Just plain work!

I wish I could say I've been creative lately, but instead, I've been doing hard labor! It's been a lot of careful measuring and precision cutting of 2x4s. I tore out most of a wall in my bedroom that separates it from the bathroom and closet. It wasn't a load bearing wall, so I had no worries of collapsing the house. It all started with a mattress! Yep, that's right. We got rid of our old queen sized mattress and purchased a California-King sized Tempur-Pedic mattress. It didn't fit in our bedroom as well, so it was necessary to change some other things around. We have been wanting to make some improvements in this room for awhile now, and since I had already planned on replacing drywall, I figured that we could swap out the swinging/hinged door to the bathroom and install a pocket door while we have the wall opened up. That should free up about 10 square feet of space, the amount of arc that a regular door needs to open completely.



First, I removed the old sheetrock, which had a lot of flaws and irregularities. Then I found that many of the studs were not in the right places. No wonder the previous drywall installers didn't hit the studs half the time! I have now removed all the unwanted studs, added more (correctly, on 16" center, and plumb, I might add), then fitted the pocket door in place.

This is what the pocket door looks like before the drywall covers the framework. And as you can see, I have jumped the gun a little and mounted the door before staining it. I just wanted to make sure it was going to install right.

So there's lots of hard work left to do. My reward, after this wall is finished, is to texure another wall of this same bedroom. But I have to complete this wall first, so I'll be updating as it happens. I like starting a project that is messed up and ugly to begin with, because the before and after difference is extreme, making me look like a genious! When I get to move on to the interesting textured wall, I'll be using a tissue paper technique, rich brown paint, and glaze highlights. I've never done a process like this before, but I'm thinking it will be a whole lot more fun. That's the kind of project that doesn't feel like work!