The master is almost finished

As many of you may recall, we were thrown into replacing a wall in the master bedroom and worked with Tom Kelly, of Kelly Plaster, to fix cracks in the walls that had been poorly repaired in the past. He recommended that we wait 21 days, for material cure-time, before we primed and painted the surfaces. That gave us plenty of time to pick a color that we both agreed on and do some demo on the old trim in the space.

We chose a color near Restoration Hardware's Silver Sage and had it mixed in Valspar Signature. Consumer reports had rated the paint highly and we had great experiences throughout the rest of the house (good flow and coverage), so we stuck with it. On Tom's direction, we painted the fresh plasterwork with two coats of primer (we once again chose Valspar) and waited. The white spots you see are actually where, after painting the trim, pulling off the painter's tape peeled off the finish back down to the plaster. Let me tell you, that was not a pleasant experience...

I guess in classic fashion, I was wondering who I could yell at about it. I figure that Tom knows when plaster cures, so that shouldn't cause the issue. I used two coats of primer and the premium Valspar paint. The primer didn't say, on the can or otherwise, that it couldn't be used over this material; but in the end the finish failed. Despite that, you might even say that the tape maker (it was 3M) maybe made the batch too sticky...who knows. Bottom line, it slowed us down and I wrote some terse e-mails (more because if I managed the products, I would want to know if homeowners were having issues). We'll see how they respond.

Much in the theme of many of our completed rooms we created custom plinth blocks to accommodate the low outlets (as a reminder, the outlet height cannot be fixed easily because they are sunk into the concrete block walls) while doing the new baseboard trim.

This was also the first room that I did returns in on the ends of the moulding to give it a little more flair, since it is the master. The trim was done with the Festool Kapex KS120 Mitre Saw, which diminishes the instances of tearout with a smooth action. Like the rest of the rooms that we did,we used a MDF trim that, being a painted, was a great solution because it reduced the possibility of swell or shrinkage post installation and allows for a consistent and smooth finish.

An additional challenge to the master bedroom was the fact that it abutted to the bathroom and shared a wall with the bathtub (the same wall that was bad news earlier when the wall was rotted due to tub leakage). Because of this wetwall (where the showerhead and drain pipe was behind a wall in the closet) being behind a closet wall we needed a quick access solution. We (actually Ben) designed a faceframe and access panels to accommodate this. It had previously been some drywall that was faling apart and just screwed into whatever, which was, at times, nothing. the faceframe was made from 1x2 boards that were double stacked and ripped to create insets. The faceframe insets hold cabinet grade birch plywood boards that we custom cut to fit with stainless screws to hold them in place and window-sash hardware on the tops to enable quick access. The panels were screwed into the faceframe and in-place when the frame was installed to better ensure that the frame did not rack and cause panel securing issue later on. We still need to prime and paint the access panels.

We'll be moving in soon. Keep tuned in for more updates!