Renovating Bedroom 2 (aka the Master Bedroom)

Cathie and me.

Warning: This post is less for public consumption and more for my personal use. The purpose of the entry is to document changes Cathie and I make to our Green Street place. The entry is filled with boring before, during, and after pictures. Entries remind us of what we've done, and hopefully will give us pleasant memories down the road. I imagine most folks will find this entry (and this blog, in general) painfully boring. Read on if you must, but remember, you've been warned.

Renovating Bedroom 2 (aka The Master Bedroom) turned out to be more work than I thought. Well, yes and no. I knew from the outset that it would be a challenge. I just didn't know exactly how challenging. In the end, I spent a little over a month working on this room.

The room was a challenge because of the baseboards. Specifically, the edge between the baseboards and the wall was uneven and ragged. In some places the baseboard was even and looked good. In other places it seemed to almost disappear into the wall, with the top edge coming almost flush with the wall. Before starting the renovation, I didn't fully understand just what was going on with the baseboards or why. However, they were visibly uneven (with respect to the wall) and in places had gobs of caulk along the top edge. This phenomenon is present throughout much of the house.

The root cause of the baseboard problem became apparent after removing the first piece of baseboard. Apparently, the house walls were originally finished in a material called "Beaver Board". Beaver Board is a man-made material that was manufactured in the early 1900's. It's about 3/8" thick and is apparently made from pressed wood chips (or wood shreds). It looks almost like hardened cardboard. It appears that at some point in the house's history, someone decided to renovate and apply modern (gypsum) wallboard to the walls. However, rather than remove the existing baseboards from the walls and then applying new wallboard, a challenging task, given the baseboards were nailed to the wall below the hardwood floor line, they choose to just apply the wallboard above the baseboards. This was a functional, but somewhat unattractive, solution, as the edge between the wallboard and baseboard was ragged. Moreover, it appears the wallboard wasn't applied too evenly across the wall, resulting in an uneven appearance at the top edge of the baseboard. To minimize the visual effect of this decision, the renovators applied generous quantities of caulk. The result was a baseboard that looked fine, so long as you didn't look directly at it.

While the main goal of the project was to repaint the room, I wanted to take care of this bit of baseboard messiness while I was at it. In the end, fixing the baseboards was at least half the work.

Here is a summary of what we ended up doing to renovate Bedroom 2:

1. Remove the old baseboards -- this turned out to be a pain, since the original baseboards were put down before the hardwood floors. As such, they had nails below the floor-line and had to be cut/chiseled out instead of just pried off.
2. Add "wallboard extensions" to provide a kind of wallboard backing behind the baseboards. 
3. Plaster walls as needed to provide a smooth, straight surface for the new baseboards. This step turned out to be a challenge as well, since the walls were not particularly straight. I spent a lot of time (and plaster) trying to more or less take out the deepest warps in the walls.
4. Fabricate and install the new baseboards. 
5. Prep the room for paint, including spackling, sanding and caulking everything as needed -- walls, ceiling, windows, doors, baseboards, access panels, skylight.
6. Remove, clean and paint old hardware (e.g., door hinges and window latches).
7. Apply primer (2 coats of Kilz) to all surfaces -- walls, ceiling, windows, doors, baseboard, access panels, skylight.
8. Apply top coat (2 coats) to all surfaces -- walls, ceiling, windows, doors, baseboards, access panels, skylights.
9. Re-install door and window hardware.  

"Before" Photos:

Here are some photos taken before the renovation began.

The view looking toward the west wall.

The view looking toward the south wall (south-east corner)

The view looking toward the north wall (north-east corner).

The exposed beam on the north sloped-wall. The plaster and caulking around this beam was chipped and flaking away. Also, the plaster along the wall edge was cracked along the edging seam.

An example of the relatively poor quality finish work of the baseboards. Also notice the poor quality of the wall plaster work. In many places the plaster/joint compound was wavy, chipped, blotchy and/or uneven.

A view of the unevenness of the baseboard trim along the south-east nook wall. Notice how the width of the top edge of the baseboard varies along the length of the wall. The baseboard itself was tucked under the lower edge of the wall-board and caulk was used to fill the gap. The varying width was due to warp/bend in the wallboard as it was applied to the backing wall studs.

"During" Photos:

Here are photos taken during the renovation.

Removing the baseboard:

The first big step was to remove the existing baseboards to see what was going on.

Removing the first piece of baseboard.

Getting the baseboard off was a pain. The baseboard was installed before the hardwood floor. As a result, nails attaching the baseboards to the walls were frequently located below the finished floor line. That made it impossible to simply pry the boards off. At first, I used a chisel to split the wood the length of the board; remove the top piece; then pry out the bottom piece.

That was a lot of work. So I bought a flush-cutting power saw at Lowes. I tried this. It worked ok, but before long, I burned out the saw. I took it back and got a better quality one. I worked with it for a while, then gave up. While the saw worked, it took forever to cut the wood the entire length of the board. It was exhausting. I returned the saw to Lowes.  They gave me a full refund. Thanks Lowes!

I went back to my chisel and worked my butt off proceeding around the room piece by piece. Just getting the baseboards off took a few days.

The baseboards were made of old clear pine. I did my best to preserve them. I hope to strip them and use them for furniture in the near future.

Behind the baseboards, I found "Beaver Board". This was the original material used for the walls. When a previous renovator applied (gypsum) wallboard to the house, he apparently decided to leave the baseboards (and underlying Beaver Board behind it) in tact. It appears they only removed the Beaver Board and applied new wallboard above the baseboards. This explained the uneven (sunken) baseboards.   

The west wall without its baseboard. Here you can see the gap where the baseboard fit below the floor-boards. 

Unlike Bedroom 1, this room had nice even wall studs. This simplified the task of fixing the walls and attaching new baseboards.

Fixing the walls:

Once the baseboards were off, it was time to fix the walls. This involved applying a strip of wallboard at the lower edge of the walls, to serve as a kind of backing for the new baseboards. I also took the time to straighten out the walls -- as best I could. It was important to straighten the walls, since the new baseboards were rather tall (8+") and not too easily bent. Straight(er) walls minimized baseboard bend and just generally looked better. While I was at it, I patched the worst of the wall blemishes with Spackle. I consider myself a seriously bad novice when it comes to plaster, so this plastering step was rather painful.... and messy. 

Extending the wallboard to the floor -- the south-east corner.

Extending the wallboard to the floor -- the west wall of the south-east corner nook.

The south-east corner nook with plaster repairs along all three walls.

A look at the south-west corner of the room, with wallboard extensions and plaster repairs. The sloped ceiling also got some repairs.

The west wall with baseboard extensions and an initial coat of plaster.

The view looking toward the north-west corner, with wallboard extensions and plaster/spackle repairs. 

The north wall (and north-east nook) with extensions and plaster repairs.

The east wall with extensions and plaster repair. Although it isn't easy to see, the west wall "seat" needed extensive plaster repairs. The "walls" of the seat were badly warped and had a nasty gob of caulk jammed between the wallboard and the (old) baseboard. After smoothing the surface with plaster, the fit was much cleaner. I was really happy with the result.

While we were at it, we prepped the doors and windows for repainting.

As you can see, no wall was left untouched. Whew. That was a lot of work. But alas, it was only the beginning.

Each wall had to be sanded, then cleaned, and another coat or two of plaster applied. In all I applied either three or four coats of plaster/spackle to each repair. I kept at it until I got a smooth surface.

The sanding was a dusty mess. 

The dust got everywhere. Cathie, bless her, did a great job of cleaning up the dust. Man I was sick of it.

Installing the new baseboards:

Once the walls were more or less fixed, it was time to install the baseboards. A strip of baseboard is comprised of three pieces: 1) the main board -- made of 3/4" MDF cut 7-1/4" wide; 2) a top cap -- made of 3/4" MDF cut 1-1/4" wide and given a bull-nose edge; and 3) a bottom piece of 5/8" quarter round trim. To save money, I cut the main pieces and the top pieces out of 4' x 8' sheets MDF.  I used my router table to put the bull-nose on the top piece.

Installing the first new baseboards. I put the main-boards on first, then followed with the cap and base-trim pieces.

I did my best to get clean joints. Because the floor was sloped in places, I cut the main pieces to varying widths to track the floor wobble. I also used my rasp to shape the bottom edge to fit the floor. The net effect was a horizontal top edge and a bottom edge that fit snugly to the floor. 

The baseboards (with top cap) for the west and north walls. After repairing the walls, the baseboard went on reasonably straight.

The newly installed baseboard (main, top-cap, base-trim) for the south-east corner nook.

The newly installed baseboard for the south-west corner and walls.

While I was at it, I cut a new piece for the "bench seat". This piece was custom cut to match the curvature of the wall.... in this crooked old house.

In general, I was happy with the quality of my work, but it wasn't perfect as you can see from this picture. There is a bit of a gap at the joint here.

Once the baseboard was fully installed, I went around and caulked everything. The caulk filled and smoothed out any remaining gaps. I used quite a bit less than the previous renovator.

A sample of the baseboard with caulk applied. We also filled the nail holes with spackle and sanded everything down, including the walls. Actually, we did our spackling and sanding before applying the caulk.

I was especially pleased with the new bench seat. This seat previously looked terrible.

A view of the baseboard edge at the access-door shows the three piece construction. 

A view of the closet (east wall) with the new baseboard installed. On this (east wall), I also relocated a wall socket. The original socket was embedded in the baseboard. To be consistent with the rest of the room, I moved the outlet above the baseboard. You can barely see the socket, just behind the chair in this picture.

A view of the north-west corner with the new baseboard fully installed.

While I was at it with the caulk, we re-caulked the windows and door frames. I also re-caulked the joints between the walls and our exposed beams. This one originally, had no caulking and at night let light seep in from the upstairs hallway.

A view of the fully installed baseboards for the south-east nook.

Overall, we were happy with the result. Initially we were concerned that the new baseboards would appear too big and bulky -- given that we raised them up to 8+" above the floor in order to cover the "wallboard patch". But in the end, they looked natural and substantial. The design was also relatively simple, keeping with the simple, rustic style of the house.

Painting the doors:

While I fretted with the baseboards and bedroom paint, Cathie helped with the doors. She did a fantastic job. She also did all the prep and painting for the windows and door frames. Since the windows can only be done a bit at a time, they were a ton of work, especially since she put multiple primer and finish coats on each window. 

Cathie painted the doors (entry and closet), plus the storage access-doors. When she initially primed the front-face of the access-doors, the badly warped. She fixed this problem by painting the back-side. In the end, it worked out just fine. 

The new paint looked terrific, especially along side the old hardware. These doors are so old, it's hard to find good wood to screw in the door knob. Someday before too long, we'll probably have to replace them, but for now, they look and work wonderfully.

Applying the primer coat:

Once the baseboards were in, and the wall spackled, sanded, and clean, we were ready to start priming. We used Kilz. Two coats.

The baseboard primed. Painting the baseboard was a little tricky as we had to tape off the floor.

Cathie primed the windows. I did most of the cut-in on the walls.

Baseboards and cut-in on the north-east nook done.

The north-east nook completely primed.

A view of the primed room, looking toward the north-west corner.

A view of the primed room, looking toward the west wall.

A view of the primed room looking toward the south-west corner.

The primed bench seat.

The primed south-east corner.

Applying the top coat:

We applied two finish coats. We started with the baseboards, trim and windows, then did the ceilings, then the walls.

It took us a while to settle on a final paint color. We considered a wide range of natural tones. Eventually, we devised a process-of-elimination scheme, which after several rounds brought us to our final color. In the end, we were both happy with it.

Before painting the walls, we painted the ceiling. Once this was done (and dry), we masked off the ceiling so we could cut-in the wall color along the ceiling-wall edge. Unfortunately, the edge between the ceiling and wall was less than straight and sharp, so in places we just did our best to fudge it. Generally, our technique was to run the wall color slightly up (e.g., 1/4") onto the ceiling to get a straight edge. Overall, this approach worked well. 

We used a ton of tape. About $100 worth for two bedrooms. We used frog tape. Green for windows, Yellow for pretty much everything else. For the most part, it worked well. In places where paint bled under the tape, I touched up after-the-fact with a Q-tip swab or my fine paint brush dabbed in paint. That worked really well and made a big visual difference. 

Cutting-in the walls of the north-east nook.

Cutting-in around the closet door.

Cutting-in along the ceiling on the east wall. In general I cut-in about 6 inches. This was probably overkill, but I didn't trust myself to get too close to the ceiling with my roller, while painting the main body, so I played it cautious.

Cutting-in along the ceiling edge. This was tiring, tedious work. But also fun, for it gave us our first glimpse at the final coat.

Cutting-in around the wooden beam on the north wall.

The north wall cut in. 

The west wall taped and partially cut-in.

The south-east corner cut in along the ceiling.

Cutting in the bench seat.

The north-east nook fully cut-in.

The bench-seat fully cut in. Indeed, I just painted the seat completely. By now were beginning to see how the room would look when finished.

The baseboard trim on the bench-seat. I was pretty pleased with the quality of the work. Not bad for a rank amateur!

The south-western walls cut in.

The cut-in under the north-east window. This view have us an early look at the finished color combinations. It looks good, don't you think?

Once the cut-in painting was done (two coats), it was time to do the body. Unfortunately, I struggled some rolling on the body. My tendency was to over-roll the paint, putting it on two thing. This lead to a couple spots where the texture was a little coarse. Overall, the result was good, but in the future, I'll be careful to not put the paint on too thin and not over-roll it. Also, I'll be sure to let the paint dry for at *least* 24 hours before applying a second coat. And during that second coat, I'll definitely not over-roll. I know, I know, lessons learned. Overall, the result was good. Here are some photos.

Getting started on the body of the west wall.

Finishing the first coat on the west wall.

A view of the south-west corner with the final color on the wall.

The final coat on the west wall.

The final color on the north wall.

The final coat on the northern walls.

The north-eastern nook with it's final coat on. The wall-edge of this eastern wall had to be redone a second time, since the first approach looked a little bit amiss. In the end, I pulled the wall color just slightly up onto the ceiling to get a nice clean edge. You really can't notice it unless you get up close and look directly at it.

The final coat on the north-eastern wall, near the closet.

The upper edge of the north-eastern wall. If you look closely you may notice how the wall color rides slightly up onto the sloped ceiling. Doing this helped give me a clean, straight edge.

Notice how the wall color is carried ever so slightly onto the sloped ceiling. Again, this made for a nice uniform edge.

The eastern wall in its final coat. Overall, I was happy with the way the embedded beam looked.

"After" Photos:

Here are some photos taken after completing the work.

Looking into the finished room from the upstairs hall.

A view of the south-east nook.

A view of the south-west corner.

A view of the west wall and north-west corner.

A view of the north-west corner of the room.

A view of the north-east nook, with the entry door and bench-seat in the foreground.

All the door hinges and window hardware were removed, cleaned and repainted. The result looked good.

The freshly painted ceiling fan. A previous renovator did a sloppy job of painting the fan-blade arms. The paint on these metal pieces had sags, runs, and was uneven. I assume the poor job was the result of trying to paint the arms without first removing them from the fan body. To clean up the mess, I disassembled the fan and fully removed the arms. I then used a steel brush (powered) to scrape off the old paint. Unfortunately, the steel brush was too strong and it stripped the "antique brass" finish off, leaving only bare metal. So I decide to just paint the arms uniformly white. Once I put it all back together, it looked reasonably good. Maybe someday, if I manage to find a good (matching) antique brass paint, I'll go back and repaint the arms "antique brass". .... then again, maybe not. 

Well that's pretty much it for this project. Next up for this room? Furnishings and curtains! That's Cathie's domain. Yeah! :)