Painting in Side Entrance Foyer = Done

Celia and I wrapped up the painting project we had been working on over the past few days 1.5 years.  Below are some before/during/after pics. In these first three pics you can see us in the process of removing the old tan wallpaper.  This room was basically tan wallpaper with tan trim.  This project was just about painting the walls.  The trim/baseboards will eventually be stripped, but that will take time to get to.

Notice the old original? coat hook rack.

This is the side entrance door.  Also notice the original light fixture.

These are the back servant stairs.

Cutting in around this trim with primer and then the top coat was a PITA.

Spending extra time patching cracks/holes and sanding everything really paid off!

Ahh my pretty chandelier.  This is my pet project.  It never functioned since I owned the house so I took it down and started working on it. I finished a complete rebuild about a year ago and it was sitting in storage waiting for the day it could be hung back up.  It was actually a combination gas/electric fixture.  The center is an electric bulb and the three arms pointing towards the ceiling were gas lights.  I never could imagine actually hooking it back up to gas so I converted it all to electric.  For the purists out there, dont worry. The conversion did not require drilling the gas valves and I saved the extra bits.  I couldn't be happier with how it turned out.  A pleasant surprise was that the "vaseline glass" bits coordinate really well with the walls.  Almost like we planned it, lol.

Some of you may have noticed that I am missing a globe on the center lamp.  This would have been a round 6" vaseline glass globe.  They are really hard to find. I have been watching ebay for about a year now and haven't found the perfect one yet. 

The color we chose is called "Slightly Sour Absinthe".  It is basically a pale key lime pie color. In real life, it is a little greener than it appears here.  I especially like how it pops against the walnut stairs.  We don't really care for how it coordinates with the tan trim, but the goal is to slowly start stripping the trim anyway.

Some people raise an eyebrow when they hear I used Glidden paint.  We generally use Sherwin Williams oil and/or latex paints on our exterior projects but Glidden has been my interior latex choice for years.   This time it didn't let us down.  One-coat coverage over the Kilz primer.  Cant ask for more than that, lol.

After the painting was done, I starting working on restoring the coat rack that is shown in the first picture.  I am going to write up a separate blog post on this project....

Making progress! Roof, Side entrance foyer, and electrical

We have been plugging way lately.  Some big projects are wrapping up and some smaller projects too...

The roof over the kitchen addition is now almost fully installed.  This was a BIG project that was delayed due to rain.  Only I am crazy enough to tear the roof off right before record-setting rain.  So much rain that I am told this general area was declared a FEMA disaster zone. I am still planning a big blog post about my roofing project.

The side entrance foyer has seen a lot of work over the past couple days.  We started working on this right after we bought the house (a year and a half ago), but other projects stole our attention.  Way back then we stripped all the wallpaper and an insane amount of wallpaper paste.  We realized recently that it didnt require too much more work so we decided to finish it up.  Yesterday Celia and I patched holes in the plaster and sanded.  Today we applied a coat of Kilz primer.  Tomorrow? we will probably put on the finish coat.  We are REALLY looking forward to this because it is going to be the very first finish coat of paint in the interior of the house.  So much of our work thus far as been demo, or mechanical or structural.

SIDE NOTE: Apparently Kilz makes all sorts of primer products now.  Kilz Latex, Kilz MAX, Kilz Odorless, etc.  Something inside me told me to stick to the tried-n-true Original Kilz.

Ahh fresh, clean white primer!

Another project in the foyer was to fix some plaster.  Specifically the ceiling above the stairs had been skim-coated at some point in history but it had cracked and fallen when the upstairs toilet leaked.  I started patching it today:  

Fairly large patch (3'x3').  My 12-inch drywall knife provided a pretty nice finish.

I also had a small but important victory with the electrical.  Ever since we bought the place, the main light in the basement didnt work.  You know, the one the lights up the bottom of the stairs.  This made the basement extra creepy... Anyways, replacing the bulbs and flipping breakers didn't help so we have been just dealing with it be using a flashlight.  I got bored last weekend and decided to replace the switch, and it WORKED!.  So now we have a light in the basement.  It is the simple things in life that matter...

Not in any hot water this weekend

Weather was lousy this weekend so we didn't get much work done on the roofing project.  I am planning a big blog post on this roof project soon.
We decided this weekend we were going to start deep cleaning a couple rooms to prepare for move-in.  Celia wanted to use hot soapy water to clean off the window trim and baseboards so we decided to light the gas water heater.  He have owned this house for over a year and never had the hot water heater running.  And of course, it doesn't work. :(  The water heater is dated 2003 so it is already 10 years old.  The pilot light works fine, but the main burner never kicks in.  A little research shows that the problem is probably the gas valve/thermostat.

WORKAROUND:
Being clever, we decided to use the Keurig Vue coffee pot to brew us some hot water.

REPAIR:  The parts to repair the water heater would probably be close to $150 dollars.  A 50 gallon replacement would cost about $425.  And this is a 10 year old unit...  It has lots of rust down in the burner compartment due to basement flooding.  I don't think it is worth the investment or effort to repair it.

REPLACE:
A low-end 50 gallon replacement costs about $425.  That doesn't include extra plumbing parts like new cutoffs and gas fittings.  Replacing it with the same tank-style unit also doesn't address the issue of flood waters.
I am also considering upgrading to a tankless water heater.   While more expensive, it will mount up off the ground.  And since we have to rework some of the plumbing anyway, it wouldn't be any more difficult to install it.

We have our eye on the Navien NPE-210A http://www.navienamerica.com/Product/Category-NPE%20Series/Page1/Details/8
Anyone have any other suggestions?

CLEANING PROGRESS
Using our coffee pot's hot water, we cleaned the master bedroom and attached sitting room literally from ceiling to floor.

Cleaned the crystal chandelier

Master bedroom fireplace.  Notice the new mirror that I purchased on craigslist last week.

Pocket door trim all clean

Windows looking pretty good too!

Eastlake Mirror

We picked up a pretty cool eastlake style mirror on Craigslist. It is the type that would have originally been attached to a vanity or short dresser.  We are planning to put it on one of our fireplace mantles.  I think it was a pretty good deal at $30.

Drywall Progress and New Toys!

Hello old house lovers!

We have been plugging away at the house. This post outlines that progress on the kitchen over the past week or so. The big project this weekend was to hang more drywall on the walls.  We hung about 15 sheets total.
Last week, I ordered a new toy to do the ceiling.  11ft ceilings make a drywall hoist a MUST.

This lift came from Amazon and was delivered in 1 day with free shipping and no tax. Here is the one I bought: Pentagon Tools Pro Series Heavy Duty Drywall Lift

Also this week, my father-in-law, Bryon Tindall of BT Interiors showed me the progress on the cabinets.  He has glued up the cabinet fronts so it was neat to be able to see the door/drawer layout.

I am also trying to stay one step ahead with my projects. Now that drywall is well underway, I have been increasingly thinking about trim.  As you know, the plan is to replicate some of the ornate original millwork.  This will take some serious effort.

To start down this path, I purchased a ShopSmith Mark V system.  This system converts into a table saw, disc sander, jointer, drill press, router, and band saw. ShopSmith has been making these things in the USA since the 1950's and still makes parts for those really old machines.  Their claim to fame is that all the versatility is packed into a small unit that is ideal for smaller wood shops.  I picked this 1984 vintage unit for $700 and should provide me with the functionality of tools that would have otherwise cost me thousands.

Misc work in the kichen

Work has been progressing this weekend.  Mostly just several smaller jobs.

• Patched holes in original plaster walls using DAP Plaster Wall Patch
• Cut whole in wall/floor so that we have a nice straight route to the basement for the pot filler water line and the stove natural gas line.
• Hung a couple small pieces of drywall.
• Removed window casing on a couple of windows.  Eventually I will be fabricating new molding to match the other windows in the house.

More Discoveries in the Kitchen

Work is progressing in the kitchen.  Mainly boring stuff like drywall and wallpaper removal.  This week we uncovered some pretty exciting stuff though...

Discovery #1
While removing wallpaper in the kitchen we found 2 more signatures.

It says:
Ralph J. Sedgwick
by. Clifford Yocum
May 31 1938

Ralph J Sedgwick was part of a prominent family in our town.  Ralph started the family funeral home business and ran it out of our house for a number of years.  Since then, the business has been continued by his son and grandson.  It still operates today out of another historic building in town:  http://www.sedgwickfuneralhomes.com/  Here is a picture of the Ralph and his grandson:

Discovery #2
While prepping a wall in the part of the kitchen that is an addition, I pulled the old insulation out of a single stud bay and noticed some rather odd 1x sheathing.  Notice in this picture how the edges have a chamfer.

It kind of bothered me for a couple days so today I pulled out some more insulation... To my surprise I found this:

Not sure exactly what I am looking at, but I strongly suspect this is re-purposed wood from the old porch.  I speculate that the old porch would have been dismantled when the addition was added and this wood was salvaged.  What I cant picture is where the 1" material would have gone exactly...  The chamfer detail is replicated in the window/door molding inside our house, but not outside.  Perhaps it wrapped the porch columns or something.  I think I am going to need to pull out the rest of the insulation.


UPDATE:  HOLY SMOKES AM I EXCITED! I solved the mystery of these pieces of sheathing.
I started thinking a bit and pulled out the old photo of our front porch.  You may remember it from this post back in October. 

If you look closely, you will see that these pieces of wood match the porch elements in this photo.  Here is a hacked up version to illustrate: