The first coat of paint was white primer, followed by the final coat of flat off-white. It came out well. I picked off-white to help offset the room's small size and limited natural light. The paint really made it look less like a construction zone, and more like a real room.Next was putting up the loft, which went quickly, and I was finally able to start sleeping in the room. I also wired the track lights, which are attached to the loft, and in the process, added a switch that allows me to turn off the lights from bed.The floor was one of the most frustrating parts of the project. The floorboards are rare yellow pine, which I wanted to salvage and use for a nice wood floor. But the surface was covered with old asbestos-laden linoleum adhesive. The adhesive had to be carefully scraped up one board at a time, a process that took an entire month. A lot of my brothers asked me why I didn't just put down carpet. The fact is, I just really like wood floors, and I'm not a big fan of carpet.
After I got the adhesive up, I realized I needed to replace several severely damaged boards. Unfortunately, it's difficult to buy yellow pine these days. Plus, they don't make floorboards in that exact size anymore. I had to make do with Douglas Fir floorboards that were 1/8 inch wider and 1/4 inch thinner than the old boards. It was a huge pain, but luckily there were no classes that week, and I managed to knock it out in about three days.
Sanding took about a week. Trying to match the new floorboards to the old stain was difficult, but most of the boards came out well. Applying the clear finish went quickly.It felt wonderful to finally move all my things into the room after over six months of sweat and blood!What you see above is almost what it looked like when I was done. I later refinished the cast-iron radiator, put trim on the loft, and built a rolling, library-style ladder to the loft. Unfortunately, I somehow lost my photos of the ladder. (It's pretty neat, but you'll have to take my word for it.) I lived in that room until August 2003, when I finally moved off-campus to a real apartment. |
