Home update - February 2022

It has been a while before any updates. That's definitely not because we haven't been busy.  Quite the contrary. 

Dining Room

We painted the dining room, and patched and painted the ceiling.  The problem is that shortly after finishing the dining room painting, we started in the kitchen. The dining room became the de facto kitchen, complete with a working refrigerator, air fryer, coffee pot, and converting the sideboard to a dish cabinet. 

In addition, it's become the storage place for all of the things we've yet to put in the kitchen, including cabinets, a dishwasher and range. So the pictures are a little underwhelming, chock full of kitchen food prep materials, as well as kitchen building materials.  But peeking around and behind the clutter, is our beautiful dining room.  

Mantle, complete with two leaded glass containers. 

Dishwasher in dining room, waiting... 

Sideboard with coffee maker, air fryer, cabinet doors  and drywall 
leaning against, plus every dining room needs a refrigerator.

Meanwhile the kitchen is progressing.  Here are some 'before' pics. 

This is the north wall that will like an accent wall, with 
dark stained cabinets, exposed brick (behind the stove above)
and a new broom closet in the cut-out to the right of the stove. 

Since those photos, we have:

• pulled all of the pink and brown plastic tiles off the walls
• pulled up all of the pink and white floor tiles
• pulled out all of the brown mental cabinets, except the one the sink is sitting on
• Using a plaster chisel, I removed all of the plaster to expose a brick chimney that runs up through the room. We'll leave it exposed. 
• Took off all of the built-in cabinet doors and drawers, stripped and stained them a dark brown. They'll look great with the antique copper pulls.
• Went to the construction re-sale store and bought a 90" x 24" door, that I stripped and stained to match the built in cabinets. We built a frame for the door, so the north wall of the kitchen will include the built in cabinets, the exposed brick chimney and a new broom closet, with a matching tall door.
• filled up 4 waste management bags, nearly 12 cubic yards of junk

Once we were back to the studs, we

• cut and installed insulation on the walls (where there had been none) and ceiling to reduce the noise between floors. 
• put a plastic roofing membrane down on the wood floor. There were holes and cracks, and we could see into the basement. But the floor wasn't level so we needed to put some self-leveling stuff on, without it all running into the basement
• poured in the self-leveler, which is basically like quick setting thin concrete. It does the job!
• Purchased and installed subfloor, over the newly level floor
• added new electrical wipres for ceiling lights, rather than the single garage-style fluorescent fixture
• cut and fit drywall for the ceiling, and now working on the walls. 

Once the drywall is in, we'll:

• prime all of the drywall
• paint the ceiling white and the walls a dark sage-green
• Paint the north accent wall a darker sage green, and install the cabinet doors and new closet door
• Install the other three pendant lights over an island which will contain the range.
• install cork-backed floating floor, that looks like distressed wood
• install cabinets (that are all in boxes in dining room)
• Call to have the countertops measured

Pouring in the self-leveler 

Some of the demo debris

Copper pulls and handles

Beginning to pull of the tiles and plaster
to uncover the brick chimney

Exposed chimney. We'll keep the former pipe cut outs.
It's all part of the historical charm...

Drywall coimng along

     

    

Drywall in kitchen and new flat led lights and places 
for new pendents

Meanwhile...

As the big work is progressing in the kitchen, there's a hallway from the kitchen to the bedroom, and another from the dining room to the kitchen. They were both in crummy shape, so while my husband was measuring sheet rock, I started working on the two forgotten hallways. If we had gotten the kitchen done, it would be depressing to enter it through the icky halls so it was important to me. 

Each of these halls required the following:

• stripping wallpaper off plaster walls
• washing plaster walls and painted floor, door and window trim
• filling cracks and holes in walls and ceiling
• Removing door hardware to get grime and paint off
• scuff sanding the painted trim
• priming all surfaces
• painting and reinstalling hardware

After photo - close up of the trim and hallway color for the hall 
into the bedroom

Close up of door frame with lots of places
to sand and smooth from years of 
locks, and an old switch box in the plaster

Hole in plaster where box was removed

Cutting out the plaster

Hole in plaster in hallway between kitchen and 
dining room. Using a multi-tool, I cut a rectangle
out of the plaster, and an equal sized piece 
of drywall and patched it. 

Doors with stripping agent on them, and 
a little plastic wrap to keep them 
from drying out

Stay tuned, and I'll try to provide updates more frequently, so it's not an epic read. Note to self, it doesn't have to look 'finished' to share.  

Now, off to spackle.