Progress!! Painting the house

After a long break we have finally resumed work on the house. We are making our final push towards completing it once and for all.

Saturday morning I rented a 4000psi pressure washer and pressure washed the entire house. Surprisingly it only took about 4 hours. The house was really dirty and there was a lot of peeling paint.

After pressure washing we went and bought the paint, we had the colors we wanted picked out for about 2 weeks now. The colors we chose were Homestead Resort Pale Olive for the main color and Churchill white something or other for the trim. It has a slight yellow tint to it. Both are from the Historic Preservation collection from Valspar.

Here is a before picture of the house:

Here are a few shots after pressure washing:


On Saturday afternoon we were able to paint the front first floor of the house. I decided not to use the paint gun for the front of the house simply because of overspray and having to put drop cloths down. Instead I'm using a 4" brush.

This is a good before and after shot:


Sunday we painted the front second floor in between the storms and the race but we were able to finish the entire front of the house. The area above the porch was a bit difficult to get at first because the porch roof is a hip roof so I couldnt put a ladder on it.

I solved the problem by duct tapping a 4" brush at a 45 degree angle to the end of an extension pole. It really worked great, I was able to paint the area almost as fast as if I were painting with the brush alone. I've begun painting all the higher up places with this instead of having to constantly move a ladder.


Here is the front of the house all painted:


I will be removing the second floor porch roof sometime this week and then I'll finish painting the fascia and soffit in that area.

We're not quite sure what to do with the first floor porch paint-wise. I hate that the brick is painted, because of that I'll probably paint it with a brick red color. I saw a color at Lowes a while back that is very close to brick color. The railings are painted a very light cream color right now. We're not sure if we should paint the porch columns and fascia that color or with our trim color that is on the rest of the house. Suggestions...?

I'm going to have to rent scaffolding for the sides of the house. I have an extension ladder but I get really nervous on the thing that high up.

Oh, and for those of you who may not have noticed the new link in the sidebar we just bought a 1969 Airstream Sovereign 31'. I'll be restoring it soon. Here is a link to the blog I'll be keeping of the restoration: http://69airstream.blogspot.com/

Antique Toilet for sale

I've decided to sell my antique toilet I bought a few years ago. It's a really nice embossed Victorian style toilet made in 1902 by T. R. & Co. The tank is oak and finished in amber shellac. All the internals are original except for the flush valve.

I hate to sell it but with the medical issues I've been having lately I could use the cash.

I've put it up on E-bay for those of you that may be interested.

Guest Bedroom 1

Well I've finally started working on the main guest bedroom. It's been my storage room/work shop for as long as I can remember.


I spent the day yesterday clearing the room out.


The few things left in there will be removed this morning and then I will begin the fun job of sanding and scraping. The ceiling is heavily stippled and will need to be sanded down also.

Repainting the Master Bedroom

I repainted the master bedroom last night. I used the same color as I did in the living room. It's Cincinnati Hotel Carl Tan from Valspar. It's one of the colors on their historic pallet.

I didnt get a chance to finish it last night, I still have to cut in at the ceiling and paint the trim, it's still primered. Here is a sneak peek at the color:

Brief update

I've finally started working on the house again. Most of it is just little things that aren't picture worthy so I dont have any new pictures today. I've started clearing out the house, I have way too much stuff in here to be able to work efficiently. I'm going to be taking a lot of stuff over to the Woodbury house to store it there temporarily.

I've been clearing out the laundry room. It was the kitchen for the second apartment for a long time. I've been using it as a storage room. I removed the 5 door cabinet from the wall above the sink and will be replacing it with a much smaller 2 door cabinet that matches the one above the washer. I'm hoping to be able to paint it this weekend. I'll be painting the walls a sage color and the floors will be flat black.

I'm also hoping to repaint the master bedroom soon. I've hated the color ever since I painted it over a year ago.


I'll be using the same tan that I used in the living room, the bedroom is a fairly dark room so it should benefit from the lighter color.

Woodbury House

Work has begun on the Woodbury House. This means that more than likely I wont be getting much done here at the Oxford-Boynton House for a while. In the mean time I'll be keeping the Woodbury House blog up to date with the progress over there.

Our next house!

Today was closing day for our next house. I never mentioned anything about it on the blog because I wanted to wait until everything was final.

The house is a 2 story Victorian built in 1888. I guess you could say the style is Folk Victorian with Eastlake influences. We got the house for a steal since it was a foreclosure that the bank has owned for a year.

This is from the back of the property. the lot is just over .5 acre.

This is the barn that's at the back of the property.

Foyer (front door is to the left)

Upstairs Landing

Main Hall

Parlor

Door to upstairs porch. Most of the detail is obscured by the paint.

Back door in the kitchen. The detail is obscured by the paint on this one too.

I dont have a shot of the front door but it's even more ornate than either of the above two doors.

I'm hoping to start work on the house soon.

Here is a link to the blog for the house: Woodbury House. I will be updating it as work gets done.

Snow!

It doesnt happen around here all that often so when it does snow it's a big deal.





In regards to the house, I haven't accomplished anything in the last few weeks. I've had too many other things to do and to be honest I've gotten pretty discouraged with working on the house lately. Hopefully I'll get a second wind soon...

Rebuilding the fence gates.

Almost exactly a year ago I built the double gates to the backyard. We park our cars out back so we have to drive through these gates everyday.


At the time I thought they were wide enough but I quickly learned that they weren't. My truck was especially tight.

Well now I'm buying a dually. I know that it will never fit through the gate. So yesterday I tore down the old gate and the small piece of fencing next to the house. This will give us over 2' of extra clearance.

The framing for the gates is relatively simple. I did however want to beef the gates up a little more this time so I installed 2 cross braces instead of one.



The small piece of 2x4 in the upper corner is for the upper hinge. Here are the new gates installed. The center boards are missing because I still need to tweak that area to get a perfect fit.

These gates are much more sturdy and solid than the last ones. The extra 2'+ should make driving through them much easier now.

Final closing!

This is a little late in coming but on December 14th we finally closed on our permanent mortgage for the house. No more construction loan! It's been a long year and a half.

We're still far from finished on the house but it's nice to be able to work on what I want now instead of what I feel HAS to be done to get the mortgage. Most of the things I have been working on are small jobs but it's the detail work that usually makes the most difference and makes the place look more like a real home and not a construction zone.

I've finished up a few things in the kitchen. First I finally hung the second pendant light and got both of them wired up.

In the above picture you can also see that I finished the doors for the final cabinet. I still need to add the crown for this cabinet and one other and then the crown for the ceiling.

The breakfast nook is slowly progressing, I have everything roughed in now. I also finally put the window trim and shutters back up, I still have to paint them though. the ceiling in the nook still needs to be installed also.

Next I stained the kitchen island and added the little magnetic door poppers to the insides of the doors. I still need to build the shelf inside though.


In the study I finally tackled the door to the closet/passage to the living room. The door was a 5 paneled door that did not match anything else in the house. You can see the door below in this picture from a few months ago.


On the first floor every other door is 4 paneled. A while back I had taken the door between the back hall and breakfast room down, we didnt like how it closed off the space. I measured this door and found that it fit perfectly. You can see the door in the picture below.

I completely stripped all the paint off the door and door frame then hung the door. Next I installed the beadboard on the wall next to the door.

I stained the doorway and beadboard with dark walnut. For the door I only put on 2 coats of amber shellac.

I still need to add the trim around the doorway. I also stained the beadboard on another section of wall.


I only have one more small section of beadboard to install then 3 more sections to stain. I still need to install the picture rail also.

While I was in the Study I decided to open up the fireplace to see what I would find.

The above picture was after cleaning all the sand, leaves and soot out. One thing I found interesting was the bricks that line the fireplace, many are stamped with the word "STEVENS" but the letter N is backwards. I'm pretty sure this is the name of the company that made them but I havent been able to find out anything about them. If anyone knows anything about them I'd love to hear about it. Here is a picture of one of the bricks.

Of the many spare doors I have some are french doors, I found that one of these was an almost perfect match for the doorway between the back hall and breakfast room. We took the 4 panel door down from here because we felt like it closed off the space but a french door wont. It also gives the breakfast room a sunroom kind of feel.

I cut the door down to size, sanded it and test fit it into place. I had to rework the door frame a little for it to fit properly.





As you can see the door is only primed for now. Also the door hardware is only test fitted into place. I still need to restore the lock and rosette. I also need to install a "new" pane of glass in the opening on the bottom.