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I’ve been thinking about the molding and trim that I’ll end up redoing through out the entire house. It might not sound like a worthwhile endeavor, but the fact is, the current molding is in sad shape. Most of it is peeling thanks to the idiot who decided to paint latex over oil-based paint. Rather than deal with the paint issues, when I redid the office it was just as easy to pull it all out in favor of redoing it later. Once I took that step in here, it was an easy leap to just pulling out all the molding in the house. And then I started looking at molding prices at the home improvement stores… and I thought it was going to be expensive to redo my bathroom.

Never mind the price, I didn’t really find anything in particular the appealed to me. So, after some consideration, and the luck of stumbling across this post at Home Building Diary while researching flooring ideas, I’ve decided on going with plain old pine boards throughout the entire house. 1×6 for the baseboard, and 1×4 around the doors and windows (probably planed down slightly).

Besides, I really like straight lines.

In order to add a bit of architectural detail to what could easily end up being a boring implementation, I sketched out a detail for the windows that adds a bit of character and still relies on the plain wood.

This design includes the curtain rod shelves that seemed to be working so well. Notice the curved cut of the header piece. It’ll be easy enough to build a jig and cut them on Dad’s band saw. Currently there’s no grille on my windows, but whenever I get around to having them replaced, I’ll go with a 9-light split something like this.

Meanwhile, the curtains for the bedroom arrived this afternoon and they look spiffy. I’ll pick up some stuff at Lowe’s tomorrow to hang them and post pictures as soon as I’m done.

The bedroom is basically done, as far as paint goes, at least. Last night I did the edges of the walls and this morning I painted the inside of the closet white. I ordered curtains this evening and I’ll put up curtain shelves this coming weekend.

As for the vanity and bathroom area there’s still a lot to be done. I haven’t finished patching the holes around the mirror yet, which means there’s no point in painting that area. Honestly, I’m thinking of just cleaning up the line between the bedroom and the vanity and calling it complete for the time being. I have some serious plans for the bathroom that include moving a wall, adding another, taking out the tub and putting in a tiled shower… and, oh yeah, replacing the toilet. The vanity will end up being about 36″ wide instead of the 60″ wide it is now. That’s a future project… maybe after tax time in 2008.

I’ll likely wait until January to buy furniture for the bedroom. The consensus online is that’s when most stores are clearing out inventory for the next season’s new products.

I go back to work tomorrow after being on vacation since last Wednesday. This week off has been pretty nice and productive as well.

David came over yesterday and we opened up the closet in the master bedroom. I did most of the demolition before he got here, but waited to actually pull out the studs until he arrived with his reciprocating saw (more affectionately known as the “scalpel”). We made quick work of removing the studs and then made a dump run before stopping by Home Depot for wood and whatnot to finish the new opening.

One especially nice touch: the closet now has a light in it. It’s not that big of a deal, but the wall we removed already had electrical running in it… we just installed a flanged light socket with a pull chain.

After lunch at Schlotsky’s, we went up to Lowe’s where I got another paint sample and a closet rod that hopefully was a little sturdier than the limp noodle I bought at Home Depot during our morning run.

It’s clear to me now that even though I was pretty sure the bedroom was going to be brown, it was always meant to be slate blue. I work that way sometimes… keying on an idea until I exhaust it, and then the right solution immediately comes along. I’ve come to accept it as part of my creative process. I look at sort of like this: the exercise of obsessing over a specific idea (in this case, the brown paint) keeps my conscious brain busy while my subconscious is coming up with the solution. First shot out of the box on the blue and I hit a home run.

This morning I’ve already been to Lowe’s and Harbor Freight. At Lowe’s I got a gallon of the blue (I expect I’ll need more, but it’s possible one gallon might just do it), a bunch of outlets, switches, faceplates, and some screen patches for fixing big holes in drywall.

The plan for today is to paint the ceiling and fix all the drywall issues. If I get through that today, then I can take all day to paint the walls tomorrow.

I sat in my bedroom for about thirty minutes this afternoon contemplating what, exactly, I don’t like about the two colors I have on the wall. The colors need less yellow or red and need more blue—if that makes any sense. And since the American Tradition color spectrum just doesn’t seem to work that way, I’m worried that I won’t find the exact color I have in mind. I’ll make one more attempt at finding the right brown tomorrow morning. If I can’t manage it, I’ll go in another direction and look for a slate blue sort of thing for the main wall color instead of the brown. That’s really not much of a compromise. I’ll just use the brown to accent against the blue and white. Same color scheme, just in different proportions.

I have to talk about dinner this evening… I’m a pretty good cook. Not spectacular by any stretch, but still good enough to impress most people I cook for. I rarely pull all the stops out when cooking just for myself, but occasionally I’ll go full bore and really cook when no one else is around. Tonight was one of those nights. Scallops with Sauted Garlic Zucchini and Cherry Tomatoes on a bed of Barley Alfredo.

Yeah, baby, that’s good eats.

I popped over to Lowe’s at lunch and picked up samples of two possible colors for the bedroom. The first is Winter Delta (3007-9B) and the other is Riverbend’s Edge (3008-9B). The guy mixing them commented that he couldn’t tell the difference, but I can. When I get home after work, I’ll put both up on the wall and see which I like best. Even if the specific colors aren’t set yet, the basic color scheme is: brown-like walls, with white trim, and dark blue accents.

My birthday is around the corner and I usually buy myself something big as a gift. Last year it was a combination of the Plasma TV and a pair of LCD monitors for my computer. This year, it’s going to be bedroom stuff. This morning I browsed a couple of the big box department stores online to see about bedding options. My current comforter is nice, but the color is all wrong. It’d be more at home with the color scheme in my office than in the bedroom once it’s done. I found this at Wal-Mart and ordered it right away.

After consulting with David & Ginny last night I’ve decided to use a curtain instead of doors on the closet. The opening will be larger than what’s standard and of key importance to me is the ability to have the closet completely open when I want it to be. Eventually I’ll put in one of those cool closet systems, but for the time the only other thing David and I will do in there is to install a light and an outlet inside the closet itself.