MidMal Reviews: Ralph Lauren Candlelight

The second bedroom is demo'd and the electrician will finish up this week. Then Bill and Steve will be in for insulation/drywall and mud/tape, and finally we'll be ready for (totally sexy) French Dan to come refinish the floors. With that milestone in sight I needed to paint the dining room ceiling and crown moulding.

The room has the same big backlit moulding and coved ceiling we saved in the entry. I was so happy with the white trim and pale turquoise ceiling paint we used there that I decided to do the same thing in the dining room. It looked great when it was all done.

Ralph Lauren has discontinued a lot of their ancilary paint products over the years (I always thought their stencils were good), but still available is Candlelight. It's a clear topcoat designed to change the way light hits your walls. If you look at the pictures on the RL website its subtle and pretty. Hoping to enhance the already good looking ceiling this weekend I gave it a try. Here's a review.

The Product: You'll be stirring this for a while, you might want to ask your salesperson to run it through the shaker. Also note this stuff stinks like wet gym socks, and that odor will hang around for a day or so. Don't paint before you have people over for drinks like I did.

Application: Along with the paint you need a couple of specialty RL rollers, one 4 inch and one regular 9 inch. They're very shaggy to mottle the surface. They recommend completing an entire wall (or ceiling in my case) at a time, and also that one person do all the painting. The small roller is used to cut in edges, but only two regular roller lengths at a time. Then two regular strips are rolled on, filling the roller twice for each strip. Finally, X's are made in rows over the freshly painted strips, picking up the roller after each stroke. It sounds worse than it was, then again I'm very comfortable with paint techniques. Either way I think the whole ceiling took me about an hour and a half.

The Result: I'm not in love. I was expecting something subtly magical, what I got seems more reminiscent of semi gloss paint. The increased sheen is also going to emphasize any imperfections in your surface.

The Verdict: We're going to live with it for a bit and see if it grows on us, but I smell a repaint in my future.

Easy Closets Again

If that doesn't stem the tide of coats, jackets, hats, gloves, scarves and umbrellas, nothing will.

Baseboard, a new light fixture and some doors and we can count the entry closet done. The system is the same Easy Closets that we used in the bedroom and again, I'm pleased. It took us about 3 hours start to finish but was no big deal. I'm still a fan.

Raina knows how exciting this is

Today we installed Schluter fabric in the bathroom. Yes, only two pieces, but they're large pieces. Combined with thinset mortar that was a bit on the runny side it took a while. Luckily, Brett is off work tomorrow for MLK day and may finish up the pony wall.

The fabric is going to cover what we need to cover, but isn't going to go as far as I thought. Luckily I bought a gallon of HydroBan, which is a rubber product that you apply to your drywall with a roller like paint. Two coats and you're ready to tile on top of it. That should cover everything else and be more than enough protection to handle any water or vapor that might get past the tile.

We also met with another contractor about reconfiguring the living room, family room, and entry. He seemed to completely grasp what we want to do and specifically said he would break down our quote so we could choose jobs as necessary. I'm really hoping we get good numbers back from him. He came with good references and he's done things for others that we absolutely are going to need. Like build an addition for the master bath. It doesn't hurt that he's also attractive. And by attractive I mean really hot.

Not that there's anything going on in the dining room

But how much do I love this chandelier. Thomas O'Brien for Visual Comfort. Kind of mod, kind of retro, a tiny bit wacky. Thirty-three and a half inches wide, in polished nickel.

Drywalled

Its amazing what happens when you get after a project. We spent the weekend hanging drywall and we're over halfway done. And most importantly, there were no injuries in spite of the use of a rather scary jab jaw.

You'll note the copious use of screws, perhaps more than you'd see if you had this done by a pro. Yes, there were lots of misses and screw-throughs, but its up and its solid. Our carpenter Bill would be horrified, but we're pretty proud.

Pat, the really nice neighbor behind us came over to check on us and was kind of unsure how to reply when we mentioned tiling next, thinking that we didn't know sheetrock wasn't the proper underlayment, but we explained that it was all getting covered with the Schluter fabric and would be waterproof.

Just about 1 1/2 walls left and we'll be ready for the next step.

After a bite to eat and a shower we treated ourselves to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I. If you've enjoyed the others you'll like this one just as much.

Set your shampoo here

Or in our bald-headed cases, your soap, shaving cream, razors, etc.

I just ordered this double niche from http://www.tileredi.com/, and had an email within minutes saying it would be received in 3 to 7 days. My local tile shop had similar products, but the sizing is what I like about this one. 16" X 20", so it should fit between existing studs and minimize any framing I need to do. I'll verify that for you once it arrives. Just screw to studs, install underlayment, silicone the seam between the niche and underlayment, and tile over.

UPDATE: Ordered at 930 this morning, email around 3 this afternoon from UPS letting me know it had shipped. We like fast.