November 2021 - My decision to host family Xmas starts with some new shelves and snowballs into a total renovation of the Music Room. What have I gotten myself into this time?
This one started innocently enough. I’ll just build some shelves and a harp stand to cover my terrible drywall patching for the old AC unit. Quick and easy, right?
Ok well the harp really doesn’t work on the brick wall because the sound board would be the only thing you’d see from the door…
So I’ll just throw some extra frames together and move the cello
And that’ll look great. 2 weekends. Easy.
Assembling new frames for my sax and my first acoustic guitar
Holding a frame in place before I mount it to the brick
And done. Everything together and looks great. That was easy! But…
I just agreed to host 20 some people for family Christmas, and these unfinished concrete stairs are a hazard. Finally time to demolish and rebuild.
My second day getting quotes on concrete demo, and the guy could start same day. Guess it’s happening!
They knocked out the old stairs and found nothing but dirt underneath. New concrete slab poured. Found the gap that mice had presumably been getting in.
My precarious makeshift ramp while waiting for the concrete to dry
Supplies for new subfloor, wall patch, and stair framing. It was at this point that I realize I have no idea what I’m doing.
Added a section of stud wall to fill in the gap left by the concrete. Wall above it was literally hanging by the door frame.
Floor panels installed over the concrete, drywall patch roughed in on the wall.
Rough stair framing installed in place.
Added some supports for the mitered end of the treads.
Red oak treads and MDF risers cut and test fitted. Skirt board cut and installed. Hey that looks like stairs!
Trim painted before the treads go down.
I discovered that my plan to buy a box of laminate flooring to patch the gap around the new stairs would be foiled by my flooring having been discontinued. Time for a solid hardwood upgrade then.
As long as I’m installing hardwood, I need to eliminate the occasional leaks under the old door. Enter: the new door.
Hardwood flooring can’t be nailed down to the existing OSB, so I need to install all new plywood subfloor overtop.
An ungodly number of screws are to be used per sheet. This takes forever.
I attempted to shuffle furniture around as I was installing in order to preserve other rooms of the house. This would last until I started painting.
Oh yeah, did I mention I decided to paint? I decided to paint. This baby diaper brown was never my favorite. Now seems like the time.
That was a lot of work. But the new subfloor is down.
After a couple false starts, I landed on this silvery grey with a hint of green and got to painting.
With the wood floor chosen and ordered, I set about staining and finishing my stair treads in between coats of wall paint.
Stain is on and drying and gorgeous. Thrilled with this color.
Only two hours for the stain to dry before I can start with the polyurethane top coat. Looks amazing.
Paint finished! I can start hanging things back up on the walls while I wait for the flooring to be delivered.
About to tack down the finished stair treads. Holding up a sample floor board to compare the finish color. Fucking. Nailed it.
Floor is here! Less than two weeks until family shows up. Cutting it close.
First two rows need to be face-nailed down because there’s no room for the proper flooring nailer. These two rows took most of the day.
Took almost another full day of hardware store trips to get the correct air hose (two trips), hose adapters (two trips), and a non-faulty air compressor (one trip). But I’m finally in the groove and laying floor.
Starting to appreciate the floor I chose. This is gonna look really nice.
Progress after a couple days. Slower than expected, but getting there.
Thought I had discovered a hidden room under the trim. Nope. Just the original basement window, pre-addition.
I discovered that grouping boards by length made it easier to find ones I needed when arranging them for install. Tedious, but worth it.
Took a full week plus an entire weekend, but it’s finally done.
Looks fantastic. Now I just need to reinstall the trim.
Towards the end of trim install, I shot my nail gun at quarter round for the thousandth time. This time, instead of going into the quarter, the nail deflected up, ricocheted off the wall, and popped me in/around the eye. Somehow, I didn’t get impaled by the tip, and my eye was just red and puffy for a few days. Went in for an emergency eye appointment, just to be sure. I got real lucky.
Needs a vacuum, but the stairs are in and trimmed and finished. SO much better.
I couldn’t wait to take them, so here are some pre-final clean shots of the completed reno.
Shot showing the shelf, frames and stair corner that started all this.
Guitar wall now has a paint color that shows off the LED colors properly.
These were taken two days before the 20+ family members showed up for Christmas. Came down to the wire, but I did it.
Fin.