour spurts between naps.

Insulating and drywall took me the rest of the week! I was almost back to work before I started putting up a bead-board ceiling. – on the diagonal because I obviously like to punish myself – I didn’t have a mitersaw at the time – a fact that was quickly remedied. This extended time found us getting used to, and actually beginning to prefer the real master bedroom.

The problem now was – rather than the plan with a plate rail, dark red paint above, a faux leather treatment below, wood ceiling, stripped doors and new windows (that actually open), what would we do to turn that into a little girls room once she outgrew her cradle?

Well, we figured we could take our time, and we did… ultimately we found our plan. and the room found me working on it for a half-day or two, most weekends. Nearly a year’s worth of weekends up in there (between naps and errands) My daughter actually thought it was MY room. The ceiling was NOT a one man job. Also my first attempt at Crown molding, built in closet shelves and so forth….

Ok now your asking, why is this part of my basement series? (Sorry about the rambling back story)

The closet door.

We decided on stripping the old, dinged and hopefully not damaged (and hopefully original) door to my closet – to match the wood trim in what was supposed to be OUR room.

I generally hate painting wood and painted trim, and I was trying to keep with the feel of the house, but eventually agreed that white trim would look best in the room we were desiging for our little girl to grow up in.

Problem is I had already started stripping what looked to be a nice Oak door. Painting that would be a crime!..

Well, the door was neglected (as in left alone to rest in the basement) long enough, and when I got back to stripping it today (so i could get it OUT of my shop) so I wouldn’t have to paint over the caked on stripper, I noticed it wasn’t oak, but rather the same nice OLD pine I used for my Thorsen Table (an exterior door). The rails and stiles have nice straight grain, but the panels are mismatched. There are also some poor older repairs from years of shrinking and swelling – fillers in joints, as well as some gouges from when I started the stripping process.

Yep, a fresh coat of stripper, some scraping tomorrow morning. Then a nice coat of white to match my daughters trim.

I wonder though, will she mind having a door on her closet after all these years? Will I have to start checking for monsters?

-- I am always doing what I cannot do yet, in order to learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso -- http://snbcreative.wordpress.com/