“Happy thought indeed”.  Name that movie.

This weekend was quite productive, starting right out Friday night (I was working late upstairs but Ryan got home and started right in on the built-ins).  When I came down later there were SHELVES in the bookcases!  They were just plywood to start out but by Saturday morning he had face frame pieces glued and attached to each one so they were completely finished!

Shelves all finished!

Next up he made the side panel for the end of the built-ins.  This is all sanded flush now and looks great!

End panel all finished up!

While he worked on this project I was in the basement giving it a good vacuum and organizing it a bit before winter.  Just one more item checked off my list!

I have ordered a jig for installing the drawer hardware so we decided to wait on the drawers and instead do the crown molding to make the built-ins look more finished.  I think we’ll try to get a start on the drawers over the next 2 weekends.  By Saturday night Ryan had made and installed the bottom piece of almost all the molding we plan on doing for now (the rest of the room we are waiting until the steam pipe in one corner can be removed).

Crown molding base piece installed

While Ryan worked on that I stripped the wallpaper from the closet in the tvroom (the only plaster wall we kept in the house so far).

Sunday Ryan put in the last piece of base molding and then put up the crown.  It really came out great.  All we have left is doors and drawers to finish up then prime and paint!

Crown installed around cabines!

While Ryan continued with molding Sunday I got the durabond mixed up and patched the closet up as best I could.  It will get probably 3 skim coats of joint compound but for now I wanted to get the raw plaster edges covered well and smoothed out at the ceiling where it meets the drywall.  It’s still not dry (some very thick sections) but it looks 100x better all ready and next weekend I can start skim coating/taping!

Back wall (mostly just the edges of plaster needed sealing here)

Side wall - this is where I stripped the wallpaper so the whole wall was in rough shape

That was our weekend, we also managed to relax and watch some movies (Water for Elephants as well as some cheesy xmas movies of course).  Next weekend is an early xmas weekend!  Plus the built-ins momentum will continue!