This post was originally supposed to be titled “Day 1 & 2″, but I had many problems and set backs, so it took me a little longer than planned. Don’t all projects take longer than planned? Mine do! Before I got started I had to clean up the breakfast dishes. You can’t start a project in a dirty room.
The first thing I did was pry off the trim on the exposed sides of the cabinets. This will help the beadboard go flush against the wall.
It’s best to score the trim by the wall so you don’t peel off the paint when you pull it off the trim. I made this mistake on the first one.
Then I cut the beadboard, and used the nail gun to put it in place. This is the last piece I did, look how pretty. Practice makes perfect.
This was the FIRST piece. I cut it too big and tried to push it in. Hence the nice scrapping off of paint on the wall. Pretty right? I never said I was an expert. :) But no fear. That’s what caulk and paint is for. Caulk is your BEST Friend because it will hide the many mistakes you’ve made along the way.
I bought 8 foot strips of 1″ x 2″ wood to put on top of the cabinets before the crown molding. This is what I will nail the crown molding into so I don’t have to nail directly into the cabinets. This will also give the cabinets a little more height. My sister came over to help this day so I wasn’t working alone. When you’re working with a saw and a nail gun, it’s good to have someone around in case something bad happens. It’s not something you wanna think about, but safety comes first. Like my new PINK safety goggles?
Then we started on the crown molding. This is where we ran into problems. We made the two corner cuts and lined it up in the garage. It was a perfect fit till we put them up on the cabinets. It appears my cabinets are not perfect corners. Crown molding also sits at an angle, so trying to figure out the cuts was a nightmare. I’m sure there is a better way to figure these cuts out and maybe even a nice tool you can buy to assist you. I struggled through it with a lot of trial and error. I admit my work area should NOT have looked like this:
In the end, I finished the top crown molding. Some of the corners aren’t perfect. Caulk will hopefully help. It’s pretty high up as well, so I don’t think anyone will really notice? Tomorrow I will work on the bottom molding. I’m crossing my fingers this goes more smoothly. This week I’d like to caulk all the edges, clean the cabinets and start to prime them. I’ll let you know how that goes. What do you think so far?
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Looking good. Keep the good work coming.
You’re a brave woman doing crown molding. You sis ever do it? DUH that would be answered by the workroom pic now wouldn’t it, LOL. Do you have a miter box or is that the neat tool you were thinking of? Never used one–yet–but have seen people who know how use them on tv. I may be doing it as soon as my achey body allows, painting the cabinets is on my agenda, right behind painting the walls in the adjoining, open floor plan dining-living room. BTW, been in this house 34 years!!!