Closet Remodel: Color! (Part 4)

Several people have asked me why I want to paint the wood because it's so beautiful. First, the wood isn't that beautiful. Lots of gouges, dings, knots, holes where knots used to be, and imperfections. This is cheap, thin paneling wood not meant to be admired. Second, paint will cover up all the ugly I created with my poor construction skills. Third, painting it will match the rest of my house as there are no other walls or rooms of just plain wood. Everything is painted. And last, but definitely not least, WHAT? NOT PAINT? I'm fairly certain the only reason I really decided to remodel these closets is because I've run out of rooms to paint. And, OH! How I love to paint!

However, I don't like painting over the beautiful floors. If the previous owners hadn't plugged up the holes with putty and instead, used plugs they could have been saved. You can see the many years of scratches and wear (people sliding things in and out of the closet), but the wood is gorgeous. Below is the south closet just after it's 7th cleaning with the wood looking it's best (wet) and the holes looking their worst. I really love old wood floors.

When I first moved into the house I tried sanding all the floors, but there were too many problems with very deep gouges and scratches, holes, cracks and...horse hair. The living room floors still had the old glue from the 1930s and horse hair stuck to it from the old rug backing. They were gruesome and took me one whole day to get most of it off. Soft fir floors can get really thin really fast with as much sanding that needed to be done to restore them, I didn't think it would be good enough with the deep scratches. Then there is the dust, the toxic refinishing, and cost of the machine rentals so I gave up. Besides I didn't know what I was doing. Professional sanding from a man who was drenched in cologne would have cost $1800 for just the upstairs floors...the paint only cost $65. I was really poor at the time and I figured I could always strip them later. For the last eight years I've saved what was left over so I could someday finish the closets! That day has arrived!



South closet original floors.

First step, make sure all the floor holes are filled. I found one more crack in the wood that I think is too large. It's important that the floor is smoothed for as a storage space, one should be able to slide boxes back and forth without snagging on something that will hinder movement. So I filled the last hole with wood filler, let it dry, hand sanded it which kept the dust problem controlled.

Second step, clean all surfaces. Since the sander dust was out of control I wanted to make sure no residue was left on the surfaces. I washed ceilings and walls and then scrubbed the floor again and again and again!

Next, prime everything. I'm using Kilz on the ceiling and walls and the better quality Zinsser on the floor. The floors are very raw, banged up, and filthy so I made sure to clean them as much as possible and the primer will seal them well before I paint them the heavy duty "porch and floor" paint. This paint is toxic so I'm not looking forward to it. When I used it on the rest of the upstairs, it took about nine months for it to offgas. I'm using an air purifier, a fan pointing out the window and I've sealed off the bedrooms and put rugs under the doors to lessen the toxicity. I primed the floors twice in hopes of only having to put only one layer of the porch and floor paint.




North closet, primed.

Priming is important. My low-VOC designer paint, DEVINE, is really expensive and all that raw, untreated wood will soak it up if I don't seal it with primer. I also think primer helps balance out all the problems with the wood which leaves a very nice painting canvas finish. Primer, however, is really stinky so I have to wear a mask, glasses and gloves.

Color! Oh, be still my heart! I get so excited. Every room, partial room, and space that might even be misunderstood as a room is a different color in my house. I'm partial to cool colors: blues, purples, greens and some pinks. I've been planning these closets for a while and thinking they'd be dark (pre-electrification), small, rarely looked, at or packed with boxes and covered up, I figured I could use a wild color and still feel sane. So I'm opting for light yellow-orange and light red-orange, or "Mango" and "Cantaloupe". Then I got to thinking cantaloupes are more orange than red-orange so I changed it to "Cantaloupe" and "Melon" or "Habanero" and  "Coral" or "Goldfish" and "Salmon". I prefer fruit analogies  ARGH!



Color Samples: How many different oranges can I make?

If you are thinking, Good god, Yatna, just figure it out and be done with it! Who really needs to name their colors? Well, this is the fun part for me. I love color. I've already spent lots of time looking a color samples and now I can spend lots of time thinking about color and once it's painted, LOOKING at color! Such a small joy that is huge in my life!

Anyway, I think opening one of these little doors, clicking on the light, and seeing a burst of bright color would be a nice surprise. Like a beautiful sunrise. Or sunset. Hmmmm...if the closets were east and west I'd name them "Sunrise Closet" and the "Sunset Closet", but they aren't. These aren't rooms one would normally spend time lounging around in and I think most would say calling it a "room" is a gross exaggeration. However, once it's finished, I might hang out in there, close the door, and enjoy the color experience. I grew up in a huge farm house with big walk-in closets. I moved into a closet once, and as a teenager, there I lived like a recluse in solitude with my radio closed off from my noisy siblings. I am partial to small, cozy, cocoon or cave-like places. Yatna, the bat.

Part of the joy is mixing the paint and watching the colors create themselves. Problem with custom mixing is if you don't make enough and you run out, tough luck. But if you mix it wrong and waste all your paint, oops. It's a challenge. Of course, I kept mixing and mixing and then realized too late I was running out of yellow, a color I need for both. At one point I thought maybe I should forget about two different colors, mix what I have all together and paint them the same color, but that wouldn't be as fun. What I ended up with is fine, but I would have liked the one on the left a little more yellow so there is clearly a difference between the two.



The finalists. Vote for your favorite name combinations:
Cantaloupe and Melon
Goldfish and Salmon
Habanero and Coral
Sunrise and Sunset

Then a neighbor who is a construction god came over for an impromptu inspection. He took one look at the gapping holes between the walls and the ceiling and said, "You are going to put molding, right?" HA!  I had just come home from the hardware store overwhelmed by the choices of molding and unable to decide so I asked his advice. He ask if I wanted something fancy. "Oh, heck, no, they are just closets!" He gave me some wood he had in his basement that he custom cut for molding and never used. FREE MOLDING! Hooray! The molding, however, was a real pain. I bought some nails and nearly every one of them bent when I hammered it in so I started drilling screws to hold up the molding. Not easy as they are placed at such weird angles.

I found some old wooden door knobs at an antique shop for $1 each and I painted them.

For some reason I thought I needed three knobs on each door. This is because when I removed the old handle, it left two holes. This is just a way to camouflage the holes and do something crazy and colorful.

Done!

North Closet

South Closet

North Closet

South Closet

This project took longer and cost more than I ever expected. A few years ago a construction man gave me a quote. According to his calculations, it would have taken him only eight hours to do the whole thing. It took me two months not including the planning.

I'm glad the closets are done and now useful. Under a pile of supplies I found my shopping list, diagrams and the plans for these closets. I felt slightly queasy and thought, I'm so glad that's over. I don't ever want to do that again. It's interesting how motivated I always feel at the beginning, but utterly drained by the time it's finished.