The Closet

Yesterday, with the 100 degrees and 1 million percent humidity, we made some good progress on the closet. And we had thunder and about 30 drops of rain (in addition to our hundreds of drops of sweat--dear Reader, you should invest in Gatorade--we're making the stock go up), so we were able to get more done than expected.

HW did the last bit of closet sanding and checked to make sure everything was ready for the next step.

We brought the chests of drawers in to see how they'd fit (minus the drawers, so they were only decently heavy), and decided that taking the skirting off the bottom and instead wrapping baseboard all the way around the room, including the base of the chests, would make them look more built-in. After taking the skirting off, we found that there would be a gap between the baseboard and the bottom of the first drawer, so we had to jury-rig a solution by cutting an extra piece of trim and installing it just below the drawer bottom so that it just looks like more of the cabinet box. A few turns of the phillips-head, a couple of whacks of the hammer and the skirting was gone, and then a few nails from the nail gun, and boom, done.

HW spent some time removing the tops of the chests and cutting them down and joining them with glue and biscuits (for those of you not familiar with joinery, we're not talking about doughy hot goodness . . . they are small, leaf-shaped pieces of wood that fit in mirrored slots on opposing pieces of wood, that then join the pieces together when shoved together, kind of like pegs on a dining room table leaf, but permanent). Then he clamped them together with a massive mega-clamp and set it aside to "cure for 24 hours".

While HW was working on the cabinet tops, I tried my hand at installing bed moulding, which is sort of like a tiny crown moulding. Let's just say that this will be my last time attempting this. HW even gave instructions before I started, which I THOUGHT I followed, but alas, the first piece went up and then I realized, hey, those mitered angles look very, very wrong. After prying my myriad-nail-laced piece back out of the wall (thank goodness I started with the long wall so I could salvage this piece for the shorter wall), I took it outside and sat, with the miter saw, held the angled piece up in the air as if it were still nailed in place, and analyzed the cut. I tried various angles, and went through my mind again what HW's instructions were, but the end product did NOT want to cooperate. If you angle the trim in the miter saw, turn it upside down from what you want it to be, and join MENSA, you're good to go. Clearly, I forgot a step.

After about 30 minutes of this, I whined and went back to HW for a scrap lesson. After insisting I can learn and that I should do this on my own, he left me with a scrap with exactly the correct angles and a repeat of instructions, and a wary look.

After about another 30 minutes, I had all the pieces up at the ceiling, and they were going to fit, dangit, even if I was going to caulk it all together. Which I did. Under penalty of death, HW promised he'd never say a word about their appearance, and I would never lay a hand on bed moulding again. A silent pact has been made.

With light and energy fading, I tackled caulking everything that was already nailed in place. We got baseboard, cleats for the hanging rods and top shelf in, all the bed mould, and the door casing trim in place, so I got all of that caulked, including nail holes.

Today we tackle the chest of drawers top, baseboard around it, cove moulding where the chests meet the wall, caulking, cutting the top shelf and side brackets for the hanging side of the closet, and then we can start painting, with ceiling being first!

It's very hard getting started cuz we just want a break, but we HAVE to get this done so that we have some major incentive to keep on going. It will be awesome to have a closet at the end of this weekend!