Dining Room: The Grand Reveal

As I look through the old photos of the dining room, I am overcome with a sense of nostalgia. I can actually remember the first time we walked through the house, and the musty scent of the wallpaper. I can remember how the walls felt and the way the sunlight had outlined the picture frames on them. And I can remember standing in the kitchen, talking to The Millers about purchasing the house.

Removing the wallpaper (three layers again).

The strange part is that there is really no reason for me to feel nostalgic or "attached" to these old photos. We had never lived there or created any of our own memories in its previous state. Yet there was something inherently familiar about the house as soon as we stepped through its doors. While the wallpaper was dated and worn, we could tell that the home was always well cared for. We could tell that it had been loved.

Now, eighteen months later, this house really feels like our home. We absolutely love it, and we hope you do to.

Full dining room table, with new chandelier, window coverings,
blinds (thanks Dad!), and reupholstered seats.

Votive candle holders from a shop in London, Ohio (thanks Mom!) and a bottle of celebratory bubbly from our neighbors (thanks Erin & Dave).

More Exterior

Just wanted to post a couple recent exterior pics. Matt worked REALLY hard today as I wallowed around the house thinking of the 119 students that will be replacing my easy-going summer :)

We've decided were about 40% done. Found a house on our street that recently was painted and will most likely use them to help us finish the really high parts.

Thanks to Adam for helping us on Saturday!

Scraped and primed.

Bottom half on the side completely blue!!!

Back touched up with blue and primed at the top.

Latest Exterior Paint Pics

Yesterday Matt and I hustled to get the front and some of the sides done. Here are the latest pics. Enjoy!

Front BEFORE!

Front AFTER!!!

Back before.

Back after.

More from the back.

Side before.

Side after.

Orange Door

One door down, two to go. We really like how the color turned out! We still need to prime and paint the top part of the house.

White No More

Don't have much time to type a lengthy post, but here are some pictures of our most recent progress on the exterior. Enjoy!

Blue Skies

We've been busy trying to get this house painted....it's a slow process but I know it's going to pay off. So far we have the lower level primed all around the house and the front porch ceiling painted sky blue! We liked the idea of a blue ceiling from traditional southern homes - they love their porches down south!

Still need to prime the overhang on the porch - but this is a good pic to see the blue porch ceiling!

Porch Ceiling

We decided to go with the top, lighter color. We are going to accent it with a coolish gray-white trim and bright orange doors.

Oops, how did this picture end up in here???

"Did you eat a lot of paint chips as a child?"

"(giggle) No, why?"

Alright, enough Tommy Boy references. Let's get down to business...

After a day of dry time, we got to work on the wood siding of the house again.

We had a friendly bet going about how much of the "alligatoring" paint the power washer would remove and how much additional hand-scraping would be required to get everything ready.

The East side of the house, post-power washing/pre-scraping.

The good news: I won the bet. Three-thousand PSI of water pressure isn't nearly enough to break away 40+ years of brittle oil-based paint.

The bad news: We need to scrape the entire exterior by hand.

One of the many trim boards being scraped with a 5-in-1 scraper.

It was easy to tell that the house was (at some point) painted with an oil-based paint and/or primer because the paint simply flakes off in bits and pieces. Had it been an acrylic-based paint, the chips would bend or flex before breaking. In some areas, the paint peels right down to the bare wood. In other spots, it still maintains a remarkably strong bond.

Exposure to the elements definitely makes a significant impact on certain areas of the house. The South (or back) side of the house receives the most sun throughout the days, and it shows. The only parts that didn't need too much attention were the areas directly under the soffit (roof line).


All of the trim around the windows and doors were in especially rough shape. I have a feeling this was due to a few factors:

1. the wood used on the trim had a smoother finish than the rough-cut siding, giving the paint less surface area to hold onto
2. these surfaces were not properly prepped/primed before the paint was applied
   

The side door after 30 minutes of sanding.

The East side of the house after scraping.

After spending most of the day Friday and Saturday scraping and sanding, our sore bodies begged us for a day off - and we complied. We did manage to remove the outer veranda doors from the front of the house that had been painted shut. Now we need to find a local refinisher to help us strip the paint off them so we can put a really nice finish coat on them before the end of the summer.

Exterior paint color reveal - COMING SOON...

Water + Pressure = Clean Siding

This week we got a kick in the pants from my brother, Adam, who volunteered to help us with the exterior of the house. Adam used to run a painting business during the summer, so we were excited to get the extra help since he clearly knows what it takes to get the job done right.

So I made a few calls, lined up a 32' ladder and a moving van, rented a power washer, and we were off and running.

Thirty-two foot ladders are much longer than one might expect.

We didn't have a ladder rack to use, so we elevated the 32-footer using a step stool and a LOT of bungee cords.

Once the ladders and equipment were in place, the weather decided to take a turn for the worse. What had been a warm, dry start to the week quickly changed to cold, wet, and dreary. The cold water from the faucet mixed with the falling temperatures made for a long and difficult process.

Nevertheless, Adam got to work power washing all of the siding, soffits, and fascia. Because the house hadn't been washed in years (probably decades), loose dirt and paint poured off the walls in sheets. Here he is on the fully-extended ladder stretching into the neighbor's yard, and a home-made poncho fashioned from an over-sized trash bag.

A Closet to Envy

It's been a while since we've talked about the closet situation in the house, but I think it's worth noting.  Apparently people from the 1920's didn't like/own lots of clothes.  The closets in our two spare bedrooms are only 40 inches wide, and 18" deep at the most.  Notice the small hooks coming off the wall.  These are pretty common throughout the house since the closets lacked the depth to hang things sideways (like we are used to).  

This is a shot of the closet in the master bedroom - before we did any work to it.  Lucky for us, this closet is very deep and significantly wider than the closets in the other rooms.  It is a true walk-in closet.  As was expected, this room was covered with wallpaper and then painted a lovely shade of yellow-cream.  So we had to scrape more wallpaper and prep the walls for paint.

Fans were crucial in the completion of this room for a few reasons.  First, it provided ventilation for the small space and helped the plaster and paint dry quickly.  Secondly, it replaced the "old, fishy" smell the hanging lamp produces with clean air.  (Don't worry - we're removing the hanging lamp and replacing it with two mini-can lights.)

Mom having fun priming the walls.

And lastly, a couple shots of the finished product.  

We didn't get any progress shots of us hanging the shelving system, but we think everything came out great.  The shelving was the "4-8' Rubbermaid Closet" package.  We had to buy a couple extra 13.75" verticals (and we splurged on the 'Belt and Tie Rack'), but everything else was straight out of the box and SUPER easy to install (thanks for helping, Dad).  We went from four tiny hooks to two rows of short-hang, and a section of long-hang in a couple of hours.

More to come...

Two rooms painted, five to go...

The fruits of our labors are finally starting to flower. Paint is officially on the walls in our living room, and the floors of the bathroom have been stained and are awaiting a finish coat of polyurethane.

We decided to go with a really light green on the living room walls (Sherwin-Williams' "Sprout" to be exact). Two coats of primer made covering the walls very easy. We'll still hit the walls with another coat of paint to be safe.