The Recycled Solarium – Things are stirring - 3

Since last we saw the recycled solarium, I have finished all that puttying, from part1, all the painting, sealing and trimming of all the windows and doors/walls.  The french doors/walls, from part 2, took 6 hours each to paint (three coats of paint) and scrape all the glass clean.  But I’m in love with them and the teal too, so yummy.

 

Then we built the sliding barn doors for both sides of the solarium, including ripping down 2x4s to get the 1x4s we needed for the project.

And because we made them really tall, we had to build the barn door rolling track thingies ourselves too, or re-built the doors.  Sooooooooo we were off to Industrial Metal Supply with a million measurements and a dream. I wish I had taken a picture, but in my defense it was pouring rain, we drove home, on LA freeways, with 2 ten foot steel track thingies sticking out the back window of our two seater Honda Del Sol.  There were red flags of course, so it was completely safe…right…that makes it safe…right?

  

And did I mention the miles of trim, made by ripping down 2x4s to 1x1s.  Some days the power of our cheapness, I mean environmentally friendly frugalness, is more work than I want to remember.  But it’s hard to buy trim wood when you have stacks for free, recycled, wood sitting in the yard.

Yard Side - Left Side
(Looking in from the living room)

Patio Side - Right Side 

(Looking in from the living room)

 

When first finished, not the final plan, but I had to sit in it and 

have a glass of wine that first night.  Exhausted, but so happy.

 

And now it’s the alfresco dining room I 

envisioned all those months ago.  WooHoo!!

 

This is one of those projects I started out saying we would “bang out” in a weekend or two.  Hello 6 months later.  But I think that’s a necessary mental game to play.  If I really thought, going in it, it would take virtually every weekend of my life from July to January would I have even started?  I don’t know that I would have.  And was it worth it?  YES absolutely YES.