Playing in the mud

The wall in the office has had it's third coat of mud. Doug hopes we will be painting it today. He put on three coats of mud.

Another one (starts to) bite the dust

I know we haven't finished the wall in the office but we are down to taping and mudding which involves a lot of waiting so I decided to start ripping out the closet in the sunroom. Here's the only "before" picture I have of it. It's just to the right of the door in this picture.

There are several reasons that this closet is going. I don't just randomly rip out closets and yet this is the second one in this house that we have destroyed. This one, unlike the one in the office, is going to be rebuilt. One reason that this one is going is because, like the one in the office, it had small doors and therefore, you couldn't see what was in at least half of the closet space.

The other reason involves the tornado that went through here in 2000. This house was hit by the tornado in this back section and the roof was torn off. Water poured in for several days as they had quite a bit of rain after the tornado. The house was reroofed but the homeowners didn't clean up all the damage from the water. The back of this closet is in terrible shape.
Water damage

Mold and Mildew

Layers of peeling wallpaper

This should have been cleaned up right after the tornado but it wasn't so we're doing it six years later.

A little sheetrock is a wonderful thing

I said that I thought we could sheetrock yesterday and it actually happened! Actually, Doug and our friend Bill sheetrocked. I spent all afternoon raking and cleaning up the back yard. Anyway, here are the "in-progress" pictures.


Sheetrock can make a room look so finished. I know that it's still several days away from painting because of the taping and mudding but it's such a step forward.

The "To-Do" List revisited

OK, just a little accountability for what I said that we would do this fall. We seem to have done everything except what is on this list.

1) Move the phone cords in kitchen-STILL NOT DONE

2) Repair the hole in the kitchen ceiling-STILL NOT DONE (but definitely on the short list)

3) Repair the hole in the bedroom ceiling-STILL NOT DONE

4) Put in more electrical outlets for office-DONE! There are now 6 new outlets in the office.

5) Put up the face plates in guest room-DONE!

6) Run the electrical to air conditioner-DONE! And we have the heating hooked up and working as well!

7) Put in the plexiglass panel for screen door-DONE!

8) Reassemble the kitchen ceiling fan-STILL NOT DONE (but definitely on the short list)

9) Put in the glass for guest room French door-DONE! Doug did this a couple of weeks ago. It looks great!

10) Get a screen panel for the back screen door-DONE!

11) Shave off the door of the sunroom-DONE! and Doug fixed the latch so the door will actually latch and stay closed

12) Patch the hole in the sunroom wall-NOT DONE (and not on Doug's radar)

13) Put a longer coaxial cord on the tivos so we can move them-DONE!

14) Assemble David’s bed-DONE!

15) Build a bed frame for our bed-DONE Actually we got a frame for our bed from the Labette Freecycle list. I love getting things for free!

16) Get the dining room table and other furniture out of storage-DONE!

17) Hang up a miniblind in David’s room-NOT DONE I really think we have decided against this so it will probably come off the list

18) Cover the french doors in Rachel's room-DONE!

So 7 out of 18 are still not done. 2 will definitely be done before Thanksgiving, one will probably come off the list so it is there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Destruction continues

It's been quite a while since I posted anything but getting this closet out of the room became a major battle. This closet was designed to NEVER come out of this room. The people who built it nailed in every single board from every single direction possible. I spent all day one Saturday tearing out this thing but honestly, sometimes a single 2X4 took me 45 minutes.

When it finally did come out, it revealed all kinds of bad wiring hidden behind it. There was knob and tube, there were wires running into the breaker box that weren't attached to anything. There were wires that they started to run to the ceiling fan and then decided not to, but left the wires there.

Doug has redone and cleaned up the wiring. This took SEVERAL days. He had to fish wires through the ceiling, he had to take down ceiling tiles in the kitchen to find out where things are coming from. He had to rewire the switches in the room and in the process he added three more outlets. That is a total of six outlets he has added to this room since we moved in. Again, if you live in an old house, you know how important that is. We think we are finally ready to begin sheetrocking today.




This was supposed to be a quick project, just rip out the closet and add some bookshelves to the wall. Needless to say, no such thing as a quick project. However, the room feels so much bigger with the stupid, inefficient closet gone, Doug is really happy with the cleaned up wiring, and we might even finish it this week! Don't hold your breath.

And a new project begins

Since we have officially "finished" Rachel's room, I started a new project. This is essentially my project because Doug doesn't care too much about it and he has some other things he wants to do. I'm ripping out a closet and some cabinets in the office. I know for most people it is a capital offense to rip out closets but this one is very ugly and inefficient and lack of storage isn't a problem for us. I only have one "before" picture because this particular storage area was so ugly we didn't photograph it.

We don't need a closet here, especially one where a lot of it is inaccessable because the doors don't open very wide. We need shelves so that is what we are going to replace this closet with.






There was a big cabinet over the door that leads from the office into the kitchen. It was so high that even Doug had to use a ladder to get things out of it. Someone said, "You can store things that you don't need up there." I'm not even going to answer that comment. The other problem with this cabinet was that it made the entrance to the office feel like a cave. Now it's gone and it looks like this over the door.

There was a 2X4 as a header for this cabinet. I was standing on a ladder, knocking on end of it loose and the whole thing came down, smacking me right in the face. Not fun! Teaching that DIY, like swimming, is something not to do alone. Fortunately, I didn't fall off the ladder but I did sustain a wound on my nose and an knot on my head. Notice also, that there is mold or mildew on the ceiling. I'm sure that is from the tornado damage when the roof wasn't covered for several days. A lot of rain came in this back section. The previous owners didn't clean it up so now I will be. It is only in the paint, though, not in the plaster so I can scrape the paint off and it should be clean.

Grand finale

This should be the last post for some time about Rachel's room. We are calling it done even though there are still several issues to address. They won't be addressed for a month or two so she is moved back in and we are saying we finished it. Here are a few shots of the "finished" room.

The floor, as you can see, is the biggest unfinished issue. We'll probably get a carpet remnant for now because we don't want to rent the floor sander until we have several rooms to do. The room is big enough that a lot of floor shows. The room is 15'x16'. Here's another picture of the floor. The center had never, in 100 years, been finished.

She wanted the "retro" look so the closet door got sent to the attic and the door beads came out. They actually look very nice.

She has real curtains over the french doors to the TV room. She also likes her fuzzy pink lamp. This room is definitely not Victorian but it fits Rachel. When she leaves for college we can change the ambiance but right now, it's kind of fun to have a teen-age girl.

Up Close and Personal...

...with our trim! The house had beautiful wood trim when built. Some of it is still here, enough to recreate what is missing. Strange things have been done with some of it. We'll see how many pictures blogger lets me put up. Here is what the original downstairs trim should look like.
This is a stairway window.

Here is a closeup of the actual profile. I believe this pattern is called "egg and dart."

Instead of this beautiful trim all over the downstairs, we get things like this:

Evidently, they just took off the beautiful top cap, probably to "modernize" or "update." (I know it's hard to see because everything was just painted white.)
The one below is a doozy. They evidently took off all the woodwork over the window and just put up a board that was the right height but didn't even bother to cut it off to the right length.

Here is the door to the downstairs bathroom. Just plain old narrow modern trim. What where they thinking!

Tomorrow I'll either have pictures of our upstairs trim or Rachel's virtually completed bedroom. Tune in tomorrow to find out!

Sorry, sorry, sorry!

We've been working so much on Rachel's room that we haven't been posting about Rachel's room! Sorry, sorry, sorry!

Here's where we are.

We have the ceiling and walls painted, the trim back up and the carpet pulled. You can see that the walls are a fairly bright blue and the closet and ceiling are light purple. The trim is light blue. This will actually match Rachel's new bedding beautifully.


The floor is a little curious to us. The very center has apparently, in 100 years, never been stained or finished. Evidently, there has always been a rug in the middle. Around the edges and in the closet, there is a beautiful rich red stain. This was probably the original finish. This is what I would like it to return to eventually. Around the edges, there is some strange gray tacky stuff. We don't know if some old carpet was glued down or what. Getting this off will be interesting. For now, we will be happy to just get the tackiness off and buy a carpet remnant for the center. We will refinish the floor when we have several rooms ready to do at the same time.

Here is her door into the hall. I don't know if I've ever showed this angle before. This room is now so light compared to when we moved in. It's going to be a great teen-age girl's room.

Slow down

Progress on Rachel's room has slowed to a crawl as Doug and two of the men from our church (both elders, no less) have been finishing the insulation and working on another house for the daughter of one of the men.

They rented a machine and blew fiberglass insulation down into the walls of the first floor under those two walls we opened in Rachel's room. Since there was nothing blocking the view all the way to the bottom, it seemed like a good chance to get some insulation into those walls that we won't be opening for a couple of years. They also took up a number of the floorboards in the attic (which is a huge space) and blew the fiberglass in there also. It was a day and a half project.

Thad and the insulation machine


Insulation going down from Rachel's room into the walls of the room below


Doug insulating the attic


Some of the floorboards moved and insulation blown in


Now Doug is returning the favor from one of our helpers by helping him at his daughter's house. They had to cut back some branches from her roof and, starting today, will be reroofing the house. It is a small house with a fairly shallow slope so they think it will move quickly.

Doug is planning to pick up the sheetrock for Rachel's walls this afternoon and maybe get starting hanging it when it get too dark to roof. I'll get a picture if the work gets started.

Great Stuff!

We've been slowly recreating Rachel's room after gutting it. Doug has been insulating and his new best friend is "Great Stuff," that expanding foam insulation. He has filled every single little gap he can find with the stuff.

I think he has used about 10 cans in her room but I don't believe that we will have to worry about drafts. He is putting up R-13 fiberglass batting in the stud bays. After filling the stud bays with batting he will be putting up a plastic vapor barriar because there isn't any on the outside.


He is also going to blow insulation into the walls of the room below (the living room) while these walls are still open. In a few years we will be ripping those walls out and putting in batting but for the few years until then, he wants some semblance of insulation in the walls.

On Saturday, Doug and one of our elders, Bill, were able to get the sheetrock for the ceiling up and start to make it look like a room again. They rented a sheetrock lift which is the only way to go for putting sheetrock on a ceiling. It's starting to look great!

Down to bare walls

We have finished getting all the lath and plaster and acoustical tiles out of Rachel's room and out of the house. Doug carried the last of it to the alley for the garbage men to pick up. They are great about picking up anything we put out here. They even came in our yard with Doug and helped him carry some very heavy bags out. Quite a change from our garbage men in Wisconsin.

One of our elders (we have the best elders here) came over last night and worked for several hours with Doug. He pulled all the staples out of the furring on the ceiling so that we will be ready to sheetrock the ceiling. He took down the trim around the second window, helped Doug with some of the electrical work he was doing and helped clean up. Doug put a light in Rachel's closet and worked on some of the electrical outlets. On the two remaining walls, there is a little bit of the wallpaper border to remove. Then it's insulation and sheetrock! Yeah!


This photo is looking down in the stud bays from Rachel's room to the first floor. Obviously, we have balloon framing and there was never anything put in the bays to stop movement of air, and thus potentially fire, between the floors. We will have to correct that before we insulate.

I know I said that we were going to complete the small projects on the list I made before we started another major project. Obviously, we didn't do that but we are still whittling away at the list. We did get a bedframe for our bed so our list of small projects is down to:

1) Move the phone cords in kitchen
2) Repair the hole in the kitchen ceiling
3) Repair the hole in the bedroom ceiling
8) Reassemble the kitchen ceiling fan
9) Put in the glass for guest room French door
12) Patch the hole in the sunroom wall
17) Hang up a miniblind in David’s room

Not bad! It was originally 18 projects down to 7. We have the glass for the guest room door so it's just a matter now of Doug finding time to put it in.

We don't need no stinkin' insulation

We told Rachel that we would redecorate her bedroom for her birthday. She thought that meant a new bedspread and some paint. Little did she know! We have now removed all the lath and plaster from her walls and the acoustical panels (yuck, yuck, yuck!) from her ceiling. Her room started like this.
It was a dark maroon with a border around the top that had a baseball theme. It had kind of filmy, dark maroon curtains. The carpet is a browny-orange.

Since we started the remodel, her room looks like this.
Walls:

The amount of insulation you see is the amount of insulation we have. In other words, absolutely none. Not one tiny iota of insulation. Therefore, we are now the proud owners of seven rolls of insulation all primed to go into these walls. We also bought several great cans of Great Stuff to fill the huge amounts of gaps in the walls. The construction looks very solid and straight so that is nice to see but I can't wait to see what insulation is going to do to the temperature and noise in her room.

Ceiling:

We will be drywalling the walls and ceiling. The ceiling was dropped just enough to run the electrical wires. They could have easily been run through the attic but they chose to fur down the ceiling enough to run them and then put up the cardboard acoustical panels. They ruined the plaster ceiling in the process. We would much prefer to have kept and repaired the plaster. The complete lack of insulation and the ruined ceiling made that impossible.

How's that list coming?

I posted a list of the small things we would like to accomplish before we start on another big project. Here's the list again.

1) Move the phone cords in kitchen-NOT DONE
2) Repair the hole in the kitchen ceiling-NOT DONE
3) Repair the hole in the bedroom ceiling-NOT DONE
4) Put in more electrical outlets for office-DONE! These may not seem like a big deal until you've lived in an old house where there was only one outlet per room.

5) Put up the face plates in guest room-DONE!
6) Run the electrical to air conditioner-DONE! We had had a extension cord running from the attic to the outlet in Rachel's room to run the pump on the air conditioner.
7) Put in the plexiglass panel for screen door-DONE!
8) Reassemble the kitchen ceiling fan-NOT DONE
9) Put in the glass for guest room French door-NOT DONE
10) Get a screen panel for the back screen door-DONE!
11) Shave off the door of the sunroom-DONE!
12) Patch the hole in the sunroom wall-NOT DONE
13) Put a longer coaxial cord on the tivos so we can move them-DONE!
14) Assemble David’s bed-DONE!

15) Build a bed frame for our bed-NOT DONE
16) Get the dining room table and other furniture out of storage-DONE!

17) Hang up a miniblind in David’s room-NOT DONE
18) Cover the french doors in Rachel's room-DONE!

Doorknobs, anyone?

We are back from our trip to Colorado. We got lost in northern Utah which wasn't a state we had actually planned on visiting. Anyway, we're back, we're done with our week of VBS and ready to settle down to a school routine.

One of the things I have found interesting in this house are the doorknobs. The doorknobs are fairly flat in front and these almost all have those fancy things behind them which may be called escutchions. Anyway, except for our blatently new doors, all the doors have one of these ornate things. Mostly of them look like this, just a little scrollwork at the top. Because these are the most prevelant, I think they must have been the originals.


The second most common set up is this...I think that this was the cheaper replacement used when the originals had to be replaced for whatever reason.

Here are the other types to be found in our house.




Well, there is more than you ever wanted to know about the doorknobs in our house!

What to do next?

We've gotten to put our newly painted guest room to good use. Keith Allen, known to anyone who has been to Silver Dollar City as the Rednecker, and his wife stayed with us Sunday night. Very interesting guy! We definitely enjoyed having them stay and they said they really enjoyed our enormous claw-footed bathtub. Last night our youth minister and his wife and daughter spent the night. They had other accomodations that fell through so we were really happy to have a dedicated guest room that we could share on the spur of the moment. I always wanted a separate guest room with it's own bathroom and now we actually have a house big enough to have one.

We are leaving for Denver for our nephew Justin's wedding tomorrow. What do we start on when we get back? Do we hit that list of small but annoying things that need to be done? Do we start another large project such as the office so that it will be ready when we start school in August? Do we go in and do the other projects in the guest room such as the ceiling, the woodwork, the floors? I think Doug is voting for cleaning up the list of small but annoying things that need to be done. There are about 20 things on that list like moving phone lines and installing electrical outlets. You can get some fairly instant gratification out of those projects. I think that is what we'll do next.

Here's our list of small but annoying things that need to be done
1) Move the phone cords in kitchen
2) Repair the hole in the kitchen ceiling
3) Repair the hole in the bedroom ceiling
4) Put in more electrical outlets for office
5) Put up the face plates in guest room
6) Run the electrical to air conditioner
7) Put in the plexiglass panel for screen door
8) Reassemble the kitchen ceiling fan
9) Put in the glass for guest room French door
10) Get a screen panel for the back screen door
11) Shave off the door of the sunroom
12) Patch the hole in the sunroom wall
13) Put a longer coaxial cord on the tivos so we can move them where we want them
14) Assemble David’s bed
15) Build a bed frame for our bed
16) Get the dining room table and other furniture out of storage
17) Hang up a miniblind in David’s room
18) Cover the french doors in Rachel's room

If we completed this list the quality of everyday life would go up around here so I think we will hit this list when we get back from Denver.

The prep is the thing

Well, our initial work in the guest room is finished. I won't say the guest room is finished because there is still the ceiling, the floor, the trim, the windows, etc. but we have finished the walls for now. I love the result.

Ok, here's the story. We removed four layers of wallpaper and a layer of paint. We washed the walls extensively the remove the buildup of adhesive or something that was bright red off the walls. We patched all the holes (probably 200) with spackling. Doug skimcoated the walls with plaster. We sanded the skimcoat. We taped the woodwork because I am a sloppy painter. Then we primed. We figure we had about 40 hours of work in the room before the first coat of paint went on. I'm really proud of how smooth the walls are now. Here are the walls before paint. Doug, David and I all worked on this.





Now with paint. The gold is a very rich gold but seems to come out yellow in the pictures. I'm really happy with the way this project has turned out. And not a minute too soon because we are having company stay in this room tonight.