All-But-Punchlist

[darkemeralds]

The bedroom remodel is substantially complete--which is to say, things that belong in the bedroom have all been moved back into the bedroom, and I've restored the kitchen and living room to order.

Before:




After:

(It's a panorama shot--a function I just discovered on my phone, like, yesterday.)

Ten things I learned or re-learned during this project:

1. IKEA furniture assembly starts out fascinating and quickly becomes exhausting.
2. Have two power drills: one for driving screws and one for drilling.
3. Invest in fresh, sharp, new drill bits.
4. Have a friend/sibling/partner to help, ideally one whose dominant hand is different from yours--very useful when drilling and driving screws on both sides of a tight location
5. Do nothing by hand that you can do with a power tool, and do nothing on the floor that you can do on a higher surface
6. Trips to IKEA will piss you off eventually. Do everything you can online. Pay for deliveries. Conserve your strength and your temper!
7. Ibuprofen is your friend. Your best friend forever.
8. Plan everything, in detail. Your contractors will be blown away.
9. There will be at least one thing wrong that you just go, "oh fuck it" and decide to live with it because you're too damn tired to fix it.
10. Start percolating another project before you're done.

The main thing.

   
Clothes to the left of me, storage to the right...The lights come on when you open the doors. Plenty of space for everything.

;  
Shallow cabinets behind the door.


Inside the as-yet-unfinished headboard unit: six electrical outlets and four USB ports


Looking up: large and small light fixtures*, ceiling fan, and the glow-stars I've managed to apply so far.

*For those keeping count, the room contains 14 light fixtures. They're all LEDs, and, collectively, they use as much electricity as two incandescents used to. Fiat lux, baby.



I return to my online life tomorrow, and will start getting caught up with everyone. But now, Penny Dreadful, then sleep.

Comments

[branchandroot]

It looks fantastic!

[darkemeralds]

Thank you. I'm happy with the outcome--and happily unsurprised: it looks almost exactly the way I pictured it.

[donutsweeper]

oh WOW that's GORGEOUS!!!

[darkemeralds]

Thank you! I'm so tired I don't know quite what I feel, other than eager to get to sleep. I suspect that tomorrow in the morning light I'll be able to form a coherent thought. Overall, though, I'm very happy with the outcome.

[sasha_feather]

Wow, super beautiful! And very thoughtful design.

[darkemeralds]

Thank you! I appreciate your noticing the thoughtful design, because a thought about it a heck of a lot!

[azurelunatic]

That is gorgeous, and I admire your clarity of vision and purpose.

[darkemeralds]

Thank you! Getting to that clarity is my favorite part of any project--that's the energizing part for me. After that, the actual execution tends to be more of an energy drain. Good thing this project ended in a nice place for me to lie down and rest!

[ruric]

What a transformation! You should link this post to something like the Desire To Inspire girls!

That stencil looks brilliant behind the bed and I am envious of your super organised - and well lit - wardrobe storage!

10. Start percolating another project before you're done.

Dare we ask what? And you are going to have a least a week basking in the success of this before committing flat out to something else, yes?

[darkemeralds]

Thank you! I'm so glad you like the look of the stencil. It's one of those odd design ideas that loomed incredibly large in my imagination, but is so subtle in reality that it seems to get lost. I suppose that's because it's behind my head during the vast majority of time I spend in the room. :D

I'll definitely be taking some days of leisure before embarking on the next project, which is to get Restraint re-edited for publication and start sending out inquiries to agents.

[scribblemoose]

Wow. That's absolutely amazing. It looks so calm as well.

Enjoy!

[darkemeralds]

Thanks. It's a wonderfully calm space. And now that my living room and kitchen are clean and tidy again, too, the house feels like home again for the first time since four months ago (when I decided to make one lousy window covering!).

[nanila]

That is spectacular. Congratulations, and I hope you are thoroughly enjoying your revamped living space.

[darkemeralds]

Thank you. I am enjoying it. I woke up this morning feeling well rested and relaxed, and the prospect of finishing up a few of the smaller punch-list items actually seemed attractive. Maybe starting tomorrow...or the next day...

[panisdead]

I love it. I'm so glad it came out how you were envisioning!

[darkemeralds]

It was an odd sensation to step back from attaching the wardrobe doors, and see that my photo-collage visualization had come to life. Result equals plan: that's what happens when you have a ton of time to pour into the plan!

[bluemeridian]

AMAZING! Spectacular vision, planning, and work! I imagine you'll have more of a change to appreciate it all as the aches and pains wear off. :P What are the controls in the headboard unit?

[darkemeralds]

A good night's sleep (abetted by my new ceiling fan--man, I love that thing!) has gone a good way towards getting me back to normal, and I'm considering taking on one or two of the smaller punch-list items before I run out of steam entirely.

The controls inside the headboard are for the heated mattress pad--something which, all of a sudden yesterday as the temperature soared into the high 20s/low 80s, I don't think I'll be needing again for the next few months.

[ranunculus]

I love "task lighting"!
Congratulations on an excellent plan. Not only will contractors be blown away by your planning, it will save you LOTS of money. Nothing more expensive than a change order!
LEDs don't have good color rendering yet so be particularly careful when choosing clothes under their influence. I recently found a bright blue sock paired with a black one. The difference was invisible under our LEDs.

[darkemeralds]

So very true about LEDs. I've found that a mix of cool white and warm white helps, but what helps even more than that is retirement: I'm virtually always able to pick out my clothes in daylight--and it doesn't much matter what I wear anyway!

I had a stern talk with myself early in the project about cheaping out on small things--like, trying to save a few bucks by not having the electrician put in quite so many outlets and fixtures. Penny-wise and pound-foolish. Once I'd agreed to the tearing-off of the plaster walls, anything that needed to happen inside those walls was going to be a lot cheaper before the sheet rock went up!

[cookiemom6067]

Wow!! How are the usb ports in the headboard going to hook up to a computer? Sounds cool, I'm just not getting it

[darkemeralds]

I should have referred to them as USB charging ports. I've got a phone, a tablet, a speaker dock and a pair of Bluetooth earphones that all recharge by USB. The big outlet-adapter I installed inside the headboard has direct USB charging outlets, which let me avoid having to cram those huge honkin' adapter thingies into the regular electrical outlets.

The trick is to wrangle all the cords. The many, many cords. The only real solution is to hide them, and I'll be putting sliding doors across the headboard to do just that (it's one of my punchlist items).

I'm looking forward to the day when induction charging and wireless transmission of electricity become available!