Good riddance blue floral.

The most efficient man in the world has managed to eliminate every square inch of wallpaper in our house in less than a year. Our one year anniversary of owning our home is on June 24th and yes...we have successfully achieved our goal of stripping all the wallpaper. The front hall was the most daunting of all the rooms: 2 floors of dark greenish-blue floral wallpaper in very hard-to-reach places. Good riddance!

 The first strip is gone. 

Yuck.

And of course, the paper was doing a great job of hiding the cracking, crumbling, disintegrating plaster walls. Rule #1 of renovating an old house: One project always leads to at least 5 new projects.

Looks better already.

First round of wall repair. Can't wait to scrub those stairs.

Window Reburbish

The windows in our home are original, and if I may say, quite remarkable; we have floor to ceiling, triple-hung windows on the first floor and large double-hung windows on the second floor. Most visitors compliment the windows...and I have to admit that the windows were a major selling point for me. Of course, I didn't really examine the windows on our 2 visits pre-purchase. Original, antique windows dating to the mid-1800s are a good thing if you care about preserving the historic aesthetic of a house from 1840, but a bad thing if you dislike drafts in the middle of January in Maine. Our antique windows are also to blame for my sudden Tourette's syndrome-like symptoms every time an oil bill arrives.

Jon and I discussed replacing our windows, but after some research, I discovered that the cost would be prohibitive (even with those well-publicized tax credits). I didn't want to replace the original windows with vinyl, fake-paned, windows, because 1: we couldn't afford it, 2: I felt like the aesthetic of the house would be compromised (see basically any other Greek Revival in our town and you will understand), and 3: vinyl has serious environmental implications. If we were to replace our windows, I would want true, separated pane windows made of wood. Well...those type of windows are seriously expensive and not in budget. So I continued my research and found a community of people in Maine seriously dedicated to antique windows...hooray!

On John Leeke's Historic HomeWorks webpage, I found a subsite called, Save Maine Windows. And on that page, I found comments from Mike LeChance from Maine Historic Windows. He was definitely speaking my language, so I called him up and had him come over for an estimate.

We decided to focus on our second floor windows, which were in worse shape than the downstairs windows. Actually...the downstairs floor-to-ceiling windows are all painted shut, which has preserved them pretty well. The upstairs windows are plagued with many serious problems: broken sash cords, chipping paint, some rot, broken panes, and general mal-treatment. Not to mention that each window had been painted upwards of 10 times...possibly more.

When considering replacing our windows with new wood, separated pane windows I figured out that each window (on the second floor) would be between $700 and $1000 (that figure might still be conservative). Mike showed me an example of his work...which was spectacular - the man is truly an artisan - and then told me that each window would be around $300. Sold.

Mike has 5 of the 10 second floor windows right now. Here are the pictures pre-refurbish:

 This is our bathroom window- notice that it doesn't close!

In this shot, you see the two running channels that the windows (should) slide up and down within. The running channels should never be painted. Ours however have been painted, and painted, and painted again. Even the pulley systems have been painted. There are supposed to be sash cords, or ropes that run on the pulleys, connected to weights behind the running channels that make it easy to open and close the windows.

 Here's a broken sash cord. Notice that it was also painted at some point...why!? Every single sash cord on the second floor is broken meaning that we have to jam pieces of wood between the window sill and the window to keep it open. This is slightly treachorous- I nearly lost a finger or two last summer when putting the windows up or down.

 The paint is chipping badly on most of our windows. I'm not sure if you can tell how many coats of paint are on this window...tons.

 Here's a broken pane. There are many more like this. You can also notice the terrible putty job that was last done (most likely be an amateur).

Again...bad putty job. Chipping paint.

To save a little money, I am stripping the paint from the running channels, pulleys, and parting strips myself. This task is not fun...at all. I am actually using a wallpaper steamer on the paint- which is more effective than nasty chemical stripper- not to mention more environmentally friendly, and safer to my personal health. Because I have no idea how old some of the original layers of paint might be, I'm treating the process with serious caution: I use a respirator and vacuum the paint 'skin' and flakes with a shop vac that is lined with a HEPA quality lining bag and filter. Ordinarily one might use a heat gun to strip the paint...but a heat gun in an old wood house is a serious fire hazard. The steam makes the paint bubble and lift from the wood so that I can skim it off (with some elbow grease), but without a fire hazard and without nasty chemical residue from a stripping agent. Thanks go out to Mike LeChance for teaching me this method! When the first 5 windows come back...I'll post pictures. Stay tuned.

Susanna's Strategies for a Successful Paint Job

Sure...there are tips all over the web for a good paint job, but I have some others that I've learned the hard way...and are absolutely NECESSARY for success. I hope they help you the next time you have to paint.

1. Never ever underestimate the power of primer (I suggest High Hiding Primer- Valspar is the brand I used on this job, and I was impressed).

2. If you are painting drywall for the first time, ABSOLUTELY 100% make sure you have all the drywall dust off the walls. I learned this the hard way. If you paint on top of the dust - even just a little - painters tape will take off all your hard work...because the dust prevents the primer from sticking to the dry wall. I guess I thought I could cheat...

3. Listen to music and specifically songs that tell stories (I think these are ballads?). Such as anything Neil Young, Johnny Cash, Ray LaMontagne, Band of Horses, Neil Simon, Emmie Lou Harris, Loretta Lynn, and throw in some Dixie Chicks to pick up the pace. I sincerely think Maine and its plethora of country radio is getting to me. Really, just listen to whatever you can zone out to and enjoy. I found myself lost in the stories that I was listening to while painting. When do we ever get 4-8 hours to do something mindless and listen to music? It definitely made the process more enjoyable!

4. Always paint with a wet edge. What does this mean? Instead of painting the whole room, and then painting the edges, break up your room into different sections- mainly wall by wall. Paint the center part of the wall with a roller and then while it's still wet, do the edges. When you move to the next wall, wrap the edge paint brush in a wet paper towel to keep it from drying out too much before you need it again. This will make sure you don't see ridges between the rolled center and the brushed edge.

5. A good roller and a good paint brush are definitely worth the money. I ALWAYS choose the Purdy brand.

Okay, so those are my tips. I really debated whether or not to put these photos up. We choose a blue color for the walls in our bedroom. It's a FreshAire Choice brand of paint- ecofriendly and no VOCs. I figure I'll be sleeping *hopefully* 8 hours per night in this room so I certainly don't want to be breathing paint offgas for years to come! The color we choose is called Summer Dragonfly. You can see it in the Waterscape Palette on the FreshAire Choice website.

On the website, you'll probably say: wow, how soothing. Perfect for a bedroom. And that's what I think. However...the color as it appears in these photographs is totally different from the color as it appears in reality. You'll just have to trust me! We also finished the ceiling since I took these photos. Holy hell was that long and neck-breaking. 2 coats of primer...but only one 1 coat of high gloss Glacial Tint! We still have to prime and paint the wood work. See the cool design on the woodwork- we matched it to the rest of the woodwork in our house.

Oh yes, those prison windows have been replaced since the photo was taken too. Thank goodness.

Here you can see a bit of the hell that was the floor. It looks so much better now...pictures soon!

Floors = pain

When we tore up that gross red carpet in the back bedroom we found old wide plank floors underneath. They appeared to be in great condition except for one small problem: they were covered in layers and layers of paint. The paint was likely very old (i.e. lead?) and two tone. The middle of the floor was gold in color and the outside was dark brown. I was VERY concerned about sanding: if the paint contained lead, sanding would make the lead airborne...which is the worst way to be exposed. I figured we already exposed ourselves to some pretty terrible toxins during demolition...no matter how careful we were. So we got some paint stripper...a biodegradable variety...and tried that. The layer of brown paint wiped off with a paper towel, but the stripper didn't even disturb the gold or approximately 30 layers underneath the gold.

So what to do?

When we lived in our Carriage House in Providence, the previous owners had painted the exposed beams. We had to scrape the beams to uncover the gorgeous wood underneath and Jon still had the scraper we used, so he tried it on the floors. Success.

However...exposing a few beams is one thing. Scraping an entire floor is a whole other nightmare. Jon actually sweat through his shorts. I've never seen that before. I understand sweating through a shirt...but shorts? And the whole time he was doing this he had to wear a respirator...which made it a doubly awful task. Try breathing heavily into a respirator...

So then we rented a commercial grade, EPA approved sander. Awesome, right? Well...remember that our house is over 100 years old. The floorboards aren't necessarily level. In fact most of them are bowed one way or the other. So putting a big belt sander on top, will only really work on part of the board. Ugh. But at least it helped a little.

All in all we estimate that the whole process took Jon about F-O-R-T-Y hours. I felt so bad. Sincerely awful.

In the process, we found a layer of old newspaper under the paint in one corner. Weird right? Why would they have put paint down and then painted on top? Who knows...but we did get to scrap up a few pieces that are even readable. Take a look:

Beadboard on the ceiling!

My vision is sllllowly coming together. Originally I thought I wanted the beadboard to be horizontal on the ceiling. I figured that the horizontal lines would draw your eye lengthwise making the room seem longer. Well...we encountered that old house CHARM again. It seems that there is about a 4 inch change from one side of the room to the other, so the horizontal beadboard would have made the slope look very obvious. So, we decided to go vertical with our beadboard. In the end I don't think the direction mattered too much...the beadboard looks amazing. I'm soo excited to see it completely finished!




Now that I've updated the blog...I'm off to go paint for the rest of the day. Wish me luck!

Tiling almost completed...grout still to be done

A quick post to show you the almost completed shower (grout still to be done). Isn't Jon amazing!? He also told me that because I was so accommodating by selecting a cheaper tile, we will be able to afford a custom frameless glass shower door from Portland Glass. Yay!

The Trojan Strikes Again

The only way we are able to make this project fit within our budget is because we are willing to do a lot of the work ourselves. The shower falls in that "work we do" column on our master plan. Last week (the first week back from vacation) was literally hellish at work. It took me 5 days to catch up on my email. And I made all these grand plans to update my blog, paint, tile, etc at night after getting home from work. That plan fell apart rather quickly...as I got home way late and promptly began drinking to medicate the stress away (healthy...I know).

Jon, always the efficiency master, actually followed through with his grand plans. In fact, I believe our contractors are ready to hire him. Jon had never tiled anything before. But somehow...he just knew how to do it. So, we went tile shopping...and I choose white ceramic subway tile. I think it has a clean, vintage feel. I wasn't really thinking about how many cuts in the tile my poor husband would have to make.

You might remember that we also needed to choose a solid surface for the seat in our shower. After finding out how expensive even remnant granite can be, we decided on Glacier White Corian. My parents have Corian counter tops and showers in their gorgeous house in Pennsylvania, so I knew from experience that it would look great. It's also incredibly easy to work with. You can even cut and sand it at home (you need a graphite blade for your saw). It is quite cost effective, but classy. The perfect combination.

Oh yah...and I forgot that he had to cut and install all of the water resistant cement board. You would think that wouldn't be too difficult, but because the angles in our old house are never exactly 90 degrees, he had quite a challenge.

Here are photos of the Trojan at work:


I wasn't exactly sitting around while he was doing all of this. I primed the whole bathroom and sealed the beadboard for our bedroom ceiling with Kilz. Somehow...he always seems to get more done.

The Progress We Returned To

When we got back from Wyoming, I was expecting major progress. And, there was progress...just not major progress. Apparently, we missed the most humid week of the summer. Hurricane Danny, I think, brought a ton of tropical moisture up to Maine...and our drywaller said that the putty couldn't dry overnight. It was taking double the time to dry, so of course, everything else got behind as well.

Nevertheless, it was really exciting to see walls! Our contractors also lined our shower with Ice and Water Shield (more to put their minds at ease I think, since they have never done a custom shower quite like ours!).

This is the view from our bathroom door, looking at the bedroom and existing closet.

This is from the other side. Looking at the bathroom door and new closet.

This is the side of the bathroom where the toilet will be and the double sink.

Here's the shower complete with ice and water shield...and the thin plastic sheeting on the seat, which is just another layer of water shield.

Updates galore...starting with The Prison Windows

Well...yet again...way too much time has passed between blog posts. And too much has been accomplished for one post. This will be the first of a few updates on the progress.

My last update was on August 12th, a few days before we left for a week in Wyoming. The day before we left...I came home to a major problem. I'd like to name it the Prison Window Experiment.

You'll remember that we added a window to our shed dormer creating a total of 3 windows (+ 2 skylights) in the new bedroom. We also added a window to the gable end of the house, where our new master bath will be. The windows couldn't be too large given the eave constraints of our room. I also lost my battle for wood windows. They were too expensive. So after major pouting on my part, I caved in and accepted vinyl. I figured that at least they wouldn't need painting.

So, it was Friday, August 14th. I drove in the driveway...and looked up. All I saw was windows that I didn't like. I rushed in the back door, flew up the stairs and immediately started a temper tantrum...complete with yelling and stomping of my feet. Exactly what I did as a little girl....of around 5 years old.

It's hard to describe the windows. Basically...they were 12 panes over 12 panes. They looked like windows in a jail. Now, I should have taken a deep breath and thought positively. But instead...I jumped to the conclusion that we'd have to pay out our ass to get them changed. Then I started yelling again. Not really at anyone...just yelling to yell. Then I opened a beer.

I tried to calm myself down and thought, well...I just won't spend a lot on vacation so I can pay for new windows. I tried to let it go.

On Monday, Jon got up early and received a call from our contractors. They gave us the best news ever. They said, "Oh yah...our buyer made a mistake. Aren't those windows awful? Yah...we're planning on replacing them. We just wanted to get the place water tight and secure before you left."

Deep sigh of relief. Here's a photo of our prison- the windows are half open:

Construction update

After weeks of rain, our contractors were able to take down the old roof and replace it with new shingles. We also added two sky lights to the north side of the roof during that process. As you'll remember, the room needed much more light.

We've also extended the dormer window to add one more window to the room...and at some point, the contractors will frame out another window for our bathroom.

Take a look:

Here you can see the dormer extension- soon we'll have 3 windows instead of 2.Here are the two new skylights. They make a HUGE difference. The room actually feels much larger now. And we'll be able to get cross ventilation for the few hot nights we get in Maine!Here's the frame of the closet (on the left) which will be accessed by a door from the bedroom. And the shower (on the right). We wanted a large shower, but faced space constraints because of the eave. And...a custom base shower is at least $1000.00...which is way out of budget! Solution: standard 3 x4 foot shower base + a custom seat! The seat (is a little hard to see in this photo) will provide us with tons of arm room and will make the shower much larger, without increasing its footprint! In this photo you can also notice the fact that the room isn't level (typical for an old house). We're still working on how to disguise that (if we can)!
Here is a picture of the gable end of the house, where our bathroom window will go. To the left of the photograph is the entrance to the shower- on the other side will be our double sink.Here's the inside of the bedroom- those beams will be replaced with thicker beams. Notice the funny door...clearly this part of the house was added after the fact!Here's what it looks like from the outside!

The New Bathroom Takes Shape

So this blogging stuff is more difficult to keep up with than I thought it would be, but it is enjoyable to look back and see the progress we've already made. When we started talking with our contractors about the bathroom and our vision for what we wanted, we quickly learned that we would need to be a bit more creative with low-cost alternatives to the luxury bathroom I dreamed of originally.

We asked our contractors about their $750.00 budget for the vanity. Their response: "Well, whatever base you want from Home Depot and then we'll put a formica top on it." Hmm....NOPE.

So Jon and I started looking around the good old internerd as my brother likes to call it. First I looked at those really fancy vanities from Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware, like this Newport Double Sink Console from PB. I love the storage underneath and the fact that it is open in the bottom, which creates an illusion of more space in the room. The closet that we're turning into a bathroom doesn't have a ton of space, so I thought something like this would be good. And double sinks are key! Our current one-sink bathroom is fine, but it's much more enjoyable for two people to brush their teeth at the same time at DIFFERENT sinks. So, after falling in love with the Newport, I looked at the price. Ouch x 10. The sink console with the gooseneck faucets is $2,897.00. Not including $100 for shipping or the baskets. So that definitely wasn't going to fit in our $750.00 budget. We went back to the internerd. Low and behold, we stumbled into the marvelous world of eBay.

And within the marvelous world, we found edart222, a power seller of plumbing, photography items, and sink consoles. Take a look at this near exact copy of the PB console. Total price, including faucets, marble backsplash, and even the basket was $499.00 (when we bought ours, it's gone up $100 since then). The shipping from California was an additional $250. So...the total cost was $750.00- we met our budget! In addition, edart222 features that gorgeous "Newport" console with a carerra marble top, in addition to the black marble top.

Because our bathroom isn't too big, I want to keep it light filled and bright- carerra marble is the perfect material to create that feeling. So our new vanity with carerra marble, gooseneck faucets, AND baskets arrived within 5 days of purchasing it for our budgeted $750.00.

Our bathroom is still in early stages of construction, but at some point the vanity will look perfect tucked under the eave in the space. Here it is (temporarily hanging out in our to-be TV room):

And here's where it will go - you can see the hot/cold water pipes!

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!