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

[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!