Finally, some more progress

Sorry to go so long between posts. I've been pretty busy on the house this past week, and the week before I hardly got anything done. It was just one of those weeks where you cant get anything done no matter how hard you try.

One of the projects I finally got around to doing is tearing down the wall between the Foyer and the Study. Some of you may remember in one of my early posts that this wall had been moved and was not in it's original position. It's also crooked as hell and covered part of the front door frame.

The wall came down really easy, I took the framing apart very carefully so I can reuse it for the new wall.


In the picture below you can see where they built the wall right over the front door frame:

When I rebuild the wall the front Foyer will be a little over a foot wider. I'm also going to frame the doorway in the center of the wall for double french doors, just like the parlor entrance on the other side of the foyer. The french doors are from an early 1900's farmhouse.

I also hung the chandelier we got off Craigslist in the Study:


I've finally started on patching the ceilings upstairs. It's something I haven't been looking forward to, they need a lot of work.


This picture will give you an idea of the condition of our upstairs ceilings. We want to save as much plaster as possible so we've decided to patch the ceilings instead of replacing them. We used 1/4" drywall for a few reasons, one being weight, it's a lot ligher than 1/2". Another reason is because some of the plaster on the ceiling is pretty thin, I didnt want to have to build all those areas up.

The first two pics below are in the nursery. First we squared the area to be patched:

We then screwed up the drywall and skimmed the entire patch with mud mixed with sand:


The sand gives the mud a gritty texture that is similar to plaster. These pictures were before the second skim coat. I still have to sand it down, patch and sand all the cracks, and sand down the stipling on the rest of the ceiling in all the rooms, I'm NOT looking forward to that. If the patch stands out really bad once it's all been sanded down I'm going to have to skim the entire ceiling in every room, that's something I just dont have time for.

Heres the other big patch in the nursery:

Here's the patch in the master bedroom:



Next is the upstairs hallway ceiling at the top of the stairs, the original design was terrible. The location was an addition built in the early 1900's. The ceiling was very low and was really crooked.


The above picture was taken when the attic stairs were being installed. A few months back I tore the ceiling out.


I finally got around to it again the other day. What I decided on was a sloped ceiling. Here's a shot of the framing:

Insulation:

Some of the drywall up:



This is as far as I got last night. I'm hoping to finish the drywall tonight. We're once again racing against the clock. We need to get the flooring guys up here this week so they can finish by the end of next week. Heather's helping with the drywall and isn't happy.

Antique toilet has arrived... and is installed!!

The antique toilet came in today around 3pm. 7 1/2 hours later it's installed. First I had to go to a plumbing supply store to get new parts for it. I wasn't going to settle for some cheap plastic parts so I made sure to get brass replacement parts specifically for this toilet.


I then began sanding the tank, this shot is between sandings:


Then I gave it a couple coats of amber shellac.


When I tried installing the toilet I found that it wouldnt fit. The diameter of the flange on the bottom of the toilet was too big to fit into the rough-in. I went to Lowes and got another 3" toilet flange that had a bigger opening but it wouldnt fit either. I had to go back again, this time I got a 4" flange and a 4" to 3" reducer. Here's the result:


With that problem solved I began installing the toilet.


Everything went fine until I got to the part where I had to install the elbow between the tank and toilet. It was too long on the toilet end and had to be cut down. Like a dummy I didnt take the compression nut off when I was cutting it and ended up tearing up the washer in it. I'll have to get a replacement tomorrow but in the mean time here's the toilet:


The flash is making the oak look a lot lighter than it is, and that's a cheap $12 seat on it for now until I can buy a nice one. I cant wait until tomorrow when I can flush it with the push button!

Kitchen Cabinets... part 2

Here are a few more shots of the cabinets. I didnt get anything done last night so there isnt that much progress to show.

These are the cabinets by the stove.



I have to move to stove outlet because it was installed in the wrong place, the cabinet and stove will be moved next to each other once I do that.

Here is the design for the cabinet doors.


The wood is select pine slats in random widths.I'm hoping to finish building the doors tonight and possibly get a few upper cabinets done.

Kitchen Cabinets

We've spent the last 6 days rebuilding some of the original cabinets and building new ones. Here are a few quick shots of the work in progress.

This is the sink cabinet. The sink that goes in this cabinet is an old 5 1/2' enamel double sink with double drainboards.


This is the counter that goes next to the stove. I built the countertop from an old butcherblock that belonged to my Grandfather.


The counters are built with 3/4 sanded plywood, 1x2's, 1x3's, and 1x6's. They were only partially finished in the above photos. They've since been finished, minus the doors, and are installed along with a few other ones that I didnt get pics of. Once we build and install the doors I'll take a bunch of pictures of them to post.

We have a kitchen!!!... sort of

The floor was finally dry enough to walk on Thanksgiving morning. We still had to paint the second coat on the walls, primer the trim, move in and hook up the stove & refrigerator, and set up for the dinner scheduled for 4pm. We made it... barely. Here's a few pics of what it looks like now:







It still has a long way to go but at least it's usable for now. Next on the list is the cabinets, we've already sanded and primered two of them, We still have to build the sink cabinet, redesign two of the upper cabinets and build all of the doors for them before we can install them. hopefully then it will start looking like a kitchen.

We also had to get the main bathroom walls finished before Thanksgiving dinner:


I think it turned out great. We still need to finish stripping the remaining painted trim and stain it all, strip and refinish the vanity, install the sink, faucet, and mirror in the vanity, and install the toilet once it arrives.

I found a really cool old Victorian toilet on E-bay, it should be getting here sometime next week.



Oh, and one other thing. These pictures demonstrate the extreme importance of checking all your wiring and outlets:




This outlet failed and damn near burned the house down. Weird thing is, there was nothing plugged into it. Last week I started noticing a smell in The dining room, it smelled like an old campfire. I couldn't trace it so I just assumed that it was coming from the fireplace (even though it's closed off and hasn't been used in ages). I went out of town for two days and when I got back I noticed that some of the outlets in the kitchen weren't working, I checked the breaker but it wasn't tripped. I finally traced it back to this outlet. How it didn't burn the house down I don't know... I'm just thanking God it didn't.

Master bathroom floors are finally in.

We've turned our attention upstairs... finally! We've done a lot of scraping and prepping the plaster areas that will need to be patched. this afternoon we tackled the master bathroom floor. some of you may remember I had to pull the old floor up back in August.

Here's the floor before we put down insulation but after we cleaned it up a bit:



Here's a shot of my brother putting a floor board in place to nail:


And here is the finished product:


The blue line in the above picture is where we'll be pulling the plaster off and installing beadboard. I haven't decided if we'll be painting it or staining it like I did with the downstairs bathroom.

the floor guys should be out in the morning to lay the next coat of ploy down in the kitchen, here's what it looks like now that it's had a chance to dry a little:



well that's it for now, tomorrow we're going to spend the day upstairs patching plaster, fun fun...

Did I mention how much I love heartpine?

the first coat of poly is down on the kitchen floor!!!





The 3rd coat should be dry in time for Thanksgiving. We're hoping to be able to put the stove in and cook a turkey then.

Quick update on the kitchen

I just wanted to post a quick update on the kitchen. We're getting really close to having a working kitchen!!

I primered the walls the other day with Kilz2, it's water-based and doesn't have that overpowering smell to it.



I plastered the walls myself by the way. I used a wagner paint gun to paint the walls, it only took about 45 minutes to do the entire room. I've painted the walls with the final color, I cant remember the exact name of the color now, it was Lincoln cabin brown or something like that. It's one of the approved Historic Trust colors. The problem is, I was in a hurry to get the paint up before the floor guys came in today to start on the floor so the kilz wasnt completely dry. It bled through in a few places so I'm going to have to put on a second coat after the floor guys are done next week. I really wanted to go with more of a tan color though.

Speaking of floors... Here's a shot of it after the first sanding:



Unfortunately I'm not there to see it for myself, I'm out of town for 2 days so I'll have to live with pictures of it until I get back. It looks great though!! The floor guys will be back in the morning to finish sanding and put the first coat of poly down. It looks like we'll be ready to bring the appliances in next Wednesday, that means that we'll be able to cook our thanksgiving turkey in the kitchen!!

I'll post more pictures tomorrow once the first coat of poly is down.

Kitchen walls are done!

I've finally finished putting up the kitchen walls. I've begun sanding them with the help of my brother. He's agreed to come up and help me for a month or so. The help is greatly needed. I've managed to fall pretty far behind doing everything myself. Hopefully now we'll get some real progress. I'd like to have a working kitchen by Thanksgiving, I know that's asking a lot but hey, I can dream...

Here's a shot of the breakfast nook with the table and chandelier that will be in it.


The table is a mahogany butterfly table that's absolutely awesome. I still need to refinish it of course. It's really a shame to use it there where it wont get to be opened but it fits in there perfectly. Once I find another table I'll swap them out. the chandelier is a really cool old tiffany style one made from leaded stained glass.

Here's a shot of the old church pew that will become the benches for the nook:


The man that I bought this from had a second one, he refinished it so I've seen what it will look like when done. It's the most beautiful heart-pine I've ever seen.

Once we've sanded and primered the walls we're going to get the floor guys back in to refinish this floor. I'm really excited about that, a while back the floor guys did a quick sand and poly of a small spot to see what it would look like:



They said it will come out a little lighter than this because this was just a quick sand. The floor is in pretty rough shape in some spots but I think it's going to turn out great. The rough spots should give it more of a rustic look.

I hung an old chandelier in the main bathroom, it has an antique copper finish so it goes with everything else:


It's a really weird chandelier, it's got a bunch of keys, chains, and little shields that have the word "hero" on it, but we both think it looks cool. I may take the shields and keys off of it though. I really like the light it gives off, it makes the room look much warmer than the wall sconce does.

Well that's about it for now, hopefully I'll have a lot of progress updates now that I have some help!

We finally have a tub!

It's been a while since my last post. I've been really busy and unfortunately most of it has not been with the house. I have gotten a few things done though. I've decided to redesign the fence I started a few months back. It was already starting to sag and was looking horrible. the new design is much stronger and looks worlds better.



Here you can see part of the new fence and part of the old. The part of the fence in the foreground is the old one. As you can see the new design is MUCH better. I turned the 2x4's up so they wont sag and added a 2x6 along the top. I'm adding finials above each 4x4 also, you can see 2 of them in the small section against the house. I'm using deck screws instead of nails. The gate will be 2 swinging doors with black wrought iron hardware, should look pretty good once I get done.

I rented a Dingo (a small ride behind front end loader with an auger attachment) over the weekend to drill all the fence holes, while I was at it I cleared all the bamboo out of the back yard with it. It looks a lot better now. I dont have the pictures with me right now so I'll have to post them later.


Up next is the breakfast nook floor and walls.




The floor was in really bad shape, there were holes in it from where the bathtub and toilet was and there was a huge hole where the old cast iron vent pipe decided to fall all by itself one night. I had broken the pipe apart earlier in the day but there was still about 15' of it going all the way up to the roof. Good thing no one was below it. It tore through the floor like it wasnt even there.

Here's a closeup of the floor, I used the reclaimed heart-pine wood from the farmhouse.


I'm hoping to finish the rest of the walls in the kitchen this weekend... yeah I know I've said that before... but I really think I can get it done.

In other news... We finally have a working tub!!!



No more 40 minute journey to my moms house just to get a shower. The inside of the tub is stained more than I initially thought. I've already tried CLR on it. I'm going to get some Brillo pads and Comet to see if I can get the rest of them out. If anyone has any tips on getting stains out please post them. I'd hate to have to get the thing re-glazed.

I really love all the antique copper finish fixtures. I also have a copper chandelier that I'll be installing soon. I painted the tub feet with hammered copper spray paint, I think it's a pretty good match. The dark green on the tub is the color that we'll be painting the walls above the beadboard.

Speaking of the beadboard. I tried to find shellac to use on the walls like Gary had said but the only thing I could find was in a spray can. So instead I went with Laquer. Some advise... NEVER use this stuff indoors! Even with my respirator on I was really dizzy by the time I was done. It took the better part of 2 days to air the house out. It came out looking good though. I used satin poly for the second coat but the laquer really richened the color.

Well hopefully I'll be posting soon with more progress. Wish me luck!