Patching and painting continues.

We spent all day today (except for a brief foray to Home Depot to buy a few supplies and went ahead and ordered our new refrigerator since they were offering 10% off all appliances, 12 months/ 0% financing, a 100% rebate of the delivery fee, AND a discounted extended warranty) finishing the wood trim in both rooms, and touching up the drywall and paint.

Houdini did a less-than-stellar patch job the other day, so I bought a small tub of premix drywall compound and had at it myself. It was just really bugging me that one electrical outlet still had a gaping hole extending well past the edge of its outlet cover. Aye, carumba.

Well... not anymore. I also smoothed over a few places where Houdini's mesh tape was still clearly visible through his prior plaster-digitation. Presto, change-o! It now looks like FINISHED DRYWALL!!!


I then tackled priming and painting Houdini's "touch-up" around the electrical box for the new under-valance light fixture above the kitchen window. The fixture was taken down last week so that the area could be patched up, but the light will be re-installed tomorrow. Once the top of the cabinet is installed over the valance light fixture, this tiny cramped space won't be easily accessible again, since I don't do electrical. Especially after witnessing our electrician getting zapped just the other day when he grabbed a live wire while installing the new GFCI outlets in the kitchen. He let out an impressive yelp and literally jumped off the floor. No, thank you. My rule has always been that all electrical anything must be installed by a qualified somebody, and that somebody ain't me.

Andrew began the day clear-coating the two halves of the split kitchen island leg for the sink cabinet trim. Yes, we received the new legs from the millwork company on Friday, and the two new pieces match very nicely. (Many thanks to the nice folks at Adams Wood Products in Tennessee for the quick turnaround)!



After the second coat dried, we stood the legs in place against the cabinet. The sink will be skirted with oak boards to hide the wooden stand that supports it. The split legs will be cut to length and installed along both sides of the sink, something like this:



After finishing the legs, Andrew started working on the bathroom trim, which we decided to leave natural, rather than paint. I love the appearance of cypress so much, and, frankly, this wood was expensive. It seems a shame to paint over it. So, we went ahead and clear-coated all of the cypress trim in both rooms. Andrew sanded and vacuumed away, and then gave every lick of bare cypress in the bathroom 3 coats of satin poly.

Meanwhile, I did likewise in the kitchen, working on the trim around the two doors and the window.

We quickly realized that there are at least a couple hundred, if not a gazillion, nail holes among all of these pieces of wood. They are tiny, from minuscule finishing nails, but they are numerous. Neatly camouflaging nail holes in unpainted wood is challenging, but I tried a new type of wax crayon wood filler.

It comes 4 crayons to a pack, with 4 different wood shades. You shave off a little piece of each, soften the wax in your hand and blend together, until you get a nice color match for your wood. You must apply at least one coat of finish to the wood prior to applying the wax, so the wax won't be absorbed into the wood. After plugging, you buff off the excess wax with a cloth. It does a superb job. I like it! Only about 700 nail holes to go....


Just before calling it a day, we peeled off the protective plastic film from the new window, so we can now see through it.

Tomorrow, Andrew must work, but I have the day off, and I'll be back at The Cottage to finish off the woodwork, finish priming and painting, and maybe the plumber will show up and hook up the dishwasher for us!