Let There Be Internet

The internet connection was installed yesterday. Now I can include some updates on the various projects in the house.

As promised, I will include pictures of the bathroom. Here is the tile after it was grouted and sealed. As you can see, the shower is already in use.



Here is the vanity with the new counter tops, faucet, and Foster...



The bathroom still needs scraping, primer, and paint, but it is coming along. After much deliberation, however, we put the bathroom on hold and worked on finishing some of the "almost complete" rooms in the front of the house. So back to the office where we patched some new cracks (yes, more cracks...) and prepared to paint.

Since our cracks are so prolific and some have reappeared, we tried a two new products to seal our cracks. The first product is called Krack Kote. It is rubbery, and unlike joint compound, claims that it bridges a crack, not fills it. It allows movement to continue, which is good, since this house is always on the move. It has a fiberglass mesh that comes with it, and is applied similarly to the technique we use for joint compound. It seems the only drawbacks are that it is difficult to use on the "stucco" texture in the office and I could only find it on the internet. The second product is called Goodbye Cracks and is an elastomeric spray that seems like it will work on very small, superficial cracks. The drawback to Goodbye Cracks is that it comes in a small can and is pretty expensive. Plus it took several coats, smells like spray paint, and left me with rubbery boogers (I probably should have wore a respirator). Although neither compound has been on the cracks for very long, the Krack Kote seems to have a lot of promise. Goodbye Cracks will probably work for small cracks, but I have less faith in it over the long haul.

Here is a picture of the office with the cracks repaired. The top repair is Krack Kote and the brown spray paint-looking repair Goodbye Cracks.



After the final crack repair we primed the office. That took forever, since the office was a bright, pastel purple. Here is the office after priming.



We painted the trim and ceiling. The trim remained white, but looked so much better after the hours of scraping. Plus we used a semi-gloss so that it will be easy to clean. The ceiling was just a white, matte paint, but worth mentioning since they make this new product that goes on pink and then turns white when it dries.



Finally we applied the new paint. I wasn't sure about the color, since it appears more like split pea soup under non-CFL lights, but in the daytime it is true to my sample. Here is the final product... This is after all the touch ups.



All that is left is to replace outlet covers and some of the outlets that I painted, put in a new vent cover, add a door, and finish the clean up. Hooray for progress!