theBarnstorming

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August 20, 2006

Trim is a Four-Letter Word

We started off Saturday morning with great plans. We had purchased some Minwax Red Mahogany to stain the trim. It would be beautiful, and woody, and work well with all the exposed wood we have.

Uncle Ken called around 8:30 and said we could come get the lumber for the trim that we had picked up last week in his van and left at his house. He had trimmed the trim, so it was in more manageable lengths. I had understood that we would go to his house, bring all the stuff back in his van, unload it, and then return the van. Of course, when we got there (20 minutes away) we discovered he actually needed his van, so I had to return to C-town to get our van, empty it out (this involved dragging a couch by myself down the street and into the yard across rumply dumply bricks), and drive back to millington. In that amount of time, Matthew and Uncle Ken had gotten the mitre saw going, and were furiously cutting quarter-rounds to trim out the glass block window. Between the two of them, they managed to cut everything right the first or second time, and in honor of Matthew's prowess, Uncle Ken gifted him an 8-point handsaw. Matthew was touched. We have no pictures, because we really thought all we were going to be doing was driving, and left the camera at home.

Upon returning home and unloading the lumber, Matthew announced he must get to work on a project for work, left me do the staining, and set up shop on the dining room table chez Behrs.

Well, boy were we ever wrong. I stained a small little test strip, like they told me to, and it looked kind of nice. Then I stained a whole board, and it looked horrible. Not at all like the stain charts they gave out in the Minwax aisle. I mean, ick.

I thought perhaps I had done something wrong, and read the directions. It said that soft woods (like pine) needed to be pre-treated so that the stain would take evenly. I was disheartened. I ran home to chez Behrs, and asked matthew what he thought. Should I invest in pre-treatment stuff and try again, or should I return the stain and just paint them, like he had wanted to from the start? It didn't look too bad around the windows, but as a baseboard...

...BURF!

Matthew came and agreed it looked burfy. This would not do. Then the question was, what color to paint the trim? It needed to go with the yellow walls while complementing the dark exposed wood and the amber finished floors. There had been earlier discussion about a dark trim, maybe in the red range, but it would have to be the exact right red and I didn't feel I had the proper authority or time to be picking out a red after my insistence that the stain would look "really nice". After sweating over it for a little while, we both threw up our hands and said, "Let's just paint it white" because, you know, white is the new black. So, off I went to the hardware store to return the unopened cans of stain we had gotten, and to get some white paint. I was feeling totally demoralized.

There are so many gd shades of white that my eyes started getting boggly. But I narrowed it down to "Sugar-coated" "Naptime" and "Bleak" (seriously!) - well, Bleak was a warmer white like we had discussed, but frankly, I couldn't live with the name. If anything bad happened, I would blame it on my buying a paint color named Bleak. Of course, choosing between Sugar-coated and Naptime is nearly impossible for me. For those of you who know me, I'd like to put it to a vote.

**there was a blogpoll here, but it was slowing loading time - see vote results here **

So, after I made the crucial decision between two nearly indistinguishable whites, the kind lady behind the counter mixed them up, and then gave me a FREE paint can opener! This is why small towns stores are way better than the Baltimore Home Depot, where the service person couldn't even rouse herself to move out of the way when we were trying to push a huge cart of insulation into the lane to buy it. She just couldn't be bothered. But I digress.

Now, armed with the proper colors and the proper tools, I finally got down to brass tacks. Or, rather, paint and trim.

And more paint. And more trim. It seemed endless, even though it wasn't really. I made the fatal mistake of setting up on the floor, where I could get to more boards, instead of on some sawhorses, where I could save my knees and back. But, whatever. I can't really complain, since I wasn't insulating for three days in 100+ degree weather.

Matthew came to check on me after wondering what was taking me so long in the dead of the night. Though I insisted that I had just been painting the trim, he was suspicious, and checked behind all the doors for hidden paramours.

Thankfully, I don't have any, because we don't yet have doors for them to hide behind.

When I finally finished, I stacked all the boards between the two ladders. I felt rather ingenious, and pleased at how they lined up so neatly on both of the ladders. I took a picture Sunday morning, I was so delighted.

Until, of course, I realized I would need one of the ladders to remove the masking tape on the ceilings and beams that I was so looking forward to removing. Needless to say, my ingenuity won out, and I didn't remove any tape. The trim boards remain on the ladders, waiting to be nailed into place.

We also brought over a little home decor to spruce things up a bit. I can't remember where we got this, but I do remember it cost $8.

And doesn't it fit in perfectly? Now we just need to find some plants to inhabit the hooks. At the moment, they're having too much fun hanging out in the backyard chez Behr, with the sprinkler. He's such a Casanova.

Posted by ribbu at August 20, 2006 10:04 PM

Comments

Posted by: Ming at August 23, 2006 12:43 AM

Posted by: amy v at August 24, 2006 01:14 AM

Posted by: Steve at August 24, 2006 04:50 PM

Posted by: ribbu at August 24, 2006 06:06 PM