I started a project on the 30th of December and we finished it on the 1st of January. I love ringing in the new year with a finished project!
Here is a view of our upstairs as it was being built more than 10 years ago. I made a point of taking pictures of any spaces that looked like they might have "retro-fitting" potential. We've already used a couple of those spaces like knocking out the back of the coat closet to open a huge amount of storage under the stairs and knocking out the wall in our bedroom as we were converting part of it into our office. The spaces with the oval around them show my intended target. I got a good shot because I was actually standing in my future closet on the other side of the soon-to-be wall.
Our bedroom door is on the left so there's not a lot of traffic in the hallway here. I figured it would be a good place to try a project because if we totally mess up it's not out there for the whole world to see. And it's practice for the other projects I'm planning (the ones that will actually be out there for the whole world to see).
We (Asher and myself) found the studs and got started tearing into the wall. He wanted to take a hammer to everything but I insisted we start carefully (killjoy that I am).
This didn't take long and that rip in the wall on the right just meant I needed wider molding when I finished it up.
I was hoping to used the tall space to the left for built in dvd/cd storage but we poked our heads in there and saw a pipe that looked like it might be important so we left that space alone.
Joey came home and saw what we had done and graciously took on the task of removing the pesky studs that were in our way. It took some work since he had to saw some nails off and remove the stud that was attached to that wall there (the one with the duct tape covering the nail holes). The animals thought it was interesting to have a hole in the wall.
Off to Home Depot with my boys. Less than $90.00 later we had everything we needed.
Here is the beginning. We used a decent amount of Gorilla wood glue and it's good stuff. Plus we got to use my new pneumatic nail gun again and that's always fun.
Gluing the back on.
It fits! Now to shim that sucker up. This took a few tries (and un-doing and trying again) but we got it nice and level for the most part.
Then I got to do the pretty work of trimming it out (with my fun sliding compoung miter saw, weee!). I'm getting pretty good at my mitered corners.
A couple coats of primer and some crisp white paint and bam! Done! (except for the bottom but we are getting new floors so that will wait)
So here is the before and after. It's 11" deep and 46" wide. The shelves are 9" tall on the top one and 10" tall on the two bottom ones. Joey had stacks of books next to his bedside and all over our bedroom but not anymore baby! How great is that? There are a few "flaws" in it but nothing really huge and we are confident our next project will be even nicer since we are learning so many new things.
Even the animals held a hallway convention and after much discussion decided they approved.
Our new flooring is being delivered tomorrow so we are taking a deep breath and heading into our next project pretty quick here. Onward!
