Built-Ins, Crown & Baseboards

The past couple of weeks have been filled with working on the house. A lot! It's insane and exciting how much progress we've made toward finishing the living room and on the nursery. A couple of highlights are below:

1. Living Room Built-Ins
Next to the fireplace in the living room, we will place two cabinets with drawers, and then above those will be shelves lining the exposed shiplap to the ceiling. In order to finish the baseboards around the living room, we have to get these cabinets in place. In order to install the crown molding around the living room, we have to get these cabinets in place. So David has tackled those.

We started with standard builder's grade cabinets from Lowe's. They were a bit too deep, so David cut the backs off of them. We also wanted to build them up in height so the baseboards could wrap around the front of them, so he attached the cabinets to each other and then built a base on which they could rest, raising the height.

He also added trim on either side to extend the built-ins to fill the space. This weekend Dad helped David get the cabinets moved into the living room, then David set them in place, leveled them, and attached them to the walls.

Sliding the cabinets into place. They haven't been painted yet; just primed.

We didn't want to go with the standard grade doors and drawer fronts that came on the cabinets. We'd looked into buying custom fronts, but they're so expensive that we looked into some alternatives. One such was buying a router bit that he could use to make the cabinet doors look like those in our kitchen. He finished the doors last night, and I love how they turned out! Next up we need to sand, prime, and paint!

David made the cabinet doors for the built-ins...can't wait to see them installed!

Prior to placing the cabinets in place, we ran wiring to above the mantel which is where we'll hang the TV. The Xbox, cable box, and all that fun stuff will sit in the cabinets, and the wiring runs through the wall to get to where we'll hang the TV. Progress!

2. Crowning the Windows and Doors

Have you ever found something you really like, can't find it anywhere locally, try to find a suitable replacement, and had no luck? That was us with this piece of trim. Check out Windsor One trim if you are super nerdy and want to see some beautiful stuff! Their catalog is what David based the window and door trim in the living room off of. It's gorgeous! And what makes it really gorgeous is the top piece of header crown. Which is nowhere to be found locally. Or anywhere in the four-state area. Trust me - I called every dealer and distributor. I ended up calling Windsor One direct and had the most helpful gentleman give me the name of a couple stores that he knew would have it in stock and would work with us. I spoke to a nice gentleman at Horner Millwork, and for a very nominal shipping charge, we received six 8-foot pieces a couple of days later from Massachusetts. I'm sure he thought we were nuts, but we love the finished product. 

So now that we've installed it and seen how it's the perfect cap to our new window trim, how will we get it for the rest of this old house? The fine folks at Windsor One have offered to help us work with their local-ish sales team and distributors to find someone who will get it for us without charging us the not-so-nominal shipping price of $250+ that we first ran into (Horner shipped it to us for $40, so much more reasonable)!

We haven't painted the window trim yet, but love the new crown piece we added to the top!

3. Began Installing Baseboard

Trim might be the bane of our existence. David is great at it, but it's tedious work! As you may recall, we took up a couple runs of shiplap around the bottom of our living room walls, allowing us to seal with spray foam insulation and caulk, and allowing the electrician to run wiring to install new outlets. We put sheetrock back over that months ago. Fast forward to a couple weekends ago when we wanted to install the new baseboards. And couldn't. Because we couldn't for the life of us find the studs. Stud finder wouldn't work. Measuring from the windows or known studs wouldn't work. So we got smart. We pulled back off those pieces of sheetrock, cut them down into small strips, and reattached those strips at each stud (had to do this to ensure the wall depth was consistent with the remainder of the wall). And voila! We were able to easily see the studs and attach the bottom piece of the baseboard. Quirky? Sure. Successful? Absolutely!

Our baseboard is a little complicated. David got a router...need I say more? :) The baseboard is actually three separate pieces that attach to one another then attach to the wall. David ripped the main board, then milled two different pieces of trim with the router to create this unique profile. It's so pretty, nobody else will have anything like it, but it stays true to the style of the house. Once we finish the built-ins, we can finish installing the baseboard throughout the room. Like the windows, it will need to be painted once we have it installed.

We love the detail of the baseboard, with its three parts.

Here you can see the the bottom board, the thin piece that sticks out, and then the top piece that rests against the wall.

There are many more projects we've been working on - stay tuned for more updates as we work quickly on Operation: Finish Two Rooms before Nolan Arrives!