Punch list work

I know I never made a follow-up post on the exterior house painting but it will have to wait a while longer. I completed what I had to get done with the scaffolding so I could return it but that was it. I still have a lot of the back of the house to complete as well as about 3 feet of the bottom on both sides.

The reason I didnt finish is because we wanted to get our new (old) Airstream in usable condition so we could go on a small vacation. Now that we're back it's time to get this house finished already.

I had intended on coming back and removing the second story porch roof and then finish up the painting but I've decided to hold off on that for a few weeks until I have some help. It will go much faster that way. So in the mean time I decided to create a punch list of little things around the house that need to get done and have begun working on that.


I've been concentrating on the front of the house the past few days, mainly the foyer and the study. I finished staining the beadboard in the study but dont have any good pictures yet. I should be putting a coat of poly on it this afternoon.

I have begun work on the mantle in the study also. Most of the mantle is brick but it has a pine top piece. I stripped the 20 layers of paint off of it yesterday:


I will be shellacing it this afternoon. I've decided to find a brick red paint color and paint the brick for a few reasons. One, the paint is very hard to remove but also the brick underneath it is cement so it's gray, not red. I may try to paint the mortar lines gray then paint the brick red and then sponge it to make it look more realistic.

I've also been trying to finish the trim in the foyer. You may remember that the wall between the foyer and study was not original and was crooked so I tore it down and rebuilt it straight, giving the foyer an extra foot.

The old wall covered the edge of the front door frame so I used some of my salvaged trim to replace the missing pieces. This trim came from the upstairs bathroom and is the original trim design for the house so it matches the rest of the foyer:


I know I should have painted it first but I like to do stuff backwards. Besides, the door frame needed a touch-up coat of paint anyways.

By the way, the plywood is over the front door because the glass broke in the door. I'm sure replacing it is going to be costly.

Next I installed the picture rail on the new wall:


I've also installed the upper trim on the baseboards but still have to install the 1/4 round at the bottom of the baseboards. Once I do that and install the trim on the study doorway and paint everything the foyer will be completely done... well except for the broken glass in the front door that is.

More house painting

Things have been moving a little slower that expected. I've almost gotten the rght side of the house done. I have maybe 1 hour left on that side before I can move to the driveway side of the house. I should only have to do two setups of the scaffolding on that side.

Setting this scaffolding up by myself is a pain but I've worked out a bit of a system and can set it up in about 15 minutes and less than 10 to take it down. The hardest part is carrying the sections up the scaffolding during setup.

Here are a few pictures from the last two days:






I'm doing pretty good on paint, I've used less than a gallon on trim and about 2.5 gallons on the green so far. This is with the front completed, the right side almost completed and the back 1/2 completed. That's about 2/3's done. This exterior grade Valspar covers very well without using a lot.

House Painting

I was back to work painting the house yesterday. I went ahead and rented scaffolding for the entire week to get the rest of the house done. the scaffolding works great but the pain is having to tear it all down and rebuild it by myself every time I have to move on to the next section.




Setting the scaffolding up takes at least an hour. I'm painting out as far as I can on either side of the scaffolding to minimize the teardowns/setups. I would have gotten further but I lost about 3 hours of work, one for a short period of rain, the other 2 when someone came by to buy an old truck of mine. It took about 2 hours to get the thing on the tow dolly.

This is how far I got as of yesterday evening:


I probably could have finished this section before it got dark but the race came on so instead I got to watch Junior ALMOST win his first race in two years only to be wrecked by a DUMBASS with 2 laps left....

Anyways, I'll be back out there today painting. Hopefully I'll at least get this side of the house done.

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.