Molding

Hey guys,

It's time for an update on my living room transformation. I'm happy to report that much progress is being made. I learned my lesson from by master bedroom transformation, and am tackling all the demolition first, before buying all the major furniture. Starting with installation of dentil molding and repainting. Here are the highlights:

1. Dentil molding is NOT cheap, at all... no matter how you slice it. I bit the bullet though and did it because it literally transforms the room (sneak peek coming).
2. Tally ALL your costs. Installing molding requires not only repainting the walls, but the ceiling, the doors, base boards, etc. Yep, my renovation cost just increased by a few hundred dollars. Yikes.
3. Consider the layout: Given that my place is pretty much an open concept downstairs, with the living room opening right up into the dining room, that meant installing the same molding in both rooms.
4. Pros and Cons: I also had the mirrors removed in both rooms (the original focus). Even though I thought they were tacky, they really opened up the rooms. So now I have to figure out ways to create a similar effect, without the tackiness. I'm up for the challenge!

Tip: Ask your contractor for a detailed estimate for renovation, you'll avoid many surprises this way, since it forces him or her to do a thorough assessment of time, materials and labor costs. Seems like common sense but you'd be surprised how rare that is these days based on some stories my contractor shared with me...

Molding

All this talk of molding has me thinking of all the personal work I'm focused on lately, led by the Master Contractor himself, Christ. At times it's painful being squeezed and buffeted like that, having deep seated and poor character traits removed, but in the end it'll be worth it after all. Here's something funny, with all the 'pain', there is joy in knowing I'm looking more and more like Him each day.

That's it so far. Here's that sneak peek of the molding I promised.

Happy designing.