The loft ~ It has begun

Whew.

I'm exhausterated.

BUT, I finally got started on the loft project.

Still lots to do, but let me show you the progress.

Oh, and let me just say, this is how it looks tonight. And it's driving me NUTS!! I'm the kind of person that wants instant gratification. So, I know this one is going to take some time {Because I'm working on this alone, and it's going to involve actually BUILDING stuff} but I want it done now. Because, well... I hate the clutter. Word.

So, here is the loft in all it's 'before' glory:

This is the view from the stairs. And there is that adorable, gargantuan kitty jungle gym. And that has to stay. The kids love it. So, I'm just going to embrace it and make it a focal point. LOL How can I not?!?!

Laundry room door and hallway.

Top of the stairs. Obviously.

The hall. Guest room on the right. Merry's bath and bedroom on the left. Drew's office is at the end of the hall. See the mess?!?! Drives me nuts, but I promised it would be HIS space. I can barely go in there for a few minutes. I start cleaning.

Today, I put up the B&B and topped the closet {that will be turning into the cloffice}, then caulked everything. It was A LOT of work!! It's a pretty big space {I was working alone}, it was a lot of up and down the stairs, it was hot and I gave myself rug burns on my knees... from all the lovely caulking. I LOVE caulking! Not.

Here is how it looks tonight:

The doors will come off, and this will be my cloffice.

The other door you see is to the Master bed/bath. That's a scary place. Why is the master always the last room in the house to get any prettyfying??

The opposite side of the half wall got B&B as well. I'm going to continue down the hall, but I ran out of MDF... and energy.

Oh, this is different from the B&B downstairs. Those boards are all 4 inches. These, are all 3 inches. The downstairs B&B is only on feature walls, this is going to be all over, so I wanted it to be less chunky.

And guys, don't hate me... but, I never measure the spacing between my boards. I lay them against the wall and do this visually. My brain doesn't like math. I'm more about visually pleasing.

I'm going to carry this around the window and top it with the same treatment as the cloffice. I need to get more MDF cut, but I'm not going anywhere today.

Some things I've learned about putting up B&B:

Measure 3 times before cutting if you need to. I do. Sometimes I write the numbers down wrong, and end up wasting time & MDF.
Caulk, caulk, caulk, caulk. Caulk everything. It's worth the time, mess and carpet burned knees. Caulk ALL the seams. It makes it look so much better and professional than if you're lazy about this step.
It's fun, and pretty easy. And I love the look.

I used up 2 full tubes of caulk on this so far. You cannot use too much caulk. Over caulk. It's better that way. Sanding will make a hella-mess, but these 2 steps will make or break how this ends up looking. I even filled in some bigger seams with wood filler. I've learned this from my 2 other additions of B&B. I guess I've learned what steps to not skip. Even if you're tired and lazy. :-)

I really love my B&B painted white. But this is a big space, and it takes sometimes 5 coats of white paint to get it even. So, I'm thinking of keeping the lower half the color the walls are now and painting the upper portion Wythe Blue. It just makes for so much less painting. I will throw in some pops of white. I'm thinking the interior of the cloffice will be white, or just off white.

The other colors I'm using in this space are plum and a little bit of green & yellow.

I'm not excited to sand and paint, but I'm really excited for this space to actually be pretty and have a purpose. Until now, it's just housed the jungle gym.

I'm excited to finally be started on this. Can't wait for it to be finished!

Any thoughts or suggestions are always appreciated!

XOXO