(The last wall wasn't finished yet when I took this picture, but it is now - it's all up!)
Well, mostly done. I'm marking it 98% in my little status section in the side-bar, because technically I have a couple things to do - go around and dab paint over the nails, and patch the few little gaps with spackling and paint that. But it's going to be simple, and basically it's all up, so ... I have molding.
I cannot get over how awesome this looks. Better even than I expected. I'm incredibly impressed with it. The center squares weren't just an artsy touch - they were also practical.
I can't remember the details now (it's been so long since we first got the stuff to do this), but there was some issue with the length of the stock molding, and of the walls, that was creating some problem I didn't like ... but we discovered that using these squares, we could cut the stock molding exactly in half (which we did at the store), and that combined with the squares was the exact right length (with a little 1/4" trimming here or there) without having to piece the molding mid-wall.
But practical or not, I love the way they look. I intended to paint decorative compass roses on each one, but never got around to it when I decided the molding was going up today, or I was going to die attempting it. I figured I can do it later ... it'll be harder painting them on the wall, but not impossible. Hey ... if Michaelangelo could paint a ceiling ... .
The little corner pieces are a little funkier, not exactly how I envisioned things (also chosen so we didn't have to try to miter corners). You can't really see them well in the other pictures, but they are just decorative corner pieces with a fancy bit at the top (which is the little bit we left sticking up above the molding).
It seemed better in theory than in practice - as you can tell by this picture, they don't look so bad close up, but from the general view out in the room, they just kind of get lost and look a little weird. Probably they would have needed to be bigger to have looked proper.
But that's okay, I came up with a grand plan for them as well. Now that I'm getting into clay sculpture, I'm going to (eventually) sculpt ship figureheads for each corner - small, scaled to fit appropriately in that space - and cover those corner pieces with them. It'll look cool, and go perfectly with the 'seaside cottage' theme we're working on here.
The scheme that got me to this point was a rearrangement of the use of my time. Usually on Saturdays I sleep in (even if it's only 8:30 or 9:00, I don't set an alarm), then I sit around for several hours doing nothing (i.e., messing around online and drinking coffee), then I go to the grocery store, and usually run some errands, and by the time I get home for the day it's 2:00 or later and I'm tired, and band practice is in a few hours, and I don't feel like starting on a home project.
And rightly so, as this took far longer than I thought it would. About 4 hours. But consequently, nothing ever gets done.
I was sick to death of stuff not getting done, and devised a new plan. Now I get up really early Saturday morning - 6:00 a.m., the same time I get up during the week - and I get my ass out to the grocery store early (this morning, by 8:00). Then I'm home early enough to still have time to tackle my home improvement projects.
This is the only way I'll ever get anything done, because Saturday is the only day I have for these types of projects - I refuse to do this stuff on Sunday, Sunday is my R&R and "me" day - for sewing, clay, whatever fun and creative project I want to work on. It could be argued that doing this stuff is fun and creative too, but ... for some reason, despite how much I want to do these things, how much I enjoy fixing up the house, I still consider them 'work.' So, they don't fall into the proper category for Sunday. Sunday is a 'no work' day, just because everyone needs one of those a week.
But Saturday is also the only day I care to go to the grocery store, as I detest going on weeknights after work.
So ... starting my day earlier is the only way to fit them both in, but it worked like a charm this week. If I can keep this up, I should start making progress on more projects. I don't really mind the sacrifice of another couple hours of sleep or "sitting around" time because it came down to a matter of choices ... if I want to get these things done, I have to make them a priority, make time to do them, and just do it. If I want to sleep in and sit around for hours on Saturday morning, then ... nothing's going to get done. Can't have it both ways. So it's a worthwhile trade-off.
Next phase on the dining room: paint the dark wood paneling in the doorway to the kitchen and the 'tween' (that window between the kitchen and dining room) and replace the edge molding on those. And paint the ceiling. Then - or concurrently - I'll work on that stupid window between the dining room and the spare room, and put up the coat hook rack on the wall by the door.
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