Bathroom & Staircase

After a few moments of absolute panic when I realized I had less than four months to finish this house I got to work this week.

I did a mockup of how I want part of the upper floor to look.  Got the walls up, the floors constructed and took a few pictures with the sliding door in place.  I need to build the outer walls of the squared part of the house.  That should be interesting as they'll be mostly plexiglass and that's always an adventure to deal with.

I'm debating a small door from the master bedroom to the upper balcony.  I might skip it simply because it could be a pain in the butt. 

Here's a very sketchy preview of how part of the house will look though.



The other debate is windows on the wall... If I cut more out of the current opening I could put another sliding window in.

I also finished off the foundation with the brick paper I purchased a while back.  It has an actual texture to it and a mix of dark grey and tan colors so it'll look good with the dark wood and off white stucco.

Not too bad right? 

And then I finished off the wooden porch edges with some brown paint. 

Another good look at the light fixtures.

And since the upper floor really will just fall in if I don't have the lower supporting walls done I started work on the half bath under the stairs and the stair case.

I made hollow walls out of some thin basswood and balsa 'two by fours' and ran wire through them so I could have lights in the upstairs bathroom and a wall light fixture in the half bath under the stairs.

As you can see it'll be a pretty narrow space.

The door will open outward otherwise it'll bump into the sink.

And I put wallpaper on the walls.  It's actually scrapbook paper from Michael's.  It has a nice subtle design and its a pretty off white that's not too yellow.  It'll go well with the floors.

I mixed some tan and white to get the door color.

The other thing I did was take out a couple of the upper door panels and replace them with some very thin frosted plexiglass.  That way the bathroom will get some light from the front windows.  I hope. 

For a little pop of color I mixed my apple green paint with a little white and muted the color somewhat.  Then I painted the trim that color.  It'll go inside the bathroom so its a nice little pop without taking over the room.

Since the kitchen accents are a similar color and the living room will have some along with the brown it'll go nicely.

The stair case is...interesting.  I mentioned I wanted a 'Brady Bunch' staircase but its impossible to have a half bath under it without risers.  So I stained the treads the same dark walnut as the front porch flooring and sanded them, then applied another layer. 

The plan is to leave the rest of the trim in the house, baseboards, doors, windows and any crown molding its own natural wood tones and seal it with satin polyurethane in order to make the stair case really stand out. 

So the risers are made out of woodsies and the treads are one inch by eighth inch boards cut down to hang out over the wall slightly.  The landing is made the same way, with the boards glued together. 

Once all the glue holding the treads and risers is dry I plan to finish the entire thing all at once.  Hopefully that'll keep the finish from looking uneven. 

The lower part of the staircase is pretty cool and I'm hoping to have it done soon. 

I put the wallpaper on the wall already and got an outlet wired in.

Here's another picture, slightly different angle.

Now if I can keep the cats away while the glue dries...

That's most of my progress for the weekend and quite a bit of during the week too.

I'm working on a light fixture for the bathroom, not too thrilled with how it looks at the moment but I'm working on it.  I need to get the lighting for the kitchen decided on and that'll be a job and a half but once that's done I can start worrying about the upper floor.

Hope you enjoyed!