I am woefully behind in posting about house renovation progress – probably because it takes me forever to finish things and take a “beauty shot.” My problem is that once a project is functional, I let it function…instead of first wrapping up all the details.

My hallway built-in is a good example.

I wrote about the planning, the start of the build and the finish (as in shellac). But I can’t write about it being finished…because it still isn’t. I need to install the pull-out shelf that is meant for folding towels upon, the base moulding (to match the base moulding on the walls) and crown moulding to hide the top of the plywood carcase and fill the gap between the face frame and ceiling. Oh – and doors, of course. It will (eventually) get double doors.

But it works just fine now for its intended purpose. And the customer isn’t complaining, so…. Actually, I was complaining while sanding the floors. Doors would have helped to keep out the dust. Maybe. I had to take out and wash all the sheets and towels after the floors were done. That would have been a great time to build and install those doors…but I was too tired from the floor work!

And my bathroom – it is fully functional and looks done. If you ignore that there’s no door on the room. (I live by myself – doesn’t matter.)

Plus I still need to buy and hang another towel rack to the left of the shower entrance, and grind away tiny bits of tile so I can screw in the faceplate on an outlet, instead of just balancing it on there. But for that, a Dremel would be the ideal tool…and in my hasty departure, I inadvertently left my Dremel at PopWood. I’m not buying a new one just to grind two tiny holes. Surely I’ll need one for a “real” project some day? Then I’ll replace it.

Then there’s my stairs. I started on this project just after I bought the house, when I ripped out the wall that had been put in to divide the house into two apartments. But once I got everything torn out that was going to get torn out, I stopped for several years.

If you follow me on Instagram (where I’m a far more frequent poster than here), you know that I finally got tired of never getting around to it, so I hired a contractor to finish it…then fired the contractor because the work didn’t live up to their promise. I channeled my anger to finish the railing and balustrade myself…but we’ll see how long it takes me to finish those two bottom stairs, the newel posts, the trim and the bookcase that’s going at the open side of the lower landing. Because the stairs are now almost safe (as long as I can balance on a stringer) and thereby darn near fully functional.

And there’s the guest bathroom that was (almost) finished years ago. It, too, is fully functional (it’s what I used while re-doing the other one)…but still needs a couple drywall patches in the ceiling and on the walls. Then another coat of paint. But who has guests right now? (So it’s become a storage room of sorts over the last year.) My excuse for this room is that when I redo the kitchen (directly below it), I’m building in a chase for a 2″ drainpipe alongside the chimney (to the left of the sink) so that I can move the washer and dryer up here. So when I do that, there will be more drywall work in this room – might as well wait!

But by far the most egregious case of (not even) half-done is the downstairs bath that will someday become a pantry. I started the tear-out, then realized I had to stop because any more would open up holes to the basement through which the cats (now a single cat) could slither, and the basement isn’t pet friendly. Plus there’s a door on that room, so I can close it most of the way and ignore it. (And it’s so bad that I refuse to show a picture.) I’ve vowed that I won’t do any more work on that room (or touch the kitchen) until all the details above are done. Or at least until I have time, energy and money to do the kitchen, pantry and adjoining half-bath from start to finish (or close enough to finished) in one fell swoop.

But first, there’s also the rest of the wood windows to install, the doors to hang on my study shelves, fascia board on the porch that needs replacing, the almost-torn out linoleum floor on the third floor and Guilder to frame for it. I’m swamped!