The Bed Alcove Almost Ready to Paint

The entire interior of the hut is lined, with the exception of the ceiling of the loft, with 1/4 inch hardwood plywood.  This is a very smooth surface and will take paint beautifully.  It is unfortunate that despite the fact that I like wood, it is too beige/gold/brown to make the space feel large.  Those earth tones will feel oppressive in the small space.  Remember that the entire hut is only 87 inches wide, and 18 feet long on the first level and a 2 foot extension in the loft.  This will feel very claustrophobic over time unless something is done to lighten up the space.  All of the seams between the panels need to be covered, and all the lines of the screws attaching the panels to the studs need to be covered as well.  I found a casing in the molding area of my local Home Depot that is simply a flat piece of wood with slightly rounded edges.  This I nailed and glued over all the seams and stud lines, then tacked them up with finish nails.  These will also have another molding over them, just running down the center of each one.  This will be astragal molding, which is a symmetrical profile.  Then all the walls and moldings will be painted a white, and the alcove and accent fabrics, etc., will be a light blue to help in expanding the space, as blues tend to recede to the eye.

 

 

Though too damaged to be reused as is, I cut down an old mahogany mantle I had stored in the barn to use as a headboard.

 

I added astragal molding to the seams and rows of screws, butted into the cornice molding that is just a plain molding that is proportionate to the size of the bed alcove.

 

More of the moldings covering the screws in the bed alcove.

One of the things I learned from this process was that I needed to do a chalk line or a pencil line to position the screws into the studs.  Just the 1/8 inch wandering from the straight line makes it very difficult to apply the molding straight when the moldings are so narrow as these.  I know that someone will lie in this bed someday and say: " Who the hell put these moldings up, they are crookeder(is that a word) than hell!"