Major Progress

It has been WAY too long since I last posted. While I wasn't keeping up with my blog, Jon and I WERE making serious progress on our house. Well, let's be honest...mostly Jon was making progress. I've been reading a lot of old issues of House Beautiful and Traditional Home that our amazing neighbor, Eddy, donated to the cause.

I have to say that we might be getting a little ahead of ourselves on the wallpaper removal. We started with the kitchen. And it was slow-going hell. It takes us about 3 hours per strip for complete removal. We've been using a commercial grade stripper and a mixture of 1/2 liquid fabric softener/ 1/2 water to take the stuff off. You have to be careful with horse hair plaster...

Here's what we do:
1. Use a Paper Tiger to score the paper.
2. Spray or sponge on both solutions or just one. Or one after the other. Whatever way seems to work best at that time.
3. Wait 15 minutes.
4. Peel off the top layer of the wall paper relatively easily.
5. Spray or sponge on more solution to the backing of the wallpaper.
6. Wait for a few minutes.
7. Attack the backing with a scraper.
8. Watch as the paper comes off in little strips.
9. Get frustrated...but keep going. It won't last forever.

So the kitchen was really taking forever. After we finished a whole days work in there...we got anxious about the dining room. We saw a seam that had pulled away a bit. We started picking at the seam. It started coming off really easily. We got excited. We pulled a whole sheet off without any solution, scoring, or waiting. We got carried away.

Now the kitchen is 1/2 wall paper free and the dining room is completely wall paper free except for one corner. The original plan had been to work on one room at a time so we didn't get completely overwhelmed. Yah...the excitement over the dining room paper ruined that plan.

So currently, we have 3 rooms in the works. The Red Rum is currently getting a new roof/dormer extension. The kitchen just got a new breakfast bar yesterday thanks to the amazingly crafty work of my husband. And the dining room looks like a slum of cracking plaster.

Pictures for your viewing pleasure:

Jon removing paper from the kitchen.

Slow going.
One wall in the dining room post-removal.
Corner of the dining room closest to the entrance to the kitchen, post removal. Notice the lovely tape-covered cracks. We either have plaster repair or wall paper installation in our futures.
Here's the wall between the dining room and kitchen. We *think* that this wall was added after the original house was built. It is not load bearing. This is where we wanted to open the space a bit, without messing with the gorgeous tin ceilings. Solution: breakfast bar.
Here is the new breakfast bar that Jon created! Marble and granite or anything else was just too expensive. Even remnants. So we went with subway tile in carrera marble (my latest obsession).
The breakfast bar opens the kitchen to the dining room allowing more natural light from the dining room windows into the kitchen. It will also be a nice feature when we entertain!

Demolition is done!

According to our contractors, my darling husband Jon is a "trojan." They came over this morning to check out our progress and also tell us what to do with the exposed wiring left from demolition. They were blown away by how much Jon had accomplished. I can't take much credit other than making him sandwiches for lunch. He went through 2 respirators and over 40 jumbo bags of plaster, lathe, wood and cellulose insulation. He is now on first name basis with the wonderful people at our Hatch Hill dump in Augusta, ME.

He took a bunch of pictures during demolition for your viewing pleasure. Just looking at these makes me want to put a respirator on.

This amazing 2005 Ford F-150 is quite possibly the best purchase we've ever made.

Here's what it looks like now:

What will be a shower and closet.

This side will contain a double sink and toilet. That window will be taken out.

This is the shed dormer that I wanted to rip out and replace with traditional dormers. Too expensive. So we are going to add on to the end of the shed dormer one more window (where the ladder is pictured).

The other end of the bedroom, with closet that we are going to keep. It's plaster on the inside, but is in pretty good condition- so I'll repair where needed and repaint.

This is the crowning jewel of the entire project. Beneath the horrible carpet and this old padding we found these beautiful, wide plank, protected hard wood floors. We're going to refinish them. I love hardwoods in the bedroom with area rugs.

The other amazing discovery during this process was the fact that we didn't find any insulation in the outside walls. When we first looked at the house in May, I was struck by how cold this room was. I can't believe someone slept in here in the middle of Maine during winter without insulation on the outside walls. Also, the baseboard heat is obviously on those outside walls, so adding insulation should cut down significantly on our oil bills!

More good news: our contractors are going to start on Tuesday. They totally see my vision and even laugh at my jokes. It is really comforting to work with people I trust. They say the project will probably take about a month. It's definitely small scale compared to what they usually do, but they seem genuinely excited about the end product.

Slipper chairs

In last month's House Beautiful, they featured these great (made in the USA) slipper chairs from Urban Outfitters. On first look I thought, "I ADORE that fabric, but can I pull off the mid-century modern look in my 1840 house?" But then I started looking around at other slipper chairs and realized that it's really a pretty classic piece (this one definitely has a mid-century feel however). And while ikat print is especially trendy right now, I think it has a hold on tradition as well. I deliberated for a week or two and finally came to the decision that if they went on sale or offered free shipping, I would cave in and buy them. Well...last week Urban Outfitters announced free shipping on select furniture, so I jumped at the opportunity and bought two. I have to say that I was INCREDIBLY impressed with Urban Outfitters customer service. They called me immediately to talk with me about my order and make sure I was who I said I was (which always makes me feel good).

I also need to give some credit here to one of my best friends, Abbey A.B. Bloom, who I consult on nearly every furniture purchase (and most clothing purchases) I make whether it be from Craig's List or anywhere else. She has the best eye for style and I trust her to tell me if I misstep. :)

The chairs helped me to make an executive decision to do our living room in blue and white, with yellow accents. The living room is on the front of the house, and the windows in the room are under the porch. The room receives a lot of light, but not streaming-in sunshine. To help brighten the room, I've decided to paint the walls white. The wood work and tin ceilings are already white, so I'll have to be really careful to select a complimentary white. The white will also give us a blank canvas for bold prints in the window treatments and furniture. Plus, I want to do the connected entry way in yellow. The idea is for the yellow accents in the living room to work with the yellow paint in the entry to connect the rooms visually. That's the hope anyway! I have no idea when I'll ever get these things accomplished, but now that the chairs are arriving in a couple of weeks...I hope it's soon. They'll look pretty stupid in the room the way it looks now.

Red Rum

So there are many reasons why the bedroom on the back of our house reminded me of the Shining, but primarily it was the red wall-to-wall carpet, lack of many windows, and low ceilings. I started thinking about this and remembered that weird scene in the Shining when, I think, REDRUM, is spelled on the mirror. And then...I started thinking about how in New England, many people pronounce room like rum. So it has become a little joke in my head that our weird back bedroom is now the Red Rum.

Well, it's not the Red Rum for long. Jon began demo on Sunday night. We have a lot of cellulose insulation in our house and apparently it's pretty efficient, but have you ever tried to take it out? Holy mess. Also, we have tons of plaster. Plaster, lathe, cellulose insulation and a gross old red carpet make for the largest mess I've even seen within my dwelling. But demo is the first step towards our spanking new, gorgeous bedroom/master suite.

We met with our contractor yesterday morning who informed us that my dream of new dormer windows is totally out of our price range. Bummer, but I'll get over it. Instead, the plan is that we'll extend the existing shed dormer, add about 4 skylights, and a new window on the end of the house. This should solve the lighting problem. We're also tearing out the ceiling, so that will extend the head room making the room feel much larger. We're going to install beadboard on the ceiling and paint it with pretty high gloss paint to help reflect light. The roof is also going to be replaced, which is an annoying expense, but it's needed within 2 years anyway.

And the best thing is that we're going to start on this as soon as the demo is completed. It shouldn't be more than a couple weeks.

Red Rum Before:

Nice cracks in the plaster...

View the sagging ceiling...

That's a false front fireplace...

We found this wood stove pipe cover behind the fake brick.
This is where our bathroom will go...

The other side of the bathroom.

The stairway from the television room to the Red Rum.


Red Rum After the Start of Demo:

This is the cellulose! I could only get pictures from the bottom of the stairs as I couldn't find Jon's respirator!Yummmmy.
I can only imagine what it looks like up there.
Thank goodness the exposed roof structure looks healthy!

I can't wait to see that wallpaper gone.

We're in!

Sorry for the long lapse in time since my last post! We're in. Well...we're mostly in. Of course today is June 30th, which means we will be totally in by midnight tonight. Our lease expires as of July 1st and I still need to go over to the shanty to clean/move out the last remaining items.

The new house feels so big inside! And even though I promised myself not get overwhelmed with the amount of work that needs attention, I have become overwhelmed. No matter how hard you try to see all of the little problems while viewing a house, you can never see all the problems.

One problem with our new place that I didn't really notice while walking through during inspection is the condition of the windows. Most on the second floor are in pretty bad condition. Broken sash cords, chipping paint, just plain bad putty jobs done in the past. We really have our work cut out. But hey...at least they're pretty, right? Hah.

A few annoyances in the electrical system have become apparent as well: both Jon and I have electric toothbrushes, you know those really fancy Sonicare ones? Well, it turns out that the only plug in the only bathroom is connected to the light switch. So the light has to be on for the plug to work, which means our toothbrushes will never charge all the way.

This little electrical issue and the fact that while the claw foot tub is awesome for baths, it's not really all that fun to highstep naked and sleepy-eyed into the shower every morning, have helped us prioritize our 'projects':

First up: gutting the entire secondfloor el (in New England, additions are called els). There is an el on the back of the house that is definitely run down and we've decided to gut it and add a bathroom, closet and master bedroom- making that our master suite. Hopefully the electrician will remember to put the light switch and outlets on different supplies! We are going to gut the room ourselves, and will probably have a contractor help with framing and the roof, which needs to be replaced (plus I really want to add two dormer windows...right Jon?). It's fun to dream about the possibilities. The space is limited, but an extra bathroom (and one with modern conveniences) will be AMAZING. This will wait until after the 4th of July, as my parents and brother will arrive in 2 days! If it's still raining for their visit...I might put them to work. ;)
The cable company came today to turn on our internet and t.v....so the blogging can pick up in pace again.

Walk through

Jon and I just had our final walk through in our new house. We close tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. I can't believe it's already here! Seeing the house empty...or nearly empty...reminded us how much work we inherit as soon as we sign all those papers tomorrow. Jon's words while we were walking through the office/guest bedroom were, "Wow, I forgot how much work there is to do." 

Yeah. Me too. 

We have wallpaper to strip in 3/4 of the house. A room to completely gut and redo. A kitchen that needs major overhaul (not sure when we'll be able to afford that little project). A 1/4 bath that needs to become a 1/2 bath (who puts a toilet in a closet, but neglects to add a sink?). Carpets to rip up. Walls to patch and paint. Windows to strip and reputty. Etc, etc. 

We will go from living in a mini-shanty to a normal house with bedrooms! I think I need a drink.

Introducing Porter...Public Enemy #1 to floors and a fur-free existance

I forgot to mention yesterday that my husband and I have an 110 pound Bernese Mountain Dog named Porter. He is such a love and I really can't imagine life without him. That being said...he poses a major design challenge to anything that we might want to do to our house. 

In addition to the ungodly amount of fur he sheds, the 11o pounds of dog carried on four huge paws with a total of 20 claws can do some serious damage to gorgeous old pine floors.

The house has a nice entryway with a curved stairway going to the second floor. The stairs are in beautiful condition. How in the world will we keep them that way with Porter's travel up and down? While I'd love to keep the stairs free of any carpet, I think it will be absolutely necessary if we are to protect the wood from our monster dog. 

I've started researching carpet runners for the stairs, but I'm really not a fan of the normal, run of the mill, oriental-looking runners that you see on most stairs. Because the stairs in our new house have such a gorgeous curve, we'll need something that brings out the architecture, but allows for the curve. (And conceals dirt...)

After scouring Apartment Therapy for stair runners I found a comment listing Thomas Paul as a resource. Some of the patterns are too contemporary, but I love the colors. Here's one that I love:

 

Unfortunately I don't think it comes in the colors I would need, i.e. dark enough to hide black fur. Also, it's most likely way out of my price range. The search continues.