bedroom trim.

Next step on this little bedroom project ... cutting and installing all the trim. I ripped down most of the original stuff cos it was coated with lead paint. Even all the baseboards (which were a combination of plywood and crap particle board). So I pretty much had to reinstall all of the trim for this room.

Again - an under-estimated project on my part. This was a more-than-one-day kind of job ...

A couple hours last Saturday and then a twelve-hour day on Sunday had me mostly finished though - and I wanted to finish cos once again my bedroom was a complete disaster zone and now my bed was propped up vertically against the piano in the living room. Not easy to sleep on but the bedroom floor was coated in an inch of sawdust ...

I had tossed down some drop cloths, heaved all the trim pieces I bought - 1x4 for the aprons, 5/4 for the one window sill, 1x5 for the side casings, 1x6 for the top casing, 5/16” filets (all of those were primed LDF) and crown pediments (fir that I got at Rejuvenation in Portland and primed) through the window - and brought in the miter saw. Oh - and painted the bottom window sash and replaced the disgusting pulley cord (they're traditional old-fashioned double-hungs after all with a pulley and weight inside the wall!) with new stuff I bought years ago at Rejuvenation.

I did the table saw stuff for the top casing (had to rip off a smidge of the rounded edge so it would butt up tight against the filet below and crown pediment above) outside in the garage - it was cold!

Once inside with everything set up I got to work. I attacked the first window - that had been trimmed with really crap stuff that didn’t match any of the original molding - by cutting the 5/4x6 piece of stock down to 5” deep on the table saw and then notching out each side with my jig saw. Then cut the side casings - the one on the right butts up against the wall but oh well - and the apron.

Then got to work on the first of five top pieces which included a 5/16" filet, 1x6 casing and crown pediment. I mitered the corners of the filet and pediment and glued each corner -

Then stapled the filet to the casing and nailed on the pediment to create a single piece that I’d then nail on top of the side casings -

Around the room I went. The hours ticked by. The most tedious part was the mitering and glueing of the corners of the filets and pediments but I didn’t want a butt joint - I wanted it to look nice.

And in time the room was, well, finished -

Then it was onto the closet. Had to install new plywood subflooring cos I had ripped out the stuff that was in there thinking I’d be able to bring the floor height down to the rest of the bedroom floor (umm, nope - turned out there were some pretty significant beams going through the closet). So I ripped some scrap plywood down to fit and then started piecing in the wood floor to match the floor that was put in right before I bought this place -

I’ve never put in tongue and groove flooring before and after getting the hang of it I think it went OK - it was a small area afterall which was good for a trial run.

It’s a far-cry from where this closet used to be (including the recessed light I installed last year - when I bought the house there was a, umm, tap light in there - classy I know). And I’m going to finish it by installing matching baseboards and then building a custom closet installation to hang my shirts, coats, pants and store some other stuff. It’s a small closet cos it’s an old house but I’ll do my best to maximize the space ...

And that’s the bedroom trim.

Oh yeah - except for the crown molding combination I still have to hang. Haha. Yeah -that’ll be a challenge ... I'm going to try to get 16' sections and somehow transport them on my little Toyota truck cos that'll mean I can just hang one section for each of the four walls - much easier than trying to butt two pieces together. But in the meantime at least now I can sleep in my room again.