We came up with a plan for the living room / dining room opening. We replaced the framing with 2x6s. We bought some 2x6s from Lealta and ripped a sliver of wood off. I’ll sand, stain, and polyurethane them. They’ll be used as trim rather than adding 1x6s. I still need to fasten them. I’ll show you when I’m done.
We scraped off a bunch of green paint. In every opening (doorway where there were once doors), the previous owners painted everything green. A couple of decades ago the whole country went through a ‘green phase’ where everything needed to be painted forest green. That grew tired, but now all the door frames are green, the countertop is green (I will replace it someday), and lots of other trim is green. So Floyd and I got busy scraping it. We’ve a long way to go before it’s complete.
While scraping paint off, we had a slice of pizza each and looked around in the living room. The strip between two living room windows was green, so of course I had to remove it. But with every removal of something, be it flooring, trim, countertops, anything, there is always one or several surprises beneath. This time it revealed that there was no insulation in the gap. Good thing it was checked. I’ll fill it and put a nicer trim board on it.
Also completed was the grate for the cold air return in the living room. Pilot holes needed to be drilled. I kept forgetting to bring tiny drill bits to get it done. Now – it’s done. Looks good, I think. (See before and after pictures.)
