Room remodel

[Irving]

Here is a picture of the texture throughout the house. I'll spare you anymore drywall mudding photos.


Walls painted, new receptacles, moisture barrier. For the same price as Home Depot sells enough moisture barrier for a single room, I bought enough for my entire house on Amazon.


New light. Not as flush as I'd like, but I wasn't going to spend the time and/or effort trying to remove the original fixture box that was nailed to the ceiling studs. This is a dimmable LED that provides much better light, at less energy than the original double bulb set-up.


In an effort to make my house feel more modern, I've decided to install one of these handy USB receptacles in every room. I'd like one of these at every spot, but at $22ish a pop, that'd be prohibitively expensive. Also, these covers are $5 compared to the regular style that are only $1. If I could do it again, I'd forgo the fancy screwless cover, but now I'm pot commited. I mentioned in another thread that I was thinking about running CAT cable throughout the house, but since I've decided to rent this house at some point, I won't be doing that. As for the electrical, I've consulted with a few electricians (some of them on here), and decided that the most economical way to upgrade to "grounded" outlets is to replace all the breakers in the panel with CGFI breakers.


Getting started on the floor. I had the wife pick a color in the style I wanted on the Home Depot website. It's a Pergo XP.


Getting to the fun part. While this floor looks much better than the one I did in the first room, this one shifted on me during install and I noticed at the point of taking this picture that the entire floor had floated itself cock-eyed compared to the walls. Very frustrating, but with some pro-tips from my life coach, I got it moved enough that it came out okay once the trim was down.


I can't express to you how much I hate painting. It takes a lot of prep to come out looking decent, and I run out of patience very quickly. Then after spending a lot of time taping everything up, the tape just pulls my new paint off the wall anyway. Here is the prep for painting the trim. This is the second time I taped above the trim, as I had done it earlier to caulk everything. Taping twice, on new paint, is just playing with fire in my opinion. I'm sure there are tricks, but I don't know them.


I've finished the closet. Wife already had these shelves sitting around the house in huge boxes for the last 18 months. I'm very glad to put them to use somewhere.


I've got glass doors to go in the closet, but I didn't have any liquid nails so I couldn't complete the install tonight.


Fortunately, the paint inside the windows can be removed easily enough. The windows are terrible and I'd like to replace them, but there is no wood frame on the outside in the brick veneer, so I don't know how destructive it will be to replace them. For now that can wait.




Now I've only got to install the closet doors, paint the inside of the existing door jamb, rehandle the door, paint the vent covers, and order blinds for the windows. This has gone on for too long, but I'm near the end. Next up is the hallway. Wish me luck.