Sunday, September 9, 2012

Remodeling finally completed

It is now time to post pictures of Gwen's completed room.  She has emptied the last of her boxes and has organized (to the extent that everything has a place at the moment) her belongings.


The first organizational challenge, of course, was the closet, and 





when buying shelves the length you want, you end up paying for the entire length of shelf available and have them cut it to size.  

Gwen, however, was able to put the remaining pieces to use as well, as seen the the pictures.















She now has more closet room than ever before.

































Her sitting room, also, took shape nicely and allows room for books, knickknacks, 








two comfy chairs, 

and her new desk for her computer.








Even the bedroom, although smaller than the original because the bathroom wall was  moved, has ample space for sleeping, 

















watching and storing movies, 








storing her music CDs,






and setting up her new keyboard, which she received for Christmas and never played because there was no room in the living room.











See, lots of room to practice now.













This is Gwen's new room, and the new color of her door.


Notice anything of interest, Lisa?



The bathroom door, to the right is handicap accessible, 
just in case, after the bathroom is finished, someone in the family bedsides Gwen needs to use it.
















And here is Gwen enjoying her new room.



Sunday, August 26, 2012

The Continuation of Remodeling

We now come to what for Gwen and I was the hardest part about finishing up the room.  Installing the brackets in the closet for Gwen's closet organizer.  Sure, it looks easy, and Todd gave us measurements, but when you actually go in and try to find hidden studs, even with measurements, it is not really that easy.  First, you can measure for a stud, find it for the first screw, and then find out as you go up to the next one that the hole you make does not encounter a stud at all and now you have to start again.  Our first day became so frustrating, we had to just quit after finally installing only two of them.

Our first plan of action did not work, so I had to come up with a new game plan for installing the rest.  It took us four days to put up 10 of these bracket (rods, poles, or what ever they are actually called), and when it was done it was a complete relief.





This is one set of rods on the south wall of the bedroom.






These are some of the missed holes as we tried to install these bars.






It was frustrating work, taking much time, pencil marks, and careful preplanning before drilling.


 
To the left is the south wall with 6 bars, and to the right is the north wall with only four.  



Now that the closet was done, the fun began - filling the closet with clothes, sheets, blankets, and whatever else would be stored in it.  When the closet was first roughed in, Gwen believed it would be too big and she would never be able to fill it.  What a misconception, as you can see by the pictures below.


She began simply by hanging the clothes easiest obtain because they were not packed away.








As she worked, she had company, although he only had a peek hole for watching her work, but it was cute to see.



















And so the closet began to fill, until . . .















Gwen discovered the closet wasn't as big as she thought, or maybe it was the fact that she had more clothing and such than she originally thought she had.










 She now has her mirror in the closet; she has room to hang her necklaces in there as well, and on the next pictures, you can see her sheets on the top row above her clothes.















Even her skirts can hang on her bottom row.  They are the ones in the forefront of the picture.



 
As she slowly worked on the closet, she also worked on the rest of the room deciding were to place things and then emptying the many containers that stored her belongings for the last year.  As seen in the following pictures, there are a variety of containers - including bags.
















See, she had something stacked in almost every corner of the room.





The following pictures are how Gwen's bedroom looks as of yesterday - Saturday.  She worked all day putting things away, including the above pictures of her closet.






She had been sleeping in her room for almost a week, and she loves that fact.









She can watch DVD's from her bed once again.










Pictures are slowly going up and gracing her walls.











Her door still has a window, and now has a curtain,







and she has a very nice sitting room set up for reading, lounging, and talking.  We have used it at night as she has finished working just to sit and talk about the room, work, and other topics of concern and interest.

Once the room is completely done, I will add more pictures; for right now, there are still containers to sort through and empty, and two more shelves to be added to the closet.  You will notice in the sitting room pictures, that Gwen moved the bookcase.  She laughed when she did it saying Todd, after all the work of helping her place it, would shake his head at the indecision of women - of course, it is our prerogative to change our minds.