Shutters and Stairs

This was one of the weekends when I didn't feel like I got much done. What I was doing seemed to take forever and I'm still not completely done.

You'll recall I wanted to make shutters and get them attached to the interior window frames. I had gotten them cut and glued last week.

So this weekend I worked on getting them stained and the hinges on them. The hinges were very fiddly work. The screws that come with the hinges don't have a flat or phillips head, they're just blank, so I couldn't use any of my little tools to screw them in.

While drilling holes two of my mini finger drills broke. So now I need to order a new set.

But after a lot of frustration I got the first one done.

I wanted them to fold back in half and then away from the window, to take up less wall space when they're open.

I wish I could say that after establishing a process for the first the other three were easy but that would be a lie. I did eventually get them done.

Since I was making myself crazy anyway I decided to put the handles on the windows while I was at it. Fewer holes to drill but putting the handles on the Houseworks casement windows and the bay window was not easy.

I did however triumph in the end.

I also sanded down, glued, reinforced with some strategic toothpicks and re-spackled my stairs. I painted them with a base coat of Folk Art's Thunder Grey.

Since I had more waiting (drying) time I stained the center post for the stairs. I used ebony and mahogany and then put dark walnut over it.

I'm still a bit undecided on this. Part of me wonders if I ought to wrap it in wide strips of egg carton so it looks like stacked stone cylinders. Suggestions?

And I put the stone floor to the tower in.