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I’m happy to report that our new flooring is 100% complete.
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One last box was just enough to finish the front door section.
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And we are pleased.
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I’m also pretty stoked that we nailed the color match of the moulding stain.
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Floor moulding new, door and window moulding old.
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See the little cove moulding piece on the bottom of the cabinet?
Pretty, pretty, pretty damn close!
(Last sentence must be read with Larry David accent for full effect)
😊
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After the floor was laid and all the new moulding was stained, it was time to arrange the living room jigsaw puzzle.
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I say that because if you’ve ever stained multiple pieces of 10 foot moulding you’ll know they don’t all turn out the same due to variations in the wood.
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Same moulding. Same stain. Totally different grain.
This makes matching and blending a bit of a challenge.
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It had to match an existing door…
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And this slab under the cabinet.
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It’s not easy. And when you use up all the good pieces?
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You hide the bad ones behind a couch.
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Lord Dudley Mountcatten kept a close eye on the proceedings from his temporary perch on a stick vacuum I bought and then returned. You know what $249 gets you these days? A horrible piece of plastic junk.
Think I’ll have to suck it up… no pun intended… and buy a Dyson.
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Living room flooring – done!
Living room moulding – done!
All that was left was putting the room back together.
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After some serious cleaning that is.
🥴
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Replacing the trim around our new bedroom windows was painful. We tried multiple types and colors of stain but never really came close to matching the existing. The only saving grace there was the new pieces didn’t lay against the old and with distance there’s room for variation.
Not so this new living room flooring project. New baseboard had to butt up to old at the two kitchen entrances and the hallway… not to mention the fireplace and built in bookcases.
It was a major challenge.
The husband and I made three trips to three different stores and bought three different colors but nothing worked.
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The piece on the left is what we needed to match. Most never came close. And mind you baseboard moulding is sold by the foot so every test piece that fails?
Ka-Ching! 💰
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We had to stain over 100 feet and I wanted it to look nice.
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Three more stores, three more rejects. I couldn’t understand it, we’d bring in my sample piece and match it perfectly to theirs only to find it wasn’t close when we got home and applied it.
Then we went to Sherwin Williams. Turns out they’ve bought the Minwax company… and guess what?
They can color match stain.
What!!! Why did no one ever tell me this was possible?
They also told us the reason we could never match our color was because all the store samples are done on oak and baseboard moulding is typically pine.
What!! Why did no one ever tell me this?
After stifling my anger at the stain industry, we purchased a can of perfectly tinted stain and happily started the process.
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Have finger, will travel.
Yes, the stain looks red but when gently applied with a rag and my forefinger instead of heavy handing it with a brush, it was almost perfect.
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Sadly my old Grateful Dead tee shirt gave its life to the cause.
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Two coats of stain, two coats of amber poly and one giant air bubble in the plastic later, we were done.
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A few more windows needed trimming…
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Which meant a lot more measuring, cutting and cursing…
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Why the cursing?
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Because the last window was not what you… or any semi sober person… would call square.
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Oops.
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Cover the gap with quarter round, trim…. then call it good and move on to the porch door.
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Yes, the porch is my domain … so the porch door has a seasonally appropriate wreath. Man cave be damned.
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Trimming this slapped together frame for a door that came from the dump proved challenging.
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And yes, the language got as colorful as the wreath.
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But it was only when the husband looked down…
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And realized the floor moulding should meet the vertical door trim… not the other way around… that he knew he had some tinkering to do.
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But viola!
Adjustments were made and everything that needed to be trimmed was finally trimmed.
Is this the end of the Barn Mahal interior construction?
Only time will tell.
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First it was not at all temporary temporary doors. Then insulation and a ceiling and new light fixtures and floor moulding and quarter round.
Now?
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The husband is installing strapping to cover the plywood ceiling seams.
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Technically this is finish work. And we all know that is not where his talents lie.
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Was the strapping straight?
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Not so much.
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Of course when I helpfully pointed that out, I got booted from the barn/man cave/Maine Taj Mahal.
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When I went back 2 hours later? He informed me the strapping wasn’t right and needed to be redone.
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Hmm. Why didn’t I think of that?
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Cutting and more cutting.
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Cutting around the light fixtures I tried to tell him to center 2 weeks ago.
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But all the cutting resulted in straighter lines.
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Aggravating? No doubt.
But…
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We did have gorgeous fall foliage in the background so I’ll call it a win.
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So now the husband wants to add floor moulding in his big barn… and you know what that means.
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An entire afternoon picking through more wood than I thought humanly possible.
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Granted, even I would reject that baby.
But come on…..
If he would take half as much time installing it as he does picking it out I might not mind. But nothing is going to be perfectly cornered or angled or mitered so why bother!
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Our afternoon trip ended here.
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With the moon rising and me refusing to cook the pork roast dinner I had planned.
You want perfect wood? You have to pay the piper.
Or in this case, the pizza place.
River's world..... 