I made so many trips to Home Depot this past weekend that I ended up being on a first name basis with most of the staff. I felt like I deserved my own name tag.
It was finally time to fix up one of the spare rooms in my house. This room had been used by the previous owner as a place in which to run his kidney dialysis machine. Water damage from the machine caused part of one of the hardwood planks to rot, which resulted in the previous owner covering it with plywood. I was aware of this when I bought the house, and had the room carpeted and painted before I moved in. The contractor who handled job also outfitted the walls with cheap, mismatched ceiling trim. He did the job so poorly that he only put up three planks rather than four. I used the room for various things over the years, but, over the last two years, I just stopped using it for anything other than storage.
I tore up the carpet to find that the underlying hardwood floor had been covered with four different types of tile. No problem. I'd just have a loose-lay vinyl floor installed over it, and, thankfully, Jason just happens to be the best flooring guy around. Before he could get the floor in, I'd have to paint the room and re-do the trim. I pulled down the first trim board without a problem. The second one, however, was stuck fast to the wall. In my fervor to pull it down, I ended up putting a 4 inch hole into my ceiling. I filed that problem away for later and began painting my room in a bold blue, one suited for doing blue-screen movie work.
After the painting was done, Jason and I attacked the ceiling hole problem. A 4 inch crown molding board would come pretty close to covering up the hole, so we made quick trip to Home Depot to get the materials we needed to put the molding up. Not only did it cover up the hole very well, but it also looks great. We had a few issues with one of the boards bowing slightly, so we called in Jim to help us fit the plank in between the flair pieces. Now, all that's left to do is to paint the closet doors and the floor trim and we can finally get this floor installed and declare this room "done".
Even though I had a ton of help putting this room back together, I do feel pretty good about having had a hand in doing it. I feel like I have triumphed, at the very least, because a contractor would have charged me much more to do all of this. Although, a contractor probably wouldn't have put a 4 inch hole in the ceiling either. So, maybe it's a draw. Either way, I'm happy to have this room in a usable state again and I chalk the experience up as a personal success.