This job had in it all of the finishing trades that we, as painters, perform: painting, wallcovering, drywall finishing, and floor finishing. Often on construction projects there are separate crews for each of these jobs. We do all of these ourselves because all of our crew has become experienced with all of these skills. This project converted a bedroom into a studio/workspace. The customer wanted to connect two separate bedrooms and then change one of the bedrooms–Kathy’s room– into a studio space.
We had to break down one wall of the bedroom and close off a door to a third room. The result was a connecting pair of rooms. 
The walls and ceiling of the bedroom-to-studio were in bad shape, so we tore down the plaster and left the wall studs. Then we insulated the exterior walls, and put up new drywall. The joints of the drywall panels are taped and coated with joint compound. This creates a smooth wall, similar to plaster, for painting. The replacement windows that we installed are oak, and we put a clear coating on them. Then the homeowner chose a cork wallcovering for the walls. This wallcovering is a thin layer of cork affixed onto a backing. We painted the door and window trim with Benjamin Moore’s Trailing Vines, a deep shade of green that was unlike anything in the house. This combination created a soothing backdrop for the studio.
Finished Studio Space
We knocked out one wall of the remaining bedroom, thus enlarging the room. There was asbestos tiling on the hallway floor which had to be removed. We had to contain the room during the asbestos removal and keep it contained until a clearance test was done. We removed the mastic from the wood, and then wiped a sample of the floor and sent it to a lab for analysis to make sure that we removed all the asbestos. We send them a tissue sample and they burn it. Since asbestos doesn’t burn, if all the tissue burns then all the asbestos has been removed. This sample came back negative the first time it was tested. Underneath the asbestos tiles was old wood flooring. This floor had to be refinished. When you finish a wood floor, you use a heavy duty sander which shaves a thin layer off the floor. A drum sander is used—it has a big drum with a piece of sandpaper on it that rotates as you use the machine. Then we replaced some of the baseboard, and we painted it Trailing Vines. We did an off-white ceiling color with a touch of blue in it. The blue might not be obvious, but it is obvious that it isn’t a bright white.
New Wooden Flooring
We also put in two windows where there had been one in the bedroom. This involved making one window frame larger and then dividing it into a double window.
New Windows – Outside
New Windows – Inside
This brightened the new studio. It was the finishing touch to the new space.