Newborn House

(Click picture to super-size of the composite image.)

We are very happy to share that we have completed the dining room. It turned our very nice. We had our first official meal in there today, when Karen, Dave and Shannon came over for my special sandwiches and strawberry shortcake.

The paint job is something that Murphy Brown's painter would have been proud to complete. There is a lot of trim in the room. For the wall color, Andi selected "ripe currant" (that's "red," to you and me) .... and it took four coats to get such a nice even coverage. The red is not a typical Victorian color, be we thought the space deserved a bold choice.

The other time-consuming parts included stripping and refinishing the fireplace mantle, repairing and refinishing the doors of the built-in china cabinet, and adding the plate rail around the top of the room.

The next -- and last -- room is the master bath. We'll post the "before" picture soon. Stay tuned.

PS -- When we enable comments, we get a lot of spam. I'll leave this post open for comments for a few days, and then turn comments off again. E-mails are always welcome at tahogan at gmail.com.

Posted by Tim at 07:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Before and after of the dining room ceiling and main light fixture. The new, antique fixture was purchased on E-Bay and ceiling medallion came from an online site we had used before. More photos ...

We have been making super progress on the dining room. One of the major changes is the new, antique light fixture.

Like all of the ceilings, the dining room ceiling is bead board ... and it needed a lot of cleaning, patching before it could be re-caulked and repainted. After that, we installed the light fixture we found on E-Bay. This one had to be completely re-wired (below) and loaded with a new set of crystals.

In addition, we have spent a good bit of time installing and repairing the trim work. One of the additions is a plate rail around the top of the room. The new rail is built into the picture rail and will hold a collection of antique plates. The built-in china cabinet had a lot of problems related to settling and poor repairs from earlier restoration efforts.

We're in the midst of painting now. That part should be completed this week. After that, there's work to do on the mantle and hearth. If all goes well this room will be ready for a big dinner in a few more weeks. Stay tuned ...

Posted by Tim at 01:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We are now working on the dining room. Here are some more pictures.

Happy new year!

As we begin 2008, we also begin the a new year of restoration on the Newborn House.

We bought the house January 13, 2006. Work began the next day ... exactly two years ago this weekend... with a total gutting and remodeling of the kitchen. Since then, we have accomplished a lot. With the exception of the dining room and master bathroom, every room has been completely restored and refinished. We also have done a lot of work on the outside (roof, barn, porch, yard work) and infrastructure (plumbing, electrical, HVAC). This week we started on the dining room.

As you can see from the picture above and in the photo gallery the room is a big but not overwhelming project. It needs a lot of repair on the plaster walls and the ceiling. And, there's a built-in china cabinet that needs some work.Andi has already stripped the mantle, so it's ready to refinish.

When we started this project two years ago we expected it to be a grand adventure ... and it has been!

Stay tuned.

Posted by Tim at 08:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)