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Saturday, March 29, 2008

Why Must I always Be So Difficult

Man, that was a lot of work. If I had installed the beadboard on the ceiling perpendicular to one of the walls I could have easily finished today. As it is, I’m only half way done. Going with four sections of diagonal beadboard really made this a much harder job that it should have been. Of course, its going to look totally cool when I’m done (Fingers crossed), so it will be worth it.



I averaged a little more than 2 hours a section, but the first one took a lot longer than the second section. Because the room is a rectangle and not a square, none of the angled cuts were 45 degrees. The first couple of boards took a while to work out the proper angles.

I kept telling myself there is probably a fairly simple mathematical equation that would give me the angles, but I never took geometry, so I stood on the ladder like a savage with a board and an adjustable angel trying to figure it. I could feel my brow getting thicker and my posture becoming more simian the longer I stood on the ladder. Fortunately I figured it out just as the grunting began.

Once I worked out the two angels the work was pretty straight forward, but very time consuming. Each piece took a minimum of 3 trips up and down the ladder and two trips to the saw. Only once did I need to pull a board off and recut it or make adjustments, so it could have been worse.

The good news is, I’m going to have enough beadboard. From the second load I got, I was able to get 19, 5-footers, 8, 4-footers, and 2, 3-footers. I have 9 of the 5-footers left and several of the smaller ones. I also still have a half dozen of the 10-footers left over. Even though they are in bad shape, there are long stretches here and there in them that are good. It is going to be close, but so long as there are no major screw-ups I should have enough, and be able to finish tomorrow.

The next step is going to be really, really fun. I need to sand down the whole room. It is going to an extremely messy process. There is still a lot of dirt on the wood and I think a lot of the paint is going to come off as well. There is only one layer of paint, but I’m pretty sure it is going to turn to dust when the RO sander hits it.

If I can get it sanded and primed during the week next week. I can start to trim the room out next weekend.

8 comments:

Sandy said...

Looks awesome!

Anonymous said...

Wow! That looks awesome already. I can't wait to see how it all ends up :)

Jen said...

I am giggling at the "savage" and "grunting" comments...

It is going to look great.

STAG said...

I find that a scraper seems to do a good job, and you don't have to contend with lead filled sanding dust. Never used a cabinet scraper on a whole wall though! Strong wrist required!

S and N said...

Greg,
We enjoy your blog, partly because we're doing the same sorts of things to our house of the same vintage diagonally across the continent. I don't know if it's just seeing the beadboard pictures again and again, but their old weathered wood look is really growing on me. I hope that when you paint you'll use a greyed down neutral (like Farrow & Ball's Matchstick, String, or Lime White), to preserve some of that look. If your appliances are white and stainless, they'll look great against a neutral, and your whites will always look whiter than white.

Fred said...

Looks great, I I think the added touch of the diagonal will pay off in long-term looks. It's just more interesting than perpendicular boards.

Jennifer said...

It's going to be worth it!

Anonymous said...

oh man, it looks fantastic!