Tuesday, June 19, 2012

A brief detour

A month ago, I purchased a mostly-constructed Sugarplum Cottage for a paltry $5 and decided to rehab and finish it for a friend's kids.  And then I got a new job, and have therefore not spent a lot of time on it.

The time I have spent on it has been... memorable.  First off, the lady that built it wasn't as careful as she could have been, so I've had to do a little patching and re-gluing here and there.  And then there are those spots where things just didn't fit right.

I don't mean to badmouth Greenleaf houses, but lets just say that they are not made of the sturdiest plywood.  Any attempt to separate any misaligned pieces will almost certainly result in their destruction.  Heck; I broke a piece while pushing it out of the plywood sheet and had to glue it back together, so there is no way I'm going to try fixing anything that's already been glued down.  I've had to swallow my pride and my perfectionist tendencies and shrug it off.

I stained the floors, and they turned out pretty well, but then I started painting the exterior... and the plywood ATE the acrylic paint!  I probably should have primed first but since I didn't have a problem with the stain, I assumed the paint wouldn't be a problem, either.  Ha!

So 4 coats later, it's finally acceptably painted and waiting for the application of the trim (which is made of cardboard, fml) and a coat of poly to seal it (I'm a bit worried about splinters).  Pics when I've got it looking decent.

An update on the loft: I got the doors done.  They're stained a lovely shade called "Jacobean"  and I put brass fittings on them: handles on the French doors, doorknobs and a kick-plate on the entry door.  I also stained all the interior window trim (same color), and painted the exterior trim.  It has also benefited from the laziest wiring job in recorded history... but when you're a noob, you need to keep things as uncomplicated as you can.

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