Tackling the Last Ten Percent

It's been forever, I know! Since we moved in almost a month ago we have been really busy working on this apartment. We have been using all our spare time to get things done around here so I haven't had the time or energy to write as much as I would like, or write at all for that matter!

Recently somebody told me that, when it comes to renovations, the last 10% of it usually takes about 90% of the time. Unfortunately I have to agree with him. This last little bit  of "phase 1" has been taking a loooong time!!
On my last post I said all we had left was crown molding and baseboards, right?  Well, I forgot to mention doors too...and the laundry room/pantry! 

Early in the renovation process I saw these beautiful doors at a design website and fell in love with them. Of course , they couldn't be available at the Home Depot around the corner! They had to be custom made and due to some miscommunication with our contractor designer, they ended up arriving much later than we would have liked. 
So when the doors finally arrived the installers realized that the master bathroom one was the wrong size and had to be returned. And the laundry room pocket door was going to have to be cut at the bottom.  I could go on and on about little things like that that have been happening during these last few weeks, but that would be really boring, and to be honest I don't even remember everything that has gone somewhat wrong or off schedule. 

Bottom line is that, to save money, we decided we were going to paint the doors and trim ourselves. We spent the entire 4th of July weekend painting and painting and painting. 

"Naked" door

Our painting set up

We had to prime them...

And paint them...

So we did it! We primed and painted 7 doors!! And also painted door trims, jams and casings, which is so not fun to do!!!  But now they look beautiful!!

One of the guest bedroom's closet door

Master Bedroom door

Then once again the ceilings had to be touched up by the sheet rock guys. Jerry tried to encapsulate the area in our living room to minimize dust:

 And I think this time they finally got the ceiling right! So I am extremely glad to know that I don't need to worry about sheet rock dust anymore until "phase 2". 

Another project we got accomplished since we moved in was our closet. We used EasyClosets.com to design and order our new closet system. Here are some before and after pics:

Before

Before

After

After

Jerry fit all his clothes in there, but my side only has my "summer" clothes and shoes. All my winter stuff is still in storage. We also bought a bunch of those vacuum seal Ziplock bags to shrink a bunch of my clothes and store them under the bed. I promise I gave away bags and bags of clothes and from now on every time I buy a new piece of clothing I will donate an old one! That's the only thing that will keep my clothes from spreading all over this apartment and ending up in the guest bathroom's bath tub!!

Our bedroom is one of the few rooms in the house that feels almost completely finished. We still need something above the bed's headboard and a new TV to go on the wall. Oh, and crown and trim are not painted yet, but overall it has a finished"ish" look. Some before and afters:

Before

Before

After

After

After

 Jerry is currently working on our pantry/laundry room. It is turning into an amazing space with tons of much needed storage! But that will be the subject of my next post!
Just so you don't think we are just slaving away and not really enjoying our new home, here's some pictures of tonight's dinner. We went to the rooftop by the pool and used the grill up there for the first time. Jerry's steaks turned out amazing!
We feel a "grill out pool party with guests" coming up really soon!!