ORC - Week 5 - I'm Never Going to Finish!

Welcome back to Week 5 of the One Room Challenge where I am making over my home office in 6 weeks and blogging all the details. You can check out all the other guest participants here.

I'm in a mad scramble to finish as much of the room in the next week as possible. Once I get paint on the walls I can move in the furniture waiting in my living room. It looks like the repair work on the rotten windowsill found last week and the installation of the new light fixture I decided to add at the last minute can't be scheduled until after the reveal next week. Whomp whomp!!

All the plaster is patched and the ceiling has 2 coats of paint and the trim is painted. The gray paint goes up today! I know it doesn't really look it, but a lot of work has gone into getting the room to this point!

We cleaned up all the old caulk and damage where the radiator covers were caulked to the walls. The covers are a hot mess...65 years of layers and layers of gloppy, peeling paint. The thought of either sanding or stripping the paint, priming and repainting is daunting. Especially considering that the whole condo needs to be done eventually. It becomes even more of a challenge when you realize my 3rd floor condo doesn't have a backyard or basement or garage where I can easily do projects like this.

I decided to explore replacing the covers. Mine are from the 1950's so an exact replacement is impossible. There are a bunch of replacement companies and products out there. I found an inexpensive option at Home Depot. They have a polymer cover to retrofit my baseboards from Neat Heat. It is $54 for a 6' length. I ordered a sample and a couple of connector pieces and received them yesterday. It fits great! I just removed the existing cover and slide on the new one using the existing hangers nailed to the wall. These are for hot water heat not electric. They will melt with electric heat baseboards. You can see the difference in this picture. The old one is on the left. The new replacement cover is on the right. You can't really see the messy layers of paint but trust me they are there!

The cover doesn't dent, scratch, yellow or off gas. It's paintable but I will leave it white. My small room will cost about $300 but it has either radiators or the return on 3 walls. I think not having to deal with the paint encrusted covers and upgrading my entire room in minutes is worth the expense. I'm placing an order for the remaining pieces needed today. Shipping of the sample was super fast. Fingers crossed the order comes in time for reveal day!

Alrighty...enough gabbing. I've got a bunch of stuff to do! Check back next Thursday for the big reveal!

Fix rotten window sill (scheduled for after the reveal. Bummer)

Replace ceiling fan with sparkly light fixture (scheduled for after the reveal)

Rent a rug cleaner / clean rugs 

Scrape caulk / fix plaster by the radiators (completed)

Order replacement radiator covers (today)

Install replacement radiator covers (hopefully I receive them by next Thursday!)

Paint the ceiling (done)

Paint the trim (done)

Paint the room gray (today!)

Change out the desk, add storage (purchased ready to be installed)

Make a giant bulletin board (waiting for the walls to be painted)

Make Rosettes (not sure I'm going to use them)

Sell the futon (sold!)

Purchase Kallax shelves from Ikea (put together, waiting in the living room)

Return shelves for over the desk to Ikea

Hang curtain rod (waiting for the walls to be painted)

Make drapes (waiting for the curtain rod to be hung because math)

Add a surprise design element --brooch mannequin (completed)

Hang large chandelier print (waiting for the walls to be painted)

Zhush up the place!

Check Out all my ORC Posts

Week 1  2  3  4  6