Is the Wood Wall still standing?

4/28/2015

Bonjour mes amis!

Today, I'm going to have to take a break from showing you the city of Caen, France to reveal a big project I worked on that I haven't told you about.

My daughter, Ms. Sapphire, moved to Colorado some three years ago.  As sad as it is to have her living away, it has sure given us a fun place to visit!  Ms. Sapphire is a hard worker and a good saver, and she recently purchased a new home all on her own.  We are so proud of her!

3 Story Townhome!

I really wanted to go see her new home and help with the Decorating!  But...we made a plan for a project or two as well.

Ms. Sapphire's builder wanted about $3,000 to put molding around all of her windows.  I found that ridiculous, and told her not to have them do it, that I would help get it done.  (Wait!  What did I just get myself into?)

Then, in another moment of insanity, I gave Ms. Sapphire a recommendation for obtaining hardware for her kitchen and bathroom cabinets (build.com...which, by the way, did not disappoint!  Wonderful, heavy, good quality hardware at a good price)!  I  told her I would bring my guides for installing the hardware.  (What?  Another big project!  45 pieces of hardware!?!)

What was I thinking?

She's a working girl!  (Though she did take time off!)

Heading up there with so many projects meant I really had to work,

and work hard,

and, by the way,

do it all in one week!

So, what do I do next?  I see Ms. Sapphire's great new home, and I tell her that she needs a feature wall in her livingroom, like a big reclaimed wood wall!  (Did I just say that?  That's another huge project!)  Oh!  You can bet your bottom dollar that Ms. Sapphire was all about that.

So, what did we do?

We headed to Home Depot, of course, to buy wood...

To build a wall!

An 8 foot wide, by 10 foot tall wall!

Mind you, at this point, we were so excited and eager to get started...

After purchasing the wood, we cut the wood down so we could make it resemble a pieced wood floor (after very careful calculations), and then we beat on the wood to give it some character with whatever tools we could find!  Following that, we stained the wood using strong tea, and followed up with the Vinegar and Steel Wool concoction that you can find instructions for all over the Internet!  We loved the varying shades of the browns and greys!

Construction began in the afternoon in the livingroom.  Ms Sapphire did not want lots of holes in her walls, so we chose to put up two boards, screwing them into the studs, and then, we would screw the wall into those boards.  We put four black screws in each board, two on each end.  Of course, we had to pre-drill the holes.  Even with two of us, the work took hours!

We got pretty far along, and then realized we better make sure we could lift this thing.  We may or may not have removed a few boards!

We moved right along though, with barely a stop for dinner.  And then, as it got later and later, I begged Ms. Sapphire to stop for the night and finish in the morning.  No!  She was determined that we complete the wall that night.

So, we did!

And Ms. Sapphire even vacuumed up afterward!  (You will note that we did not bring the wall boards all the way to the floor.  We figured a new sofa would cover this area, and this way, Ms. Sapphire has access to the electricity for some cool lighting)!

At 1:04 AM, the work was done, and we headed to bed to veg in front of a little Downton Abby (since Ms. Sapphire hasn't watched the whole series yet)!

That was a hard days work, but the payoff was big!  Even Ms. Sapphire's neighbor (who is a handyman) came to inspect our work, and was super impressed!

And when I say the payoff was big, look at the space now that Ms. Sapphire got her new sofa and has done some decorating!  Wow!  (I'm pretty sure Ms. Sapphire's Pup, Luka, loves his new home too)!

And here's a few closeups, just after the new sofa arrived!

Don't you just love the texture of all that wood?

Quite a Statement!

And, I love all the selections that Ms. Sapphire has made for her new Home!

And yes, the morning after we constructed this wood wall, I came down the stairs, and asked Ms. Sapphire...

"Is the Wood Wall still standing?"

Yeah!  We did good work together, and it was so nice having the time with my daughter.

As a reward for all our hard work, we took a little trip to Steamboat Springs together even though she had to go there for work anyway!  We had a great time!

Come back next time when I will reveal our other projects!
Have a "Jewel" of a Day!
Jan