Name of the post/room? The Tom Waits song “Chocolate Jesus” (a song about preferring chocolate candy in the shape of jesus to attending church) just happened randomly to be playing even as Dawn was painting the walls milk chocolate brown. Upon further researching the matter, I also discovered a book called “Chocolate Jesus” was written and released just a year prior to “Mule Variations“, the album upon which the song appears. Thought it made a good name for our lounge.
This project involved much more carpentry than woodworking and even a but of concrete-forming. My first time using this medium for anything but footings for fenceposts and the like. It’s interesting, because concrete is very inexpensive, but the process is quite involved and the tools are not cheap. Once you have the wet grinder, though, each additional concrete top you make brings down the overall investment per project and helps justify the purchase of the tools. Which is pretty much why I make stuff. Which reminds me: I burned-out the motor on my Bosch tablesaw and really need to replace it…
This was the first whole-room total renovation for us. We stripped the 12″ accoustical tiles from the ceiling and took all the paneling down in order to add 1.5″ of polystyrene insulation, maxing-out the “R value”. I rewired the entire room using the appropriate metal conduit, added four can lights and then had cellulose insulation blown in for the ceiling, as it had ZERO insulation, something I could barely believe. There was a small, ventless Jotul stove in the room when we moved in. A $1,500 cast iron stove. Only costs a few hundred to insulate the ceiling and seems a bit silly to heat a room and let all the heat escape so easily. Then we opted for a beadboard fur ceiling over plain old drywall. Pricier, but a really nice, warm ceiling and didn’t have to tape and mud sheetrock joints this way! Also, there was zero trim around the doors and windows, so I added custom trim, double crown moulding, along with some pretty tedious, custom wainscoting. Believe it or not, the exterior door to the back yard was a hollow-core luan door. Wow. I couldn’t find the photos with the luan door, as installing a nice, solid wood, exterior door was a top priority upon moving-in. Here are some photos of beginning, during and after.
