Homestead Home Update - slow going, surprises, and flowers

 

It has been a while since I've given an update. That's not because we aren't working. Progress has just been slow!

Wall before it was removed

Removing the wall between kitchen
and bathroom. 

We continue to work on the bathroom on the main floor.  We had to take out all of the lumpy wall board, and the ugly dropped ceiling. Our plan was to take it back to the studs, add a new subfloor, then start rebuilding. The previous owners had put in a dropped ceiling to allow better access to the plumbing for the second floor bathroom, or perhaps to initially add the plumbing. In any case, it was ugly. And it also was added below the top sill of the window, so the that looked stupid too.  We opted to reframe the ceiling at two heights, one up at the full height, above the top of the window, but then it needed to be lower at the other end of the room, to cover the pipes from the second floor.  

Pouring the self-leveler on

When we got down to the old sub floor, there was a 2" height difference in the floor, in the 8' bathroom, so we had to first put down self-leveling goo. It's like thin cement, and it, um, self levels.  Once that dried, then we put the subfloor on. 

Now, we have a level subfloor, waiting for the next steps. 

Framing for ceiling

John framed in where the ceiling was going to go, and then we put drywall up on the ceiling. 

There once had been two doors into the bathroom, one from the dining room, and one from the kitchen, but the door from the dining room had been covered. To make the lay out better, we're vacating the door in the kitchen, and restoring the door from the dining room.  The kitchen is one of the darker rooms in the house, and there's a window in the bathroom that provided light into the kitchen when the bathroom door was open. To offset that new solid wall and accompanying darkness, we purchased a small stained glass window that we'll install high in the wall so light can still come in the kitchen from the bathroom window. This is John framing in that window.  

We've finished the framing, and now are putting the drywall in.  Once that's in, we can start taping and mudding the walls, and install the flooring. Once that's done, we can call the plumbers to put the fixtures in. Woo hoo. Then we'll paint and install whatever's left.  Whew.  

This is what our weekends look like, with boards stacked inside and plywood on top of our car.  

While John was framing, I was working on refinishing the door that had been covered. One side was stained, and had this beautiful marbling, similar to the pattern below. The other side had at least 6 layers of paint. My plan was to paint the side that would be inside the bathroom, and just refinish the stained side. It was pretty scuffed up.  

I have sawhorses set up in the basement, a new lead face mask, a gallon of stripping solvent, scrapers, steel wool, sanders, and great books on tape. The painted side was a bear.  It took numerous coats of remover, and more scraping than I'd like to admit.  I'm not trying to get it to bare wood, but just get rid of the lumpy layers of paint, and the rounded corners from years of overpainting. Once it's smooth-ish, it will be ready to paint with my new fancy paint sprayer.  

The stained side was pretty easy to get off. One coat, and the old varnish came off.  Much to my great dismay, all of the beautiful marbling came off too. It turns out it was a 100 year old artistic finish, and not some exotic wood with exotic grain.  That 'grain' is all through dining room, and on the beautiful mantle, pictured below.  

I will need to figure out how to restore the cracking varnish without disturbing the antique artistic and entirely removable grain. That was a definite surprise!

Today, I will finish the soothing of both sides of the door, and fill in the old holes with wood filler. Then it's ready to hang up and paint, probably tomorrow. 

The final thing I've been working on is I cleaned out and scraped off four flaking concrete planters in the front yard. I used a wire brush, and eventually washed them off.  Then I spray painted them a primer/paint color called "hammered bronze'.   They definitely look classier.  Today, I'll fill them with potting soil, and plant them up with some mums for fall and bulbs for spring.  Sometimes it's the little things that make things feel like home. 

We'll need to find another place for the cat to hang out, once I put flowers in the pot.