Newborn House

It's been a few weeks since we started the master bathroom renovation. As you can see from the pictures, it's been quite a job ... a total re-do from the floors to the ceiling.

Since our last post, we've:

• completed the floor system, including floor joists and subfloor;


• roughed in the plumbing;


• reworked the electrical;


• built a couple of small walls and installed the shower pan;


• added rock board around the lower half of the room;


• repaired , replaced and refinished the plaster;


• painted the trim and upper half of the walls, and


• started putting up the tin ceiling.

You can see more pictures on our Picasa site. With any luck, we'll finish the ceiling this weekend, and Andi will start stenciling the paint job next week. After that, tile the shower, tile the floor, tile the lower half of the walls, install the fixtures ... and ... take a vacation.

Stay tuned.

Posted by Tim at 09:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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.

Posted by Tim at 11:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

With the parlor completed, we were able to turn our attention to the next room in the remodeling process -- the master bedroom. As we have come to find out through this process, each room of the house presents its own challenges.

The kitchen had a rotten floor. The hall bath was a complete re-do. The parlor took forever because we decided to strip all of the painted woodwork. In the master bedroom, we were confronted with a challenging pair of windows.

The windows in the house are original. They are the type of window that has a counterweight and rope-and-pulley contraption to help raise and lower the window. Both windows were stuck shut; all of the cords were broken; one pane was broken; and the top sash and window sill of one window were rotten. Other than that, they were in real good shape.

At any rate, we managed to get all both of the windows (plus the transom over the door) in operable condition again. Fortunately I had the week off last week, so were were able to get a lot of other work done. We:

• Spent the better part of two days, running electricity to the ceiling for an overhead light.
• Replaced all of the outlets, which had been completed painted over by a previous owner.
• Ran wiring for phone and cable.
• Repaired damaged plaster on most of the walls. A previous owner had botched an earlier effort, which made good repairs even more time-consuming.
• Cleaned and repaired the plaster in the two small closets.
• Spent a couple of days just prepping the beadboard ceiling to be repainted.

In addition to the actual work, we had some first-time visitors last week. Opal and Hugh stopped by one afternoon and seemed to really like the house. Alma, who grew up in nearby Shady Dale and now lives in California, stopped by for a short visit on her way to the airport for a flight home. And, Jim stopped in to see our progress on his way home to Conyers from a making a delivery to Hilton Head. (Sorry, Beth, Jim got to see the house before you did. You'll just have to give Andi a call and come on down. Maybe she'll take you over to Lucy's for lunch.)

Now that my vacation is over, I have to go back to work to get some rest!

Posted by Tim at 10:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)