Where's spring? and more scraping

Seriously, could the weather report get anymore wrong?  Predicted close to 60 and sunny when in actuality it was about 44 degrees, cloudy, and so windy that it felt like 20 degrees.  This meant we stayed inside and I scraped and R studded out the area where we removed a door.

I made good progress on paint removal around the newly uncovered niche.  By mid afternoon R started complaining about how cold it was in the house and that he hadn't heard the furnace kick on in quite awhile.  I immediately thought...'oh great, it's always something' when I looked in front of me and noticed that the thermostat indicated the room was 90 degrees.  Oops!!! I guess a LITTLE residual heat from the heat gun made it's way to the thermostat.

Why can't I rotate this photo???

The paint is coming off the foyer walls a lot easier than in the dining room.  Tomorrow I hope to finish the wall that I am currently scraping.  This would then leave me just narrow areas between the doors and dining room opening.

I tried to take a close up photo of the different colors of paint that I have uncovered but the photo doesn't capture the true colors (as I typed that, I could hear Cyndi Lauper singing).

The mocha brown was a very early layer, then a light tan, dark green, then the Mamie pink and finally white.

Of course I am still working on the little strip of paint by the crown in the dining room.  I am down to the area above two doors.  The paint is very hard to remove and because I am working over my head, I can only scrape for about 30 minutes. 

All this paint removal has me thinking about colors.  I thought I knew what I wanted but maybe not.

Uncovering new paint layers

The final dining room paint stripping areas are all the undesirable spots.  You know...above your head or at the floor and the narrow little areas between the three windows.  I also have a few tight spots left that require holding the heat gun with one hand while scraping in a very small area.  I have burnt my hand far too many times and I am now heat gun shy.

I scraped until my shoulder hurt so I walked around with my hot heat gun looking for fresh paint to scrap when I lost all self control and started scraping under the newly revealed niche in the foyer.  It seems that the niche stayed the same mustard gold for a long time but the rest of the foyer looks to have been painted a bazillion times.  Until I actually count all the layers...I'll stick with a bazillion.

Despite the additional layers the paint came off fairly easy.  I've uncovered a dark mocha brown, the sage green that shows up in the living room, and a new dark green layer. 

I hear that we have warmer weather heading our way.  Today was actually sunny and 52 but it felt much much colder.  The flower beds needs raking before the bulbs get too tall.  At this time last year the trees were budding and it had already reached 80 degrees.  Although that was nice it was bad for the trees but it's time to warm up and get on with spring.

A Niche is Nice

I've always loved niches. So imagine my surprise, when several years ago cracks appeared in our foyer, that formed a nice square.  We've eyeballed this area for two years trying to decide if there was indeed a niche in this area.  So today I decided to peel away the edge and found this.

First, we decided to drill a hole in hopes of possibly seeing into the cavity.  We actually did not even try to look into the hole because when R pulled the drill bit out of the hole some paper backing came out with it.  Ah ha! drywall. This gave us the needed information necessary to go ahead and demo the square. 

Thirty minutes later we had the drywall gone.

Start to finish....one hour.

Now as to why it was covered over.  Who knows.  But based on the color I would say it was sometime before the 1950's which was the peak of the Mamie Pink era.   Our house spent a long time painted the original gold mustard color.  Some areas of the house also have a sage green layer after the mustard but not the foyer or dining room.

Here is the run down on the dining room/foyer colors from first to last.

Mustard gold (niche color)
Grey beige
Mamie pink
Flat white which was sprayed by person from whom we purchased the house.

Since the niche is mustard gold color, it looks like this was an early modification.  Regardless of when it was modified, it's HIS TO RY now.

Could it be???

Could it be??? I think it is finally warming up a bit.  The snow is almost gone and everything is muddy....ahhhh spring has sprung.

Today I walked around the perimeter of the front yard picking up trash that has blown into my yard throughout the winter.  Plastic shopping bags (I despise those things) and Styrofoam were at the top of the list.  I was surprised that I didn't pick up one empty bottle or can of an alcoholic beverage.  I wonder what that indicates?  Bad economy? Not a soul was thirsty this winter?

I'm back to scrapping paint off the dining room walls tomorrow.  I would really like to finish scrapping the dining room by Saturday.  R will then need to give the walls a quick sanding to remove any loose paint.

I'm contemplating removing the crown molding.  The crown was removed when they ran the forced air system and it was not re installed nicely.  I could use these pieces in the hallway and buy new for the dining room. 

Then we clean up this mess.  Since there should not be anymore plaster removal we SHOULD be able to give everything a good clean and it should stay that way for a while.

After we clean....it is back into the kitchen to finish up about 5 big projects.  We resisted installing the beadboard panels on the ceiling until our roofing installation had gone through a winter spring cycle.  So far we are leak free....yippee. 

The family room/library is on hold until the windows are replaced.  I would hate to finish everything up and then have the window installation undo some of it.  I'm most excited about the windows!!!

I've developed a terrible cough.  I have lung problems and it seems like every time I get a little cold it turns into a 2 month ordeal and it has really cut into any progress I thought we should have made this winter. Bummer.

******Don't hold me to it......but tomorrow I will attempt to take photos of the dining room walls.  I downloaded several photos on Etsy today and it was slow going but at least they loaded.

We're still here.....

We're still here.  So why haven't I posted?  Mostly because it is just boring stuff that I have already covered many times.  How many clever ways can I say....we're stripping...I'm stripping.....or still stripping? 

Also my laptop or Internet connection keeps resetting and it makes uploading photos almost impossible and what is a post without the obligatory photo or two.

So here is a round up of what we have been up to...............

Finished cedar shingles on the east kitchen exterior wall.

Installed PVC gutter and downspout on a small area on the second floor.  This is a test spot and if we like how it performs this winter and spring we will install it on the remainder of the house.  So far we like the look and how it is performing in snow, rain, and ice.  The installation went fairly smoothly and the cost was fairly reasonable.

We organized our scrap/reclaimed lumber (which we have a ton or two) in the barn.  This tidied up the driveway area and the work room.

We installed the wine cooler in the kitchen.  90% complete.

We removed a non original, shoddy built spice cabinet in the kitchen and replaced with wide tongue and groove paneling to match the rest of the kitchen.

We installed base board in the family room/library.  Originally they had a little 1X2 inch piece of pine and it looked out of scale with the very wide tongue and groove paneling.  We made our own base board using a 6 inch wide tongue and groove board with the tongue removed.  I then sanded the top to round it over on one edge to match the trim around the windows.  This wide base board helped to hide numerous wood patches we made in the paneling where the previous owners ran new electrical wires.  They just left holes everywhere including all their OOPS! wrong cavity holes.  We will add base shoe after the floor is stained.

We replaced the white plastic outlet covers with wood covers that will be painted when we paint the tongue and groove paneling.

We brought in the new Thermador double ovens that were stored in the barn.  This was quite the chore because of the width and height of the oven unit. It was difficult getting the unit into the house despite the 40 inch wide front door.  Once it was in the house we had to remove the crate and narrow the pallet a little to get the unit into the kitchen.  Actual installation will be this week.

R has been removing the remaining plaster in the butler pantry which we will use as the laundry room.  He has one wall and the ceiling to finish.  The butler pantry had two doors....one from the dining room and one going into the kitchen.  We removed the dining room door and studded it out.  We will have the plaster guy plaster it in when we have him come and fix the bad spots in the plaster.

Speaking of plaster......while R removes plaster, I am using a heat gun to remove the paint from the plaster in the dining room.  Say WHAT???  Yup. I was reading a book about restoring plaster.  It was thrilling.  I was on the edge of my seat.  I can't wait for the movie version.  I kid, no really it was very informative.  Seems that a lot of the cracks you see are just cracks in the paint.  Once you get too many layers of paint it will crack.  Plus, you have layers of many types of paint one of which is lead paint.  I also wanted to rid the house of as much lead paint as I can because of the liability of lead paint in a resale.  The first floor will be lead free once the paint is removed from the walls in the dining room, living room, and hallway.  The kitchen, family room, sun room, and back entry were never painted and all the trim and doors have already been stripped.  The laundry room will have the plaster removed and bead board paneling installed.  That will just leave the upstairs to remove the paint.

So far paint removal goes slow but good.  Only two actual cracks have showed up in the plaster with all the others being just cracks in the paint layer.  We might have the plaster guy skim coat the dining room.  It has a pebble finish and I would really like a smooth finish for these walls.

We have also been busy getting ready to open an antique booth on March 1st at Collette's in Burton.  This will be a joint venture with my sister and niece (when she returns from MO in March/April).  I have scored some great furniture deals this winter.  Retro furniture is so big right now.  I bought a Heywood Wakefield buffet and wish bone table to go with a dog biscuit chair that I already own.  These will go into the antique booth along with a solid oak small dresser that I purchased for 10 bucks.  I was going to use it in my bathroom to store towels.  When I purchased it off of Craigslist it was painted flat white with bright blue drawers so I stripped it with the intention of repainting it white.  Once I stripped the ugly paint off, I found beautiful solid oak with the original skeleton key lock and ball bearing roller feet.  It's just too pretty to paint.

Here in lower Michigan we received our second shovelable snow a couple of days ago.  We recently purchased a snow blower and it is working like a charm sitting in the garage scaring the snow away.

In the next couple of weeks we will have a window guy come and measure the windows that we have to replace.  Before anyone gets on their high horse, these are NON original windows that along with being non original are also the wrong style, ugly, and in bad condition.  We will be replacing with wood double hung 6 over 6 windows in the original style.  This should set us back a pretty penny but will make a big difference in returning the house to it's original look.

Happy Thanksgiving and a shingle update

Happy Thanksgiving and good luck to the Detroit Lions.

These last few shingles are taking FOR EV ER!!!  Each one is a custom multi angle cut nightmare.  We are holding our breath that the weather holds out for a few more days.

 Actually we would be done with that part of the cedar shingle installation but this week was a week of dentist, doctor, and hair appointments for both of us.  There is a slight chance of rain this weekend and then the weather is suppose to drop down to normal late November temps.  So it looks like we are shingling on borrowed time.

What do you do......

......when you are almost done with a project?  Well, we start more demo, of course.

We hadn't planned on removing the old gutter until next year but we needed that removed so we could remove the fascia board that someone had nailed on top of the original fascia.  BTW the original fascia will be replaced with the solid PVC boards that we are putting behind all the gutters.  You can see the removed gutter and fascia in the last photo.

Why are we removing the fascia now???  We have come to an interior corner and when installing cedar shingles you need to alternate the courses as you turn the corner.  This gives a nice tight fit.

These last few shingles are going slow because you have to cut an angle at the top to follow the angle of the roof line. When we removed the gutter we found some missing rigid foam insulation.  Looks like sometime in the past a critter tried to find a way into the house. 

 

I swear when I look at those photos the shingles look crooked and the rows look uneven but I swear they are not.  Each row has a 10 inch exposure and we use a ledger board to set the shingles on when we nail them.  I think the various shades and widths of shingles give an optical illusion.

On another note.....those windows are sooooooo ugly that I can barely look at them and cannot wait to replace them with the appropriate style and size.  I just cannot imagine why anyone would choose THOSE windows.