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I am feeling very full of myself right now 
OK, so I'm working on finishing up a bathroom remodel of my house. To save money, I'm doing all the work myself, with the help of Evil Empryss.
Pretty much EE's been teaching me as I go, since I really didn't have much of an idea of how to do anything. I had a pretty good vision of what I wanted. Getting there's been the challenge.
We started by removing a built in vanity in the bathroom, and painting over the ugliest wallpaper I've ever seen. Then we moved on to installing bamboo flooring. EE had helped me do my living/dining room with laminate, and the process wasn't too terribly different. We nailed the first half of the room but had to switch to glue for the final half because we just didn't have room to use the nailer.
I gotta say, the floor looks good.
The current challenge is installing the bead board on the wall. We had painted it white, two coats, using an industrial level paint gun. Our thought was it would save time. Mistake! When we started cutting, we ended up with brown powder everywhere, and the boards ended up with so many scuffs that I'll have to repaint it all anyway.
Well, we tried to finish up the bathroom before EE finished up her final move out of state, but time just wasn't with us (with my schedule, being able to work on it when she was available was a bit of an issue). So we did as many cuts as we could while she was still here. But we made the mistake of working late one night after we were both exhausted and no thinking too straight. Somehow we managed not to waste any of the materials, thank goodness.
However, I've had to make some of the cuts on my own, without any extra help or advice. And for me, that's nerve racking.
I've actually got a fair set of power tools to do the work with. I own a table saw, a circular saw, and a jig saw, plus a multi-tool that I either bought cheap at Big Ship Tools or on the cheap at Habitat for Humanity.
When we first got started, EE wouldn't let me make any cuts unsupervised.
She was very nervous about letting me work with power tools. 
We'd measured everything out and made all the cuts except a handful. So this weekend that's what I've been working on.
I'm feeling very proud of myself. I nailed every cut right, except two. I realized that some of the measurements EE and I made were slightly off; we didn't account for the thickness of the boards when turning corners. So I had to shave off several boards we'd already cut to get them to fit, include a piece of baseboard that didn't fit.
The baseboard is one of the cuts I didn't get quite right; shaved it too close about about 3/8'th of an inch or so. So I remeasured, found a piece of leftover scrap and cut a shim to fit in the gap. Nailed that cut just right. It'll look fine once I've painted.
The trickiest piece is the one that goes where the pipes for the sink are. I had to cut a hole in the center of one of the boards. So I measure where the hole should be, use a drill to make a pilot hole, and the jigsaw to cut out the square.
That's the other cut I didn't nail first time. Measured wrong somehow and went a bit too far to the right (facing the board), and not far enough down. The drain for the sink doesn't quite fit. I'll have to notch it out tomorrow with the multi tool; I've been working on it all afternoon with the sun shining straight into my garage, so I'm exhausted. I don't want to make any more mistakes because I'm tired. Good part is most of the boards are either nailed or glued in. Once I finish this cut, it'll be a fairly quick job to finish securing the rest of the boards. Then I can install the crown on top of the bead board (haven't bought it yet, lack of cash) and the quarter round, and repaint everything. I'm hoping to get most of that done tomorrow.
I think the part I'm proudest of is a bit of flooring I had to add along one wall. There was too much of a gap between the last board and the wall, and there was nothing to support the baseboard. So I had to rip two boards to fill in the gap.
Nailed the measurement on the width the first time. One board was full length, the other I had to measure for a cut to fit the remaining gap. I remembered how to turn the board to measure it, made the cut and it fit perfect. I even managed to get them on the tongue and pull them in tight before gluing the baseboard to the wall.
I am feeling very full of myself right now At times it's been frustrating, but I've gotten the hang of the power tools; they can be a lot fun in a scary kind of way.
I've managed to keep all my fingers
OK, so I'm working on finishing up a bathroom remodel of my house. To save money, I'm doing all the work myself, with the help of Evil Empryss.
Pretty much EE's been teaching me as I go, since I really didn't have much of an idea of how to do anything. I had a pretty good vision of what I wanted. Getting there's been the challenge.
We started by removing a built in vanity in the bathroom, and painting over the ugliest wallpaper I've ever seen. Then we moved on to installing bamboo flooring. EE had helped me do my living/dining room with laminate, and the process wasn't too terribly different. We nailed the first half of the room but had to switch to glue for the final half because we just didn't have room to use the nailer.
I gotta say, the floor looks good.
The current challenge is installing the bead board on the wall. We had painted it white, two coats, using an industrial level paint gun. Our thought was it would save time. Mistake! When we started cutting, we ended up with brown powder everywhere, and the boards ended up with so many scuffs that I'll have to repaint it all anyway.
Well, we tried to finish up the bathroom before EE finished up her final move out of state, but time just wasn't with us (with my schedule, being able to work on it when she was available was a bit of an issue). So we did as many cuts as we could while she was still here. But we made the mistake of working late one night after we were both exhausted and no thinking too straight. Somehow we managed not to waste any of the materials, thank goodness.
However, I've had to make some of the cuts on my own, without any extra help or advice. And for me, that's nerve racking.
I've actually got a fair set of power tools to do the work with. I own a table saw, a circular saw, and a jig saw, plus a multi-tool that I either bought cheap at Big Ship Tools or on the cheap at Habitat for Humanity.
When we first got started, EE wouldn't let me make any cuts unsupervised.
She was very nervous about letting me work with power tools. We'd measured everything out and made all the cuts except a handful. So this weekend that's what I've been working on.
I'm feeling very proud of myself. I nailed every cut right, except two. I realized that some of the measurements EE and I made were slightly off; we didn't account for the thickness of the boards when turning corners. So I had to shave off several boards we'd already cut to get them to fit, include a piece of baseboard that didn't fit.
The baseboard is one of the cuts I didn't get quite right; shaved it too close about about 3/8'th of an inch or so. So I remeasured, found a piece of leftover scrap and cut a shim to fit in the gap. Nailed that cut just right. It'll look fine once I've painted.
The trickiest piece is the one that goes where the pipes for the sink are. I had to cut a hole in the center of one of the boards. So I measure where the hole should be, use a drill to make a pilot hole, and the jigsaw to cut out the square.
That's the other cut I didn't nail first time. Measured wrong somehow and went a bit too far to the right (facing the board), and not far enough down. The drain for the sink doesn't quite fit. I'll have to notch it out tomorrow with the multi tool; I've been working on it all afternoon with the sun shining straight into my garage, so I'm exhausted. I don't want to make any more mistakes because I'm tired. Good part is most of the boards are either nailed or glued in. Once I finish this cut, it'll be a fairly quick job to finish securing the rest of the boards. Then I can install the crown on top of the bead board (haven't bought it yet, lack of cash) and the quarter round, and repaint everything. I'm hoping to get most of that done tomorrow.
I think the part I'm proudest of is a bit of flooring I had to add along one wall. There was too much of a gap between the last board and the wall, and there was nothing to support the baseboard. So I had to rip two boards to fill in the gap.
Nailed the measurement on the width the first time. One board was full length, the other I had to measure for a cut to fit the remaining gap. I remembered how to turn the board to measure it, made the cut and it fit perfect. I even managed to get them on the tongue and pull them in tight before gluing the baseboard to the wall.
I am feeling very full of myself right now
At times it's been frustrating, but I've gotten the hang of the power tools; they can be a lot fun in a scary kind of way.I've managed to keep all my fingers
Funny, I was using it to chop up some smaller branches so the city would take them on trash day.
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