Trim Challenges and Victories!

I did a little overhauling of the building space this past week. It was starting to really bug me with pieces pretending to be in good spaces when, in reality, they've just been carefully moved out of the way to be discovered another time. For instance, here's a bag of trim ...

... for what, exactly? I honestly have no idea ... I'm not even kidding. But, when I need it, I have it!

It sits in its own place out of the way while I found homes for other things like all of the sanding supplies that are now in one, single space:

Sitting on the floor right below that stash is a bucket-o-trim:

And, now that I jump back and forth between different detail projects, which is precisely what made everything start to get mish-mashed and teeter on overwhelming, I cleared out a once, poorly used shelving piece to store all sorts of things:

This took me about an hour. An hour for a slice of heaven.

With that out of the way, I resumed work on the many white pieces I painted last week. I needed the trim for the windows on the lower level, but I went ahead and put them all together now. I even masterminded a guide to put the angles together accurately quickly:

I made this out of a few of the conservatory pieces I'm not
using. Sometimes, I amaze myself.

I was super excited to get the trim on the interior windows especially in the eat-in kitchen space. I remain super-happy with the color I picked for that space, but I chose it with vision of white trim really sprucing it up. It's good I was really committed to the vision, too, because that's what kept me going in the process!

The first challenge presented in the process happened immediately. I was so excited to start fitting and gluing the window trim until I dry-placed the first one and realized ...

Oh, for crying out loud.

... that I needed to paint some of the back side of the window! Now, I should have known about the window divider right in the middle (duh), but I didn't anticipate the trim not covering the framing right around the opening. *sigh* Back to the painting I went! It was all ready to go the next day, though, and I framed the windows and front door on the lower level:

Oh, but that wasn't all! The next challenge showed up when I forged on to tackle the baseboards and crown molding. Part of the issue is that the angles in the gable are somewhere in the ballpark of 22.5 degrees. My Dad had a miter box with that angle, and that was super-useful, but, as I'm not a carpenter, there are still clearly tricks of the trade I don't understand to fit things just so. The baseboard is still pretty easy to tinker with and make work, but the crown molding. Ohhhh ... the crown molding.

The above picture represents a few hours of my life which followed a few days of giving myself some space from thinking about it all. 😵 My mission during the days of distance was to maintain the, "This is totally doable" mindset. And, when I got back to it, that is the exact mindset I needed. Between figuring out the angles and even finding myself making a custom angle cut (three times; don't ask), this became quite the undertaking! I can't even describe how I did most of it, but I can explain that I have a tube of paintable wood putty on hand, and I'm ready to implement it as needed!

This project was enough that, as I persevered, I also gave myself permission to blow off the idea of crown molding in the room directly above this one. (Whether I do so or not remains to be seen, but permission has been granted!)

But, it finally worked! Check it out!

It's not a perfect job, and some touch-up is needed. But, the newly articulated rule is that if you look too close at my work, then you're not allowed to play in the house.

The next step is to finish the trim work in the family room, but that is going to be much easier than this! Also on the docket is second floor painting! I finally decided on a color scheme, so I'm excited to dive in! I'll be back soon!