Thursday, February 19, 2015

The 3-5 Rule

As tax time draws near and I'm itemizing every receipt for Isthmus House (which is still a rental, friends) I'm reminded of the old adage that if you do work in an old home yourself, it'll probably cost you three times more than you thought and take five times as long. Alternatively, you can pay someone five times more than you thought it would cost and it'll take 3 times as long.

Never has this been truer than with the installation of casings.

After the drywall was installed downstairs and I finished so. many. patches., we had pretty walls but they looked patently unfinished.


To fix this, it was time for casings.

I'm obsessed with old woodwork but, sadly, Isthmus House doesn't have a ton of its original trim left. What was left was staying right where it was so I only had two options left: find salvaged trim to match or have trim made to match the existing. Since four and a quarter inch casings weren't coming up on Craigslist, I really only had the option of having trim custom cut.

It's true that custom millwork isn't inexpensive, but it's worth every dime to have cohesive trim throughout the house.

Once all several hundred feet were delivered, I had some painting to do. So. much. painting.


I could paint 5-6 pieces of casing at a time and every piece needed at least 2 coats of paint before they could be installed.


Needless to say, this was a bit of a long process but I got it done within a few days.


Each individual piece had to be cut perfectly to size and pieced together. With the walls being at least a bit wavy, I didn't feel that my carpentry skills were good enough for the perfect copes necessary for this trim installation so I called in my carpenter. That's where the five times as much money part and at least three times as long rule came in.


Each nail hole then had to be filled with a paintable putty, sanded down (I used the finest steel wool), wiped down and then repainted over.


The casings made the rooms look much more complete just in time for our Christmas party.


Now if only I could have baseboards, too...

No comments:

Post a Comment