It’s Still Boring, But At Least There’s Progress!

I’m afraid that it’ll be a few more days until I have anything exciting to share. As I explained yesterday, there was a delay on the door installation in the bedroom. The good news is that it should be finished today. But for now, it looks like this…

Before they could even get to the actual door installation, they had to do some prep work, which included rerouting some electrical wiring. So that’s what they got done the first day. They didn’t want to remove the window on the first day and then take the chance that there wouldn’t be enough time to actually finish up the door installation, leaving me with an open hole in the front of our house. So the whole door installation should be finished up today, and then the drywall repair may have to be finished up tomorrow.

In the meantime, I’ve been working on the walls in the foyer. They were a mess, and I’m awful at drywall. So those two factors combined mean that drywall repair takes me longer. Slowly but surely, I’m getting this doorway taken care of, though.

I still have to fill in that gap at the top of the ceiling, and fill in that hole that I had to cut out for the electrical work. I didn’t want to have to purchase another sheet of drywall (and transport it home), so I was trying to make the 1/4 sheet that I had on hand work. That’s why there’s a gap at the top by the ceiling. That’s the only strip I could get out of my leftover drywall. But once it’s taped and mudded, and then the crown molding goes on, it won’t even show.

I also still need to patch this hole where an electrical outlet was removed. And then I need to figure out where I want to reroute our router. I have to admit that I’ve had this router here, taped to the wall just like this, for so long that I had gotten used to seeing it. I kid you not when I say that I was looking right past it and not even realizing that I need to move it until Monday. Then I finally “saw” it and realized that it actually can’t stay here, taped to the wall like that. 😀 Isn’t it funny how our minds get so used to seeing eyesores like this that we just start looking past them and not even seeing them anymore?

Anyway, this doorway is still in a very rough state. I’m still not 100% sure how I will finish the doorway. Part of me wants to wrap the grasscloth and trim around to the jambs. But I might have another idea.

I don’t know if you noticed how I finished off the doorway on the closet side of the door. I simply used a large cabinet trim around the perimeter of the opening and painted it all the same blue. I like the understated look for the closet side.

So instead of wrapping the grasscloth and trim around the jambs, I’m now considering doing the same thing on the outside of the doorway. I’d use that same large cabinet trim, and then that would give a definite end point for the grasscloth wallpaper and the wainscoting and chair rail.

And then the actual door jambs, once I get the mud sanded and smooth, could just be painted. But this is one of those “one problem leads to another” types of things because I don’t know what color to paint it the door jambs. White? That might stand out like a sore thumb. Would I carry the light blue from the closet onto the jambs? But if I do that, then what color would the trim around the door on the foyer side be? Would those be light blue as well?

I know I’ll figure it out. Things always seem to work out in the end, but these little details can be frustrating to figure out sometimes. What I do know is that I won’t be trimming out this doorway like I’ve done the other doors in the house. The inside (closet side) of the doorway is already done, and I’m not redoing it. So I have to figure this out.

I’ve also had to do quite a bit of drywall repair (mudding only) where the hallways closet came out. It still needs to be sanded.

And then the other side of the doorway needed repair. I forgot to score the caulk where the trim met the wall, and when I removed the trim, it ripped off the top paper layer of the drywall. I hate it when I make extra work for myself by forgetting to do simple steps like scoring the caulk with a utility knife.

I did try mudding the white stripes on the striped walls, and I don’t think that is going to work. After the mud dried, I could still feel those stripes.

So I’m moving on to what most of you suggested. I’ll be sanding all of the walls using my handheld sander, but I’ll only be doing the lower walls up to 35 inches. I’m pretty confident that the slight texture of the stripes won’t show under the grasscloth on the top parts of the walls.