Another Panorama
I've been experimenting with a process for stiching a lot of small pictures together into a panorama. Here's the latest. It's a view of the kitchen. Click the image to see a larger version.
September 27, 2007
September 24, 2006
Painting Update
Click image to view photo gallery.
We have made additional noticable progress on the house restoration since our last post. As you probably know, we are attempting to focus our effort on one room at a time. Most of the recent effort has been in the master bedroom. We have completed the repair and prep work, and started painting. The room has a very calm and crisp pale blue and brown color scheme to complement the white trim and beadboard. The area around the top of the walls will have a stencil treatment, similar to what we did in the parlor. As a rough estimate, this room is probably more than 80 percent completed.
In the kitchen, we have gone back and tried to finish some of the loose ends. I finally installed the vintage stove this weekend. Last week, Andi and her Dad (Steve) worked on the tile around the fireplace. Both the stove and the antique tiles were great finds on E-Bay.
As we were working Saturday, we had an enjobable visit from Kate and Jeremy. They were looking at another old home in Newborn with the idea of buying it and restoring it. As they passed by our house, the recognized it from pictures on the blog. I happened to be in the yard as they passed by, so they stopped and we gave them a tour of our progress. They have done a lot of research and seem very interested in and capable of tacking an old house restoration.
That's all for this week, but stay tuned for more updates.
March 22, 2006
DIY Countertops Are Worth the Extra Effort
Before our progress was so rudely interrupted by my slip with the slot-cutting saw, we made a lot of progress last week.
When the weather was nice, Andi did some more clean up in the yard, including burning a lot of the limbs and other trimmings. She added a second 55-gallon drum to her burning set up, and it's all I can do to not include a lame pun about her double-barrel fire power.
Inside, she finished the wallpaper in the hall bath and started painting the beadboard and trim. And, one evening last week, we started replacing the broken panes in one of the small stained glass windows. This is a learning process, but we think we have it figured out. With any luck, we'll have all three of these windows repaired and reinstalled by next weekend.
We continued to focus a lot of attention on the kitchen, where we cut out and positioned all of the pieces for the countertops. The countertops are made of solid oak material that we bought at IKEA. The week 10 photo gallery includes some pictures of the countertops; they are going to look great.
As we were planning the kitchen, we decided we wanted wooden countertops. Before we found the countertops at IKEA, we found some at the Home Depot Expo store that were made of Brazilian cherry. Unfortunately, at $99 per square foot (plus installation), those tops were out of our budget range. Going the DIY route from IKEA was a lot more work (those oak tops are very heavy), but we think they will look just as nice, and the cost will be closer to $20 to $25 per square foot.
The first evening of working on the countertops was a very difficult process. I was using the same circular saw (with a new blade) that I used when we built our log cabin twenty-something years ago. With each cut, it was a struggle to make a clean, straight cut in one pass. (The sound of grinding bearings and the sight of black smoke coming from the motor were also clues that my equipment was not up to the task.) The next day, I borrowed Steve's Makita and things went much easier. And, the next day, I tossed my saw in the dumpster and bought a new one at the local Home Depot.
We hope to finish the countertop installation one evening this week, so that we can spend the weekend on some other projects. Stay tuned for more updates.
March 07, 2006
Kitchen Cabinets -- Day 2
Here's what the kitchen cabinets look like after day 2. We now have to install the countertops and do some other work so the installers can come back and complete the job. Click the image above to see a supersized version.
March 06, 2006
Cabinet Installation Day One
The installers started making quick work of the cabinet installation today in the kitchen. Click the image above to see a supersized version.
February 12, 2006
Kitchen Ready for Floors and Cabinets
In four short weeks we have made tremendous progress on the kitchen. Last week, we reached a major milestone and are very pleased with the progress. After much work -- from the rotten floors to stripping multiple layers of old paint off of the trim -- the kitchen is now painted. And it's beautiful.
The ceiling got a lot of patching and caulking, followed by a coat of printer and a coat of flat white paint. All of the trim was stripped to the bare wood, and was repainted with two coats of a satin white paint. It's amazing how much detail shows through when you don't have five coats of paint! The beadboard now sports two new coats of a flat white.
And the really snazzy part of the paint job is the pale blue walls. After patching all the holes and repairing a variety of cracks in the plaster, Andi painted two coats of a very pale blue. That was followed by a medium blue glaze that was textured with Saran Wrap. (I think the exact technique is a trade secret. If you hire Andi to paint your walls, she might show you how it's done.)
The end results is a gorgeous paint job that reminds me of the sky on a cheerful spring day. More pictures:
In addition to the painting last week, Laurie Miller roughed in the electrical wiring. He'll be back to finish the electrical and lighting later in the month.
This week, Jerome will install the new heart pine floors. And a week from Monday, we expect the cabinets to be delivered and start installtion.
Stay tuned for two more updates about this weekend's work: 1) Adventures in Plumbing and 2) The Joy of Eco-Stripping.
February 06, 2006
Things are Really Cookin' in the Kitchen
We are making good progress on the kitchen. Everything that has to be torn out has been torn out. Everything that has to be stripped has been stripped. (Almost) everything that has to be decided has been decided.
The cabinets have been ordered from Home Depot. If the delivery and installation go as well as the planning and ordering, we'll be very happy. The coordinator is coming out tomorrow to finalize the measurements and work out the installation details.
The stove has been purchased. It's a vintage 1947 Chambers Model 61C that we bought Friday on E-Bay. The stove is in western New York. We've arranged to have it shipped by ShipSmart.com. We'll let you know how this goes.
This weekend, we started painting. The paint job on the ceiling is complete, and it looks great. (Thanks, Heather.) We started painting the walls on Sunday. The walls will be a pale blue, with a darker blue glaze treatment.(Andi's in charge of painting; I try to stay out of the way.) The plan for this week is to get the walls painted and the trim painted. This weekend, we'll paint and install the crown moulding.
Monday, Jerome will be here to install the new heart pine flooring that was delivered on Friday. The next week (maybe two), the cabinets will be here for installation. With any luck, the kitchen will be complete before the end of February.
More pictures of the painting:
January 23, 2006
A Burning Question About Stoves
When you build or restore a house, you have to make a lot of decisions. One of the burning questions we are trying to answer is whether or not to buy an antique stove for the kitchen. The brand we are considering is a Chambers stove from the 1950s (see photo). According to the research we've done, a lot of people really love their old Chambers stoves. There's even a minor celebrity on the Food Network that cooks with a Chambers.
There's a company in North Georgia that restores old stoves, but there's a two-year waiting list for restored appliances. So, if we go the Chambers route, we'll probably but it on E-Bay.
So, what do you think about the idea of an antique stove? Anybody ever seen or used a Chambers? Any ideas on how to get a stove packed and shipped from another part of the country to our house?
January 18, 2006
Starting the New Kitchen Floor
The damaged areas of the floor have been replaced with new wood, and we are now ready to lay down a layer of plywood to get everything even and level. After that, the floor will be ready for the new heart pine flooring.
Getting to the Bottom of Things
Andi and Steve finished tearing up the rotten part of the kitchen floor tihs week. The good news is that the damage was limited to the area in front of the dishwasher and in the corner under the pantry.
January 15, 2006
Weekend #1: A Hole Lot of Surprises and Progress
If you buy an old house, expect the unexpected. That's the lesson we learned this weekend.
We closed on the house Thursday. Friday, we had the gas turned on, and the HVAC guy came out to fire up the furnace. Turns out, there's a bit of a problem wth the downsrairs furnace. Nothing too major ... just replace the whole thing. It's not like it'll burn the house down, it'll just pump carbon monoxide into the house -- something we'd prefer to avoid. So, a new furnace is in our future.
On Saturday, we started work on the kitchen. The construction agenda was to tear out the big pantry, remove one window, take up the tile floor, and take out the old cabinets. After that, we'd be able to put down a new hardwood floor, paint and have the new cabinets and appliances installed.
We started on the floor. We took up a layer of tile, plywood, another layer of tile, another layer of plywood, before we finally came to the main floor. Under the first piece of plywood we removed, we found the original heart pine flooring. We were very pleased. From there, things took a turn for the worse. The floor under the pantry and near the dishwasher/sink are rotten. So rotten, that we'll have to do a lot more floor-replacing that expected. So rotten, that you can literally fall through to the crawlspace. (Truse me on that one, I know from experience.)
We were undeterred. We expected surprises. But not all surprises were bad. Some of this weekend's surprises were a real treat.
During the weekend, we had a total of 14 visitors -- family, old friends, new friends and neighbors -- stop by the house to see our progress. The visitors included Jennifer and Jeremy, Greg, Jackie, Ron and Diane, Jay and Gail, Vernon and Gabrielle, Steve and Martha, and Priscilla and Miriam.
Everyone was so excited to tour the house, see our progess and hear of our plans to restore the house. That was the best surprise of all ... to have so many friends who share in our excitement about this project. Even a wonky furnace and a rotten floor can't change that.
Stay tuned for more updates. Plans for this week include continuing to work on the kitchen, getting the roofer started on a new roof, meeting another cabinet maker and getting water heater replaced.