Baby's Room

Finally got the baby's room complete a few weeks ago. The painting was really easy, once we found a tick to paint a straight line. We have bullnose corners in the house and couldn't decide where to end the paint near the window. We decided to leave the window sill white and paint the flat surface of the wall, ending it where the bull nose curve started. To get the perfectly straight line, we masked painters tape on the bull nose curve. Then we painted the tape edge where we wanted the final color to be with the same white paint that window sill was. This way, the white paint oozed under the tape, filling the tape to wall gaps. So, when we painted our wall color, there was no where for the wall color to go between tape and wall, so it stayed out. Then when we removed the tape, perfectly straight line. Too bad we didn't do this for the baseboard. I had to go back over that with one of my plastic model paint brushes, razor blades, etc.

We put in a chair rail. Not too bad cutting and installing with my trusty table saw. Caulking it was a chore. I finally figured out how to do it quickly, neatly, and with minimal caulk. The secret is water-based/soluble caulk. This stuff rinses off, as opposed the permanent silicon stuff. For doing stuff in the house, on textured walls with baseboards, etc, nothing beats old-fashioned water soluble caulk. Now that it has been 3-5 weeks I'm fuzzy on what I did. I put down caulk with the tip of the tube. Then I may have used my finger to push the caulk in the crack and simultaneously wipe excess. Then I used a damp sponge, pressing into the crack hard, wiping along the seam. Do about 3-5 ft at a time, then rinse your sponge. I learned the sponge thing from watching a plumber, it is really the ONLY to apply caulk. I am totally against silicon. I don't care how much better it is against cracking, shrinking, and mold. All of that is useless to me if I can't apply it neatly. Unless I have a fish tank, with glass on glass seams, silicon is junk. For anything textured I need to have my sponge.

Of course all of this is the construction details. For the prettiness and proof of final result, I refer you to the pictures.