Day Four-forty-six: back in business

March has come in like a lion, if a lion had a charge account at Home Depot. We don't have any big accomplishments but did make steady progress on a range of fronts.

Down in our work room (aka, the basement) we have several projects in our staging area. After more than a few misjudgments on paint colors we've taken to painting 2x2 boards to see how we like them. The two browns are under consideration for our upstairs, interior doors. The pale yellow might become the new color for our main living area.

Here you can see how we road test a sample by seeing how it will look against the colors already there (especially the floor).

Unhappy with how our original contractors left the stairs looking we've decided to paint and then seal them with a clear floor finish. This took six coats in all (three each of paint and the sealer) but they look great and should be plenty durable. Now we need to touch up the white paint around them and we can call this part of the project done (we still want to replace the landing to match).

So remember what we said about having some errors in picking a color? Well even with our samples the process isn't foolproof. We liked this pinkish hue when it was 2x2 but found it hard to look at when we covered the walls so this:

became this, a nice warm light brown.

The weather hasn't cooperated with our desire to make much progress outside, but we have nearly finished installing the floor of the deck. Two more board on the side and one on the end cap then we have to replace the railings and steps.

One of the bigger projects has been a redo of the downstairs bathroom. We firmly subscribe to the "if at first you don't succeed" school of renovation. With the expansion we realized that we can have a bigger, more useful counter. So we'll add this new piece...

with a clear stained/sealed oak top and doors...

to fill this space (after we rotate the sink 90 degrees so that everything will face out)...

One other thing we're doing to this room is to change the grout color. It's not dark enough and became two-tone inadvertently when we expanded the bathroom. Fortunately technology is a big help. Using a carbide attachment for a Bosch multitool made relatively quick work of digging out the old grout.

Finally, with the holiday last month we exchanged DIY gifts for the renovator who has (nearly) everything. Levels made of aircraft aluminum...

and more drill bits than you can find at the local hardware store.