Previous owner's relatives visit

We haven't gotten much done on the house for a number of reasons. One of them being the new TV we got:




It's a 47" Westinghouse with full 1080P HD. The picture is incredible. It's $700 or $800 cheaper than anything else in it's class. I got it for $1299 from Best Buy. I fully recommend it to anyone in the market for a flat panel LCD.

We had a visit from the relatives of the former owner of the house, Hazel. I've mentioned her in the blog before, she lived to be almost 105 and owned the house since 1955 when she inherited it from her 2 aunts, Helen and Kitty-Clyde. They inherited the house in 1945.

The relatives brought some old photos of them over for us. I gave them a tour of the house and showed them all of the progress we've made, they seemed impressed with the work done so far. Here are a few pictures they brought:

Hazel in front of the house

Helen

Kitty-Clyde

Helen with her husband

They also brought some photos of the front porch after a car hit it back in 2001. A man that was a convicted felon got into a fight then shot at someone that tried to break it up. He then car-jacked a vehicle and didnt get 2 blocks away before losing control and crashing into the front of the house. I've found some evidence of this a few months ago when I was planting new bushes in front of the porch. I dug up what appears to be a front fender reflector and some safety glass that probably came from the drivers window.



In anticipation of their visit we rearranged and straightened up many of the rooms in the house. We completely rearranged the Parlor:



The Buggy is a recent find that we got free off Freecycle.





I'm hoping to get back to work on the house soon.

Paint

We spent the entire weekend painting. On Saturday we painted the shutters and the front porch railing.




We're thinking about possibly leaving the house white when we repaint instead of the pale olive we were originally thinking of. I think white will look a lot better with the upcoming redo of the front porch I mentioned in a previous post.

I also painted the wicker furniture on Saturday, the loveseat and table were unpainted but were looking very washed out, the chair was a hideous blue (we found it at a thrift store for $3):


Sunday was spent painting inside, first we painted all the trim in the Foyer and the back hall, then I painted the foyer:



I still need to finish installing the picture rail and figure out what I'm going to do with the entryway to the Study (on the right in the picture), the entire study is stained a dark walnut so making the transition from antique white paint to stain is difficult. I'm thinking of just staining the entire Study entryway.

The door in the picture leads to the back hall and will most likely be replaced with a salvaged french door. Eventually I will remove the door, widen the opening and add some columns to create a wide open passageway from the foyer to the back hall. I dont have the front door pictured because I still need to strip it entirely and refinish it.

We still have to paint the walls of the back hall. We will hopefully finish that today so I can move back upstairs to the master bathroom and finish it off.

Living room complete!

The living room is finally done, well not done but done enough. We primered and painted the other day.

Primer

After primering, I painted all the trim then did all the cut work for the walls:


Then I painted the walls:




We then spent the better part of the day getting the room organized:







Obviously, there is still a lot left to do. The TV in the corner is temporary until we get our flat panel, it will go above the mantle. The corner that the TV is in now will have a wingback chair and side table.

Living room wall patching and new porch look.

Yesterday afternoon was spent patching the living room walls. The first thing I had to do was fix all the holes I made when running the wire for the lights.

I took some scrap lathing and cut it into short strips and placed it in the hole using my nailgun to secure it to the lathing around the hole.


Then I cut 1/2" drywall to fit in the hole and screwed it in place.

Here are all the holes covered and ready for mud.

And here they are mudded.

After the holes were patched I patched all the cracks in the rest of the room. As I've mentioned before I'm using drywall mud mixed with play sand. It gives it a texture very similar to plaster and blends in well with the existing plaster.


Unfortunately today I have other things I have to take care of so I doubt I'll get a chance to sand and primer today.

I've come up with a redesign of the front porch, originally it was just a one story porch but at some point a second story porch was added. The second story porch is horribly done with just 4x4 posts, 2x4 joists, and plywood floors. I had thought of removing the second story porch but we really love sitting up there in the evenings.

So I took a picture of the house, played around with a few ideas and came up with this:


I think it keeps with the style of the house nicely and gives us our second story porch to sit on in the evenings. This style of porch was actually popular in this area so it keeps with the period look.

I probably wont get to this project this year, it will have to be something I take on after the rest of the house is finished.

Living room mantle and electrical

Work on the living room has gone slower than anticipated... imagine that. Stripping the mantle took almost the entire day Saturday.


unfortunately the tiger oak veneer on the front edge of the mantle was in such bad shape that I had to remove it. The wood underneath is oak but it's very rough and it's not quarter-sawn so I'll probably have to get some new oak veneer.

Sunday was almost entirely taken up with rewiring the lighting. The original knob and tube was shoved back up into the ceiling at some point and metal conduit run along the ceiling and down the wall.


The light switch wasn't even by the door to the hallway. When the house was apartments the little door in the above picture was the entrance to this room, it is a small closet that connects to the study. These two rooms, along with the main bathroom and the laundry room were one apartment.

So anyways, the conduit had to go. Running the new wire from the fixture in the ceiling and down the wall was a pain. I had to cut a lot of holes in the wall to run it.


The rest of the day sunday was spent finishing up all the scraping of the walls and ceiling.



Hopefully I can patch everything today then sand and paint tomorrow. For the trim I've decided to try my hand at faux graining. The living room needs to get done fast and I dont have time to remove all of the paint from the trim.

A nice surprise

The living room has finally been cleared out and I have begun the task of scraping the walls.


Once the walls are scraped I need to run some romex for the chandelier and light switch. Then I can begin patching all the cracks.

The wood shed is pretty full now. I need to make a few shelves so I can stack all my wood so I can fit more in there.


Now that all the large pieces are in I need to put the last wall up.

I made a very nice discovery while scraping yesterday. I decided to scrape some of the paint off the mantle, I was expecting pine but what I found is so much better.


That's Tiger Oak! The entire mantle is tiger oak veneer. Somewhere along the way some genius decided to put nails in the top part of the veneer on the face. I should be able to repair that though. I just dont understand how someone could have just painted over these mantles.


The mantle is Empire style. The ones in the Parlor and formal dining room are also Empire style but they have the more common curves on the legs of the mantle. I decided to check those to see what was under the paint:

Formal Dining Room

Parlor

Both are also Tiger Oak! The mantle in the parlor appears to be solid tiger oak, not veneer like the others. They should look great once they are refinished.

Living room cleanup

I've been working on clearing out the storage room... sorry... the living room since Sunday and I'm still not finished. It is almost completed though so it will be done by tonight. Then I can start scraping, patching, and rewiring.

Here is a picture of the room after almost a full day of working on it:


I really wish I had gotten a picture of the room before I started, you literally couldn't walk into the room it was so full. The above shot was taken after I had filled two full sized rolling trash cans, two full sized rolling recycle cans, removed almost all my tools, sorted into boxes all kinds of miscellaneous parts like electrical, plumbing, screws, nails, and bolts, and removed 2 large piles of left over flooring.

This next picture was as of monday:

I had to de-nail all the wood I removed so that I could stack it cleanly in the wood shed. This took a lot of time. I'm also having to cut up all the scrap wood so it will fit into contractor bags. I'm having to throw everything out with the regular trash since I cant afford another dumpster.

Here is the room as of last night, as you can see it shouldn't take long to finish emptying it.


I really hope that I can get this room painted by the weekend, all that purple is starting to hurt my eyes!

Pole Shed part 3 and the living room

The pole shed is about done except for the last wall panel, trim, and paint. I'm thinking barn red. I'm waiting until I finish putting all the large pieces in the shed before I put up the last panel.




The living room and the main guest room have been our storage areas for almost as long as we've been in the house. We are finally getting these two rooms cleared out and moving everything into the shed. So far I've moved about 22 doors and 20 sets of windows into the shed along with a lot of wood.

As soon as the living room is completely empty I'll begin on the scraping and patching of the walls and ceiling. They're in decent shape so I expect to have the room painted before the weekend. I'll post some pics of the room in the next post.