Burlap & Satin

After nearly six months of constant work, the Arch is done.

Wanna see the entire process? In pictures? With words? Why sure!

When we moved into this house, it was not only a cold and dark hunter green box, but it also had absolutely no separation from one room to the next. The previous owners (hereafter referred to as The Monkey Family*) had knocked out every single wall in this old 1930s cape cod. When you walked in the front door, you could directly see your reflection in the bathroom mirror. The bathroom was almost on display, it was that open.

Exhibit A - The Hunter Green box, taken while standing at the front door:

While out to lunch one day and puzzling over ways to separate things without closing off the living room entirely, we noticed these amazing arches in the restaurant where we were eating. *Cue lightbulb over head* Ah-ha! An arch! That's the way! Birds twittered, we were showered with light and clouds parted above a magical pathway to Solution Land.

So we researched how to build an arch and then brainstormed a bit. In typical Staz fashion, I decided to go a step further and create more work for everyone involved. We're building new walls anyway, let's do built-in bookshelves! It'll be easy! When eyebrows were raised and jaws dropped in my direction, I quickly grabbed color pencils and used my powers of persuasion. Yes, yes, I will show them the way.

It was decided that my vision was undeniably gifted and so the work began. (Exxxcellent!) We spent nearly a month just trying to reconfigure the horribly crooked angled wall next to the stairs boxing in of the old chimney. Plus, we had to play around with some duct work in order to make the wall straight to begin with. It's been made very clear to me that my husband is never doing duct work ever. again. (As in he told me, "I'm never doing duct work again. I mean it, dammit.")

Then one day my dad decided to drive up and not only help us frame out the entire arch (because we admit, we were stuck) but he also bought nearly all of the supplies for us. Rock! So in one day, we got the entire walls framed out and the hard part was finished. (hahahaaaa!! ahem.)

Next up, we spent December shopping for the holidays and oh yes.. working on the arch! After the drywall was up and the arch was officially boxed in, we created the actual arch curve out of plywood and then covered it in drywall. Afterward, I went about the gargantuan task of adding corner bead and compounding all those never-ending seams.

Somewhere in there, I think we had Christmas and traveled through Michigan "lake effect snow" at 2am with two hyper beagles in the backseat for 13 hours, but that might have been a really horrible nightmare. Let's just pretend that it was and move on, shall we?

After the holidays, it was time to really get down to business. I began the nearly two week long process of constant compounding, sanding, compounding, sanding, sanding, sanding and did I mention the sanding? Because my god, there was lots of sanding!

Then one day, magical elves came out and sang songs and declared the sanding done. Yay, let's drink tall glasses of mead and get on with the priming!

And then shortly after that, it was painted! My god, like really PAINTED!

Then... we kind of lost our momentum and took a little break. Because hell, people, we were TIRED. (Aren't you tired just reading this?) So then, our momentum slowly came back and we eventually got the bookshelves built.

I then pulled muscles in my legs while painting them, but they went in the next day dammit! So what if we had to sand them to death and beat them into submission with a rubber mallet to get them to fit? I'm not icing my thighs all week for nothing here, people.

But wait, holy crap, are we still not done? Nope, not yet. So up next was getting the shelves all nice and trimmed out so they look more built-in and pretty.

And today? Oh today, boys and girls, was a very, very special day. I finished painting the trim on the built-in bookshelves today and finally pulled the damned tape off! Can I get a Hallelujah! Can I get an Amen?

Because seriously, A. Freaking. Men.

(Um, just ignore that empty shelf on the right and the painter's tape. I'm doing some touch-ups over there and it's not quite done and well, I did one shelf and I'm already tired, dammit! Leave me alone!) Ahem.

In celebration, we went on a little scavenger hunt at Goodwill, searching for "pretty" hard-back books and tiny vintage-looking photo frames. I then used my endless hours of watching HGTV and used the rule of 3s, 5s and 7s to make our new built-in shelves look pretty and pleasantly inviting. Even though I want our shelves to look like something you might actually enjoy perusing, I also like to create contrast (because we are nothing if not contradicting people in this house) and well... I also really like to fuck with people.

Lo and behold! It's as though someone lives here now!

I'm unbelievably glad this is done and I'm very proud of the work we did, but I don't think we'll be doing this ever again. It was an awesome project and it's made a world of difference in how our house feels and looks, but it was an absolute bear to finish - and I don't mean the cuddly kind either.

So with that done, I might just take a little break and lay on the couch for a month. Oh wait, we have to fix the giant holes of water in our living room wall from where the Monkey Family didn't caulk around the outside windows after installing them. Then it will be just about time to install the new hardwood floor! Yay! *cries*

Hold me.