When it came to a starting point on home renos, we decided, no place to start the reno's than in our front foyer - not that we spend tons of time there, but at least when I get home from a long day at work I would walk through a lovely foyer INTO the chaos rather than right into the mess ..... we'll call it my decompression zone!
So, picture this, when you walk in to the house you enter through an old white door (that has paint on the glass and something that resembles tree sap stuck all around it), the door lets in no air (no screen component) to the musty house. Immediately upon entry your dust allergy is kicked into high gear because of the layers of dust that have collected on the pink doilley of a curtain fluff and the area rug they have so generously left (which you soon find out they left because the floor beneath it has been damaged because of the tape they lay down for it!). As you stand in the space you realize the offensive pink floral metallic wallpaper that covers the upper half of the walls (which seems to have leaked up the stairs) and that the lower portion of the walls (wainscoting) is an equally nasty pink/rose colour (they matched it PERFECTLY to the curtain fluff). You turn back to face the door and see a nice size foyer closet - only when you look closely do you see that the space is home to more spiders, dust bunnies and mold spores then most people (including me) find comfortable. Beside the closet is an old radiator that will help to heat the house - it is covered by some contraption, but that appears easy to remove ..... so I rip it off and find what appears to be a massive length of dryer lint (turns out it is dust - I have never seen dust form such a solid sheet before) ...... otherwise, the last notable portion of the room appears to be the VERY fluffy deep red carpet that spills into the room from the staircase which leads upstairs (I am sure this helps the dust allergy! It looks like ideal breeding ground for dust and mites)
On the positive side, the foyer is a good size (although it could be considered a waste of space to those of us who don't hang out in the foyer) and after vacuuming and putting on my dish gloves to wash the closet down (it took changing the pail of Mr. Clean 7 times because the water kept getting so dirty!) paint was able to stick to the walls and with that I feel comfortable hanging our jackets and putting our shoes in their home!. The floors are in decent shape - turns out the tape that they had put down to keep the carpet in place did minimal damage after you clean the area with floor cleaner and a scrub brush. The electricians have fixed the pesky electrical wires hanging in the closet and after I removed the dusk and gave it a good bath the rad has potential! Oh - and the door and window trim throughout the house is amazing! Needs a few holes filled in and some paint - but the details and work is gorgeous!
The work; So, immediately we backed up a trailer to the house and threw out the area rug, window fluff, rad cover and lint cloth ..... I removed the wallpaper and cleaned the floors, walls and closet to get a better idea of what we were working with. Turned out the wallpaper had been holding the walls up in some sections so Ty had to do some repair work to the walls, crown moulding, trim, etc. After some dusty drywall work I could go ahead with paint - the ceiling and crown got 2 coats of fresh white paint (it is amazing how dirty a ceiling can get - and how much you don't notice it until you put a streak of white paint beside it! yikes!) Then I got to put some colour on the walls - after one coat of primer it was time for 2 coats of Shellburn Buff paint (this rich, warm golden colour by Benjamin Moore - amazing!), next the wainscoting got primed out and was given a face lift with 2 coats of cloud white paint (as did all the baseboards, door and window trim). Ty installed a new light fixture (to replace that lovely gold and glass thing). The front door has been cleaned and primed out and will be getting a fresh coat of Stone Brown paint over the weekend! The closet door was painted and given a new pull and we are in the process of deciding on a window treatment for the one large window in the room.
Next will simply be filling the room and giving it function so it doesn't feel like such an empty space!
Next week I shall move on to the "parlour room"! Joys of joy - getting rid of all that pink paint!
xoxo,
S
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Love the smell of fresh Paint!
Things have started to get started! When re-doing a house you have to LOVE the first day you get to put paint on the wall!
We bought the house two months ago - the electricians finished rewiring a month ago and so we started unpacking, did some plumbing and thinking about what our final project would look like - and now Ty has started working on repairing the walls and ceilings where needed (a lot of places) and now I can actually go home and paint a ceiling tonight! AND we have actually picked a paint colour for the front foyer and up the stairs/hallway ...... I could not be more excited about painting!
How did we finally get the kick in the butt to do this? well, last Friday Canadian Tire was having an amazing sale on lighting fixtures - so we went crazy - bought all lighting fixtures for the house (minus the required kitchen and bathroom lighting) ..... then we brought them home and were really excited about putting them up and then we thought about it - we need to paint the ceiling first - unless we want paint on the new fixtures - and to paint the ceiling, we need to repair it first - and if we want to paint the ceiling it connects with the crown moulding so that joint needs to be caulked in places, and if we're painting all the crown moulding than the joint that hits the crown moulding against the wall needs to be done - and THEN the wall have to be done - which connects to the door and window trim and wainscoting, which connects to the baseboards .... this turned into a bad game of "heads connected to the neck bone, neck bones connected to the shoulder bone" ...... but in the end it means we are working room by room to get the walls and ceilings repaired - so that we can paint the ceilings ...... which are already painted white - but to me look dirty ..... so I want to repaint them white ..... I know, crazy!
You have to love the fresh smell of paint on a sparkling white ceiling with a new fixture!
xo,
S
We bought the house two months ago - the electricians finished rewiring a month ago and so we started unpacking, did some plumbing and thinking about what our final project would look like - and now Ty has started working on repairing the walls and ceilings where needed (a lot of places) and now I can actually go home and paint a ceiling tonight! AND we have actually picked a paint colour for the front foyer and up the stairs/hallway ...... I could not be more excited about painting!
How did we finally get the kick in the butt to do this? well, last Friday Canadian Tire was having an amazing sale on lighting fixtures - so we went crazy - bought all lighting fixtures for the house (minus the required kitchen and bathroom lighting) ..... then we brought them home and were really excited about putting them up and then we thought about it - we need to paint the ceiling first - unless we want paint on the new fixtures - and to paint the ceiling, we need to repair it first - and if we want to paint the ceiling it connects with the crown moulding so that joint needs to be caulked in places, and if we're painting all the crown moulding than the joint that hits the crown moulding against the wall needs to be done - and THEN the wall have to be done - which connects to the door and window trim and wainscoting, which connects to the baseboards .... this turned into a bad game of "heads connected to the neck bone, neck bones connected to the shoulder bone" ...... but in the end it means we are working room by room to get the walls and ceilings repaired - so that we can paint the ceilings ...... which are already painted white - but to me look dirty ..... so I want to repaint them white ..... I know, crazy!
You have to love the fresh smell of paint on a sparkling white ceiling with a new fixture!
xo,
S
Friday, September 18, 2009
Creepy Thoughts
So, I don't think I am an overly irrational person most days, but it seems being alone in the new house makes me think of crazy things. The past few weeks Ty has been out at the cottage helping his Dad, which leaves me at the house by myself - and the house is new to me, and big enough and old enough to seem really creepy some times.....
One night I ran home before a Board Meeting, went into the washroom to get ready and then headed out (at this point the door to the creepy basement was closed, I can guarantee it because if it was open it would have taken up the whole tiny bathroom!), so then I went to my meeting, went for a visit with my Aunt and around 8:00 I came home - and the door to the creepy basement was wide open! So, with me being me, and VERY paranoid - I closed the door and locked it with the deadbolt (thanks to the past owner all doors have locks on the outside of doors - which seems odd!) anyhow, I deadbolt it shut - apparently now if someone is down there I am convinced that this will keep them down there ..... but I don't feel quite safe enough, because I hear noises in the house (I know, it is an old house, there will be noises!) so to make myself feel safer I close the bathroom door (so now two doors are closed and locked on the outside) and THEN I move the elliptical in front of the door ..... and only then can I go to sleep feeling like, if there was someone in the basement, that they couldn't break out - or if they did break out, I would hear them try to move the elliptical ...... this all sounds very crazy to me as I write it.
THEN, one night I am home by myself again and this time I am removing wallpaper upstairs (it was this horrid shiny pink floral wallpaper!) and I started thinking - this is a really old house, someone likely died here and I wondered if their ghost was in the house - and then I remembered the hospital bed that still resided in the attic (I know, it should be out by now, but I'm not doing it!) and then I started to think - well maybe no one died IN the house but someone has probably DEFINITELY died in that hospital bed ..... which then made me think of hospital visits and I figure now (after my thought-fest) that whenever you go into the hospital you are probably sitting or lying or sleeping in a hospital bed that someone else had died in ...... and then I was creeped out again .......
Just food for thought!
xoxo,
S
P.S. - Progress on the house is slow - the electricians where there for 6 days so that is complete and most of the wallpaper has come down - just two rooms left!! So satisfying!
One night I ran home before a Board Meeting, went into the washroom to get ready and then headed out (at this point the door to the creepy basement was closed, I can guarantee it because if it was open it would have taken up the whole tiny bathroom!), so then I went to my meeting, went for a visit with my Aunt and around 8:00 I came home - and the door to the creepy basement was wide open! So, with me being me, and VERY paranoid - I closed the door and locked it with the deadbolt (thanks to the past owner all doors have locks on the outside of doors - which seems odd!) anyhow, I deadbolt it shut - apparently now if someone is down there I am convinced that this will keep them down there ..... but I don't feel quite safe enough, because I hear noises in the house (I know, it is an old house, there will be noises!) so to make myself feel safer I close the bathroom door (so now two doors are closed and locked on the outside) and THEN I move the elliptical in front of the door ..... and only then can I go to sleep feeling like, if there was someone in the basement, that they couldn't break out - or if they did break out, I would hear them try to move the elliptical ...... this all sounds very crazy to me as I write it.
THEN, one night I am home by myself again and this time I am removing wallpaper upstairs (it was this horrid shiny pink floral wallpaper!) and I started thinking - this is a really old house, someone likely died here and I wondered if their ghost was in the house - and then I remembered the hospital bed that still resided in the attic (I know, it should be out by now, but I'm not doing it!) and then I started to think - well maybe no one died IN the house but someone has probably DEFINITELY died in that hospital bed ..... which then made me think of hospital visits and I figure now (after my thought-fest) that whenever you go into the hospital you are probably sitting or lying or sleeping in a hospital bed that someone else had died in ...... and then I was creeped out again .......
Just food for thought!
xoxo,
S
P.S. - Progress on the house is slow - the electricians where there for 6 days so that is complete and most of the wallpaper has come down - just two rooms left!! So satisfying!
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