So I’m back to working on the floorboards again.

Started like this…

Then some slow, meticulous work…

….to end up…

…here.

Still a long way to go.

For now, goodnight.

Went back to the nursery floor and realized I would need to pull up more of the floor boards (and repaint the sub-floor black) in order to fix the alignment problems…

Drew the design lines and noticed that more of the floor boards were off-kilter…

…so I pulled those up, too.

Drew a grid as the base of the pattern and found out all the boards would need to go…

…so I decided to start fresh from the beginning.

And so I began with a grid in the corner and built from there…

Hopefully it will work better this time…sorry I have no real progress to show in this post. Mostly regression, really.

Good night.

Just a quick post tonight…started tearing up the floorboards that were off-kilter in the nursery.

Which tore up most of the black paint under them…so I repainted that part of the floor.

I think next time I’ll start by drawing the pattern on the sub-floor and then I’ll try being a lot more careful when measuring and cutting the wood slats as well as when I line them up and glue them in.

But for now…good night.

Thought I’d take a few minutes to step back and see where I was with the house.

So here’s a 360 degree view of what I have so far in proportion to the room around it (everyone who has seen it in real life has commented on how small it looks compared to the blog photos):

This is where the rest of the house will be hooked up (dining room on the left, back stairs and food pantry on the right, upstairs hallway on top). The nursery will, of course, have another wall to finish it off.

This is where you can really see how the downstairs floor is angled inward and where I had to add slivers of wood to make the second floor level. Luckily the back siding will cover all this and you won’t be able to tell.

Compared with where it was two months ago (https://cider12.wordpress.com/2013/02/07/second-floor-walls/), I feel like I’ve been chugging along pretty well, in spite of a busy work schedule and several trips to Philly.

Now to finish the nursery (it’s still missing a wall, the floor boards, the base boards, the wallpaper trim, and a ceiling) and then I can get to work on the back siding and the rooftop for this section…

Good day!

More work on the hallway tonight…decided I liked the wainscoting after all.

The pattern is made of several pieces, all of which needed measuring, cutting, staining and gluing…

Had to become a bit creative on the corner piece, as well as with the right-hand wall, so it would fit right…

Added a few details, like a lamp…

…and the doorknob on the nursery door…and then I laid the ceiling on top.

Now this is the funny part–or maybe the part where you’ll think I’m a  little nuts–tomorrow, before I glue the ceiling on permanently, I need to make the final wall for the hallway…which is going to cover up almost all of this except the top of the stairs.

So no one is ever going to see this corner of the hallway…except by peeping around corners through open doors…

Yeah….just a little on the crazy side…but then, if I hadn’t finished it perfectly–even if nobody ever saw it–I would still KNOW it wasn’t finished…and it would bug me forever.

Good night.

Back to the upstairs hallway tonight…

I re-sized the wallpaper so it was no longer over-sized as in the old example on the right.

Clipped it on the wall and decided the proportions were right this time.

So I measured all the different wall pieces, cut out holes for the doorways, and glued the pieces all on.

Still playing with the design of the wainscoting, so I held these up against the wall to see what I thought….

Not sure, so maybe I’ll sleep on it tonight and come back to it tomorrow.

And so…good night.

Tonight I put the plates and door knobs on the bathroom door.

Then I took the window frame apart and painted the outside trim…

…and cut, stained, and glued on some inside trim, as well as a windowsill.

Added the window back in…

…and laid the ceiling on top (still needs to be trimmed and glued and painted).

The power strip I want is still on back order, so I can only light one of the lamps up at a time for now…

…but this side of the back of the house is starting to look like a real home.

Good night.

Went back to working on the bathroom walls tonight.

First, I glued in the last dado.

Got the wall tiles and trim ready and put them on, stringing the electrical wires through them.

Got the sliver of tiles done in the corner by the door…

…and added the door trim.

After a lot of wiggling and struggling, I got the wires for the first sconce through the wall and out one of the little holes on the top…

…and then the second one.

Then I glued a tiny piece of foam on the back of the mirror so it would be angled downward when I hung it…

Hung the mirror and put the rest of the bathroom fixtures back in.

I still need to finish the window frame, add a window shade, and glue on the ceiling…

But I’m almost done with this room…

…and it’s fun to create a reflection of an over-sized face in the mirror (I’ll just have to remember to look a little less tired next time…)

Good night.