Sneak Peek: Wainscoting

Over the last several evenings, Jeff has been installing wainscoting in the dining room. He completed the chair rail earlier this week, and has been tirelessly measuring and cutting and making loud noise in the front of the house ever since. Seriously, do you know how painfully loud a miter saw and a nail gun can be in a big empty space with hardwood floors, bare walls, and no furniture? 

Here's a sneak peek at his progress, because I'm just so darn impressed:

One wall down, three more to go -- and then... rinse and repeat in the hallway.

A man-with-a-miter-saw's job is never done.

Ryan

Ceiling Fan Installation

Last night, Jeff decided to put an end to my nagging and install the ceiling fan in our bedroom.

Currently, each of the bedrooms have flush mounted overhead lighting in the center of the room:

While original to the home, we have decided that we will slowly replace each of them with more modern fixtures. The problem is, these lights leave huge holes in their wake.

Hanging a new fixture requires crawling in the attic, installing a brace, and covering the hole with ceiling medallion.

Scott came by to give Jeff a hand with the project:

The install was going rather smoothly at first. I was enjoying photographing the attic; happy not to be tall enough to help with the project ... and then, they started to mount the fan -- and I walked in on Jeff trying make this work:

Yep, the medallion was too small.

Luckily, we found a similar medallion in the shed that was purchased in 1983. August 22, 1983 -- to be exact. 

You don't believe me? Here's the receipt:

As it turns out, Paw Paw forgot to measure, too; and we were left with two ill-fitting medallions. Go figure.

Having consumed two glasses of wine at this point in the evening, I gave the go ahead to install the 30-year-old-wrong-sized-medallion, and made Jeff promise to cut and plaster some drywall into the holes. Here's how the rest of the install unfolded:

And, finally, two hours later ... success:

I love the look on their faces.

So, we have a fan.... and four small holes in our ceiling.

I suggested that we stuff fuzzy holiday socks in the holes, but Jeff went with a more pragmatic solution: cardboard.

So, there it is. One step forward, two steps back.

Here's to living and learning, and to all of the hard work went into that fan. We will definitely report back on the drywall and painting phase of this project.

Happy Friday, all!

Ryan