My Office

I am always on my computer. Whether it's working on house designs, work, blogging, or just for fun, I'm always using it. In our old apartment my office consisted of my laptop and the couch. In our guest bedroom I had a table set up with some of my craft supplies, but that was such a multi-purpose room, the table was always covered with other stuff.


The day we first viewed this house, I fell in love with this room and knew it would someday be my office. 

It was perfect! It has a central location, beautiful view out the windows, a built-in bookcase and a fireplace! And it's the only room in the house that has the potential for lots of bookcases. The only downside is that it was pretty dark and ratty looking. Even without the curtains on the windows, it was dark. 

Luckily the wallpaper came off pretty easily. A helper and I took it all down in about 2 hours. We peeled off the grass layer, and then using spray bottles got the bottom layer wet, which made it peel right off. The walls underneath were pretty disgusting though. Aside from the wall with the windows, they were all newer drywall (when I say newer I mean from the '50's), but were stained and had a lot of holes. The wall to the left of the windows (seen in the next picture) was very poorly installed, and was very squishy.

We originally thought the wallpaper in this room was going to be the hardest in the house. The grass was so thick, and at first, didn't peel off nicely. But then we had the pleasant surprise of it being a piece of cake. Well, it came back to bite me when I started to paint. Before painting each wall I had to first wash it down with TSP, then sand the little bits and pieces of wallpaper left behind, then wash it again, then fill in the holes with putty, then sand again. THEN I could paint.

I decided to paint the trim, beams and fireplace surround a nice bright white. I love rooms with natural light, and the lighter the colors, the more reflective the light is. I used Glidden Semi-Gloss White. I made the mistake of not using any primer. The trim color didn't seem dark enough that I would need it. It took 4 or 5 coats of white to cover the yellowy-tan color. The paint on the beams was peeling and needed to be sanded, but I was a little worried it was lead paint. We bought a $9.95 lead paint test (good for 3 tests) at Home Depot, and it came out negative.

The color I chose for the walls is Lowe's La Fonda Mirage. It doesn't photograph 100% accurately, but it looks great in the room. Especially with the natural light shining on it. Because the wall underneath wasn't white (more of an off-white tan color with stains), in some areas it took two coats, but not everywhere. I was very impressed by the paint. The only downside was that because it took so long to prepare the walls and paint the trim (which I needed to do before painting the walls), I waste a lot of paint. I used up the entire gallon of paint on this tiny room and I still wasn't done! But luckily Lowe's sells those small sample bottles of paint, so I got two of those and only ended up needing half of one.

We still need to paint behind the radiator, but I skipped that for now because we're planning on having the radiator replaced because it leaks. A lot. The wall behind the radiator still has old wallpaper, which was on the walls before the grass wallpaper. We can't get behind it without disturbing the already leaking radiator. But for now, I just put my table in front of it and you hardly notice it.

The room is far from being finished (I need bookcases, more tables, filing cabinets, curtains, a rug, stuff on the walls...), but it's my favorite room in the house so far. I often find myself staring at the room from other rooms.. I just love it, especially in the morning! I didn't get a chance to clean the fireplace yet (there's a lot of smoke damage, and about $10 in pennies, inside the fireplace), but just the trim being repainted makes it looks so much cleaner and fresh.

Kitchen Demolition

Today with the help of my dad and uncle, we demolished our Kitchen. It felt great! I tell ya... if you're ever having a bad day and need to let off some steam, pick up a crowbar and tear down drywall! Great stress reliever! My uncle brought his saws-all and went a little crazy on the cabinets, so we had the nastiness out of the house in about an hour!

Of course, we found a couple unexpected things. The first being the open electrical box that was behind the dishwasher, with live wires sticking out of it. Lovely. Luckily we have an electrician coming in this week, so he'll take care of that for us. The dishwasher wasn't even hooked up to that.. it was hardwired through the floor (as was the stove). Again, it'll all be taken care of, thank God. Electrical stuff scares me.

Another minor problem we found was the floor beneath the sink cabinet. Not only was it disgusting and filled with dirt, acorns, toys, food wrappers, bottle caps, and BONES (mice and other larger somethings...), but the plywood was completely rotted. So we made our first Lowe's trip of the day and got some new plywood.

Next came tearing down the drywall. My dad kept trying to talk me out of it, but I'm glad I insisted on tearing it down. In all of the other rooms we've been leaving the plaster and/or drywall and just painting over it for now, due to our tight moving-in schedule. But in the Kitchen, the wallpaper was fused to the drywall and would not come off. No matter what we tried. And it was old and yucky, and I'm sorry, but Kitchens need to be clean (ok, according to me, everything needs to be clean, but Kitchens especially). There isn't a ton of drywall in the Kitchen because there are so many openings and the huge fireplace, so it wouldn't be that bad. As soon as all of the drywall was down and out of the house, everyone agreed with me. The horrible smell that had been in the Kitchen was now completely gone. The smell was probably a mixture of moldy drywall, mouse poop in the cabinets and the rotten floor. All of which are now in the backyard in a portable dumpster. And we got the pleasure of seeing what the walls in the Kitchen used to look like.... very very wide, very very detailed wood panels. Yet more proof of the Wilcox's wealth.

Old wallpaper, also showing where the original wall was (the back half of the house was originally split up into three rooms).

My backyard

And this is when we hit the major snag of the day. Electrical outlets. There weren't enough in the Kitchen, both for code requirements and for S's small appliance requirements.  So we had to call an electrician to run some new wires for a bunch of new GFCI outlets as well as outlets for the dishwasher, microwave/hood and stove. And why not throw in some new wall switches while we're at it. So here's the problem. It's the Saturday of Labor Day weekend. We're not going to get anyone in this weekend. So this ruins our plans. We had 3 days straight to work on the Kitchen and get it done, but now we have nothing we can do. We can't move forward with anything until the electrical is done (No drywall, no floor, no cabinets, no paint, no trim, etc, etc, etc).

So, you ask, what did we do? We found stuff to do (not hard to do in a 239 year old house). Today we decided to replace the one old window in the house. It was left, most likely, because it was a taller window, and the Kitchen cabinets had been installed right in front of it. Turns out, it was also open, letting in more smells and mice. Woohoo. Enter Lowe's trip #2 of the day. My dad and I went in search of a matching window, but in a shorter size, so that it would fit above the base cabinets. All we could find in that size were windows without an mullions, or with a 4/4 grid. I can't do that when the rest of the windows are 6/6 and it would be very very obvious if this one was different. So I set off wandering around the store looking for someone to help me (which never happened... one guy said the window guy was on his lunch break, and he'd send someone else over to help. No one ever showed up). On my way back to my dad I noticed a window on a cart in the back of the store. No label, but it appeared to be the correct size. After arguing over the windows some more, we decided to go look at doors instead (to replace the back door that is impossible to open). Now my dad sees the window, and discovers a tiny price tag on the top. It was a special order that was returned. Originally $239... we get it for $50! Now that's a great deal!

Before

After

The Kitchen at the end of the day

Office Wallpaper

Today the Office wallpaper came down. Pretty easily. But not cleanly. I'm just happy it's gone. Maybe that wallpaper was stylish and cool in the 60's, but not today. Even though the walls underneath are pretty gross looking, I'm still happy the wallpaper is gone. The room is already slightly brighter. I can't wait to start painting! Tonight I randomly chose a paint color while waiting for my mom at Lowe's. It's Lowe's brand paint, Valspar, color La Fonda Mirage. It's a blueish-green color, but very bright and cheerful. It's labeled as a National Trust Historic color, which made me feel like it was a good choice for this house. This picture below is sorta kinda close to the color. I love it!

The trim, beams, ceiling, fireplace, casing, doors, etc. will all be painted using a semi-gloss white paint.

Living Room Wallpaper

Today we worked together and tackled the Living Room. The wallpaper in the Living Room didn't come down as easily as the Dining Room wallpaper, but because both of us were working on it, we finished in about 4 hours. The walls underneath were not in good condition.  As I said in my last post, there are a lot of little holes around the room, which have sand pouring out of them if you touch them.  Some (maybe most) of the holes we caused with our putty knives when we were scraping wallpaper off.  The walls aren't cracked though, so we'd hate to tear them down and put up drywall. But plastering the room is something we don't have time for right now... there are more pressing problems that need to get fixed before we can move in. I'm a little upset about that... I had envisioned the Living Room as being the first room done. We'd clean it up and paint it, and then move in a couch and a TV, and have one clean, finished room to relax and eat in. We could close the doors and keep out the dust and construction debris and have a little sanctuary in the mess of a house. But now it looks like that isn't going to happen. Oh well..

The room has such nice woodwork (not as nice as the paneling in the Dining Room, but still very detailed), but it is all glopped up with many many years of paint. And it may be lead paint, but I'm pretty sure it isn't (we really need to get one of those test strip kits). Either way, we've decided to strip all of the paint in the room and repaint the trim, beams and fireplace. Now if only I could come up with paint colors for this room... Nothing looks right...

Wallpaper Removal

Today I mastered the art of removing wallpaper. Luckily for us, about 90% of the rooms in the house are wallpapered. I say lucky because removing the wallpaper exposes the original walls and we can assess their condition, and then paint the walls directly, rather than adding another layer of paint.

The one drawback? Neither of us had ever removed wallpaper before. We made a rookie's mistake and bought expensive wallpaper remover from Home Depot. We also purchased one of those large orange Home Depot buckets (a steal at $2.49), a wallpaper remover and a large pack of putty knives. The wallpaper remover was in a spray bottle, and very watery. I would spray it toward the top of the wall, and it would just drip all the way down. And if I sprayed it on top of the wallpaper, it wouldn't do a thing. I had to rip the wallpaper off, leaving the bottom layer of paper/glue, and then spray that. And I had to really get it soaked before it would scrape off. And did I mention how horrible it smelled?! Halfway through the room I had to go find a mask to wear it was so bad.

I did finish about 3/4 of the Dining Room though. The only spots remaining are in the corner where the sill damage is (I was afraid to stand there for too long.. it didn't look like it could support long term standing weight). It was a good room to start on because most of the room is paneling, windows, doors, fireplace, etc.

Dining Room built-in cabinet

Front Dining Room windows

Toward the end of the day, we ventured into the Living Room to assess those walls. Turns out, those won't be as easy. The Living Room walls (or at least what we uncovered today) are all original horsehair plaster. Taking off the bottom layer of paper/glue often resulted in making holes in the plaster and dry sand pouring out of the wall. The walls also are very textured. Not a nice texture, more rigid and bumpy. Which is to be expected for 239 year old walls. They didn't have the tools back then to make them perfectly smooth. Due to the holes (existing and new) and texture, we'll most likely be putting a skim coat of plaster on these walls. I'd much rather do that than tear it all down and replace it with drywall.

Living Room fireplace

Living Room wall