Archive

More Progress

Exterior:

Our little “garden bed” by the stairs had been overtaken by weeds (all that rain doesn’t only help the wanted plants after all!). A short while ago we had to remove the lavenders because they were drowning in that location. Lavender likes a dry, sunny location and based on the flooding in that area the earth was generally very moist. At first it flourished, then it wasn’t doing to well, so we moved it. In place the weeds grew ever so quickly…

Fountain grass

Since we knew better than to place dry-loving plants back into that spot we went on a hunt for moist-loving plants. We found a variety of Hostas and covered the general area with mulch…in hopes to keep some of those weeds from coming back so quickly.

Fountain grass

In the meanwhile we have also harvested our first batch of home grown veggies- all of two squashes and one green bell pepper! We proudly cooked a veggie pasta dish for one of our friends (with the aide of a store bough red bell pepper and zucchini).

Harvesting

Another area we tackled was by the shed. While purchasing the Hostas Patrick discovered another ornamental grass that he had to have.

Daylilly

So we moved what we assume to be wildly growing lilies (they never bloomed this year, so we’re not 100% sure) and extended the rose bed. In the fall (or spring?) I’d like to plant a few more roses to fill the open spaces.

Shed foundation planting

Interior:

In the meanwhile we’ve also gotten around to a little bit more interior work…

The kitchen built-in started looking out something like this…

Butler's Pantry Door

…progressed with the comfort of the dining room floor, starting out with the scraper/razor blade, getting frustrated and moving to the heat gun (which is dangerous in itself because it can make the glass break, but broken glass is easier to replace than damaged wood)…

Butler's Pantry Door

…and ending with something like this (for the moment).

Butler's Pantry Door

We then worked a little bit more on the dining room door. This is where we had left off January 6th. Wow, look at that floor too! Not quite refinished yet.

Dining room door

And this is where we got rid of the majority of the remaining paint. We are still struggling to find the best solution of getting the paint off the detail work – anybody have any suggestions? Pleeeeaaaase? :)

Dining room door

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Kitchen Built-in Drawer Pulls

Last week we installed the drawer pulls on the new kitchen cabinets, so this week seemed the appropriate time to also install the drawer pulls on the old built-in. As with most things in this 90-year old house that included some (or a lot of?) prep work…

Step 1: Remove X layers of paint and sand it down.

Butler's Pantry Drawer

Step 2: Put on fresh paint.

Butler's Pantry Drawer

Step 3: Attach pulls and put drawers back in built-in – ahhhhh, isn’t it beautiful!

Butler's Pantry Drawer

I won’t show the rest of the built-in because we really haven’t made any other progress on it. As other old house homeowners will know these little project go one itty bitty step at a time. Next up should be the bottom doors. We’ve already removed paint a little while ago and sanded one of them the other day. We’ll see when we get them done and back on the built-in!

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Finally Some Bathroom Work

I feel like we finally made far enough progress with the bathroom to be able to show it. It’s been a slow process with all the prep work, but we’re very happy with how our results look.

Part of the prep work consisted of taking the paint off the detail work from the medicine cabinet mirror. (When we relocated the medicine cabinet the only original piece we kept was the actual mirror, hence why it needed the most prep work.) It took me a good 3 days to try and get in those grooves and everything. I was able to take the paint in the grooves off to a point that felt satisfying enough – it is a 90 year-old mirror after all, so if it shows a little sign of age it isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Medicine cabinet

The inside of the medicine cabinet all painted….

Medicine cabinet

…and the exterior of the medicine cabinet all painted. Don’t pay too close attention to the missing blue paint between the medicine cabinet and the lights, teehee. We need to take off the light to do that and have been avoiding the work. (Same goes for behind the toilet and behind the sink, oopsies.)

Medicine cabinet

The other painting job we had worked on was the base molding. And finally after 4.5 months of living in the house we have a toilet paper holder and the hand and body towel bars! The body towel bar was tricky because the only space it would actually fit was above the toilet. Not the best place in the world, but pretty much our only option. Every now and then I still catch myself reaching for the toilet paper on the windowsill…only to realize that it’s not located there anymore!

Medicine cabinet

Unfortunately the other view is not quite as finished. We haven’t painted the door molding or the base molding because we want to finish removing the paint from the built-in before we get to putting it back on.

Linen closet

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Bathroom Painting

Last Friday Patrick was working on removing paint off the kitchen built-in drawer.

Paint removal

…while I was putting primer in the corners that hadn’t been painted.

Paint bathroom

Today we finally put the first coat of color in the bathroom!! We almost got the entire room done. I have to finish a few more spots by the ceiling. But my husband keeps asking me every 30 seconds if I’m done and we can finish watching “Little Miss Sunshine” so I can only take the questioning for so long! (Otherwise I would have finished it tonight :-P).

Paint bathroom

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Lights and Bathroom

I’m starting to fall a little behind again, so I’m going to make a couple of entries.

I got so caught up with the ugliness of what’s behind the range vent hood that I completely forgot to document the actual hood! So here it is.

Stove vent hood

Ray was back this Saturday to install the lights. He also found that kitchen light that had gone missing during drywalling.

Recessed lights

Our beautiful, precious Rejuvenation light. Since it was our little gem we were breathing down Ray’s neck the entire time he was installing out baby, haha.

Dining room light

A fan/light combo we found at Lowe’s that I’m really happy with. We installed the same light in all 3 bedrooms. Also note the old steam pipe that has yet to be removed in the background.

Bedroom light

Special concrete sheetrock was installed on the bathroom floor and around the tub.

Bathroom Durock floor

Our custom shower shelf.

Bathroom Durock shower

We continued working on the bathroom door until it got dark.

Paint stripping door

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