mathew’s thanksgiving week

mathew took last week off work and got a lot done on the house.

as he was scraping away paint and wallpaper he found this interesting wallpaper border above a door frame and wanted to add another one to replace it. this restoration has been all about keeping the original details of the house. i’m not sure how i feel about more wallpaper but we’ll see…

there’s something really beautiful about the bare original plaster. mathew loves the mellow, variations in color. it looks like old walls in europe.

the next step was filling in gaps with gypboard then using plaster washers to hold on loose plaster. and next was the pink plaster weld paint, to hold the plaster to the surface.

and then plaster! all of this happened while i was in my office through that plastic door next to the front door.

another project mathew has been working on is creating a router table from an old table saw stand he had. he finally got to use it in making the entry window frame more decorative.

recently mathew’s mom was questioning mathew’s “vacation” time spent on the house, i guess she didn’t find it very restful, but working on the house is all mathew thinks about, it’s all he really wants to do. he isn’t the type of person to watch television (ever!) or sit and read a book or paint or draw. he was incredibly happy last week and this week, back at work, he’s incredibly grumpy…

flooring fiasco

i’d been feeling so overwhelmed lately that i forgot to mention the flooring delivery disaster i dealt with the week before thanksgiving…

so, we were expecting a delivery of wood flooring from fedex freight. they scheduled a 3 hour window with me and didn’t show up till the very last minute as the sun was setting. so, it was late and cold and the truck was as big as a house. our wood was the very last delivery so it was jammed into the opposite end of the truck and difficult to remove. it was also a huge pile of wood but fred the fedex guy was patient and managed to get it out of the truck and onto the ground in one piece. both of us thought it was a lot of wood but the delivery schedule listed our name, address and shipment of 1100 pounds of red oak flooring so we didn’t question it.

fred tried to push it up the driveway into the garage but the slope was too extreme for the weight of the wood. so we took the package apart and fred wheeled all 50+ boxes of wood into the garage on a hand truck. i did what i could to help load and unload the hand truck. when the work was done it was very dark and we were glad it was over.

when mathew came home he said it was the wrong wood and about 3 times too much of it. then fred called and said it was the wrong shipment. we had received over 3000 pounds of maple flooring.

the next day robert the fedex guy showed up with another giant truck and a smaller pile of wood, but no lift gate to get it out of the truck, which is about 4 feet off the ground. i asked him if he would be taking the incorrect shipment out of our garage first and he didn’t know what i was talking about. i just about cried right there on the street. after begging me not to cry and a long conversation with a dispatcher he decided to leave the correct shipment and fred would return to pick up the incorrect wood later that day. of course because he didn’t have a lift gate he had to load and unload the wood (not in boxes this time) onto a hand truck and stack it in the garage. fred arrived after dark and so did mathew and together they packed up the incorrect shipment to send it on its way.

i’m not sure if you’re really feeling my pain, it hadn’t started out as the most relaxing week and my work was already suffering. luckily the fedex guys were super sweet (as all delivery guys seem to be.) they could have (should have) left the deliveries on the sidewalk but they did whatever they could to make life easier for me. robert even gave me a pep talk about not skipping thanksgiving and told me i could purchase entire thanksgiving meals from whole foods or bi-rite if necessary. in the end i’m glad i didn’t skip thanksgiving, it turned out to be a really nice day with family. and now we have quarter sawn red oak for the downstairs living room and hall/entry.

(left) this is half of the flooring in the garage and (right) half of it in the downstairs living room getting acclimatized to its new environment. i wish i had taken photos of the monster pile of maple, but at the time it just wasn’t funny; i couldn’t look at it.

house monsters

it’s funny (or not!) how it really does have to get ugly before it gets pretty.

(left) stripping paint. (right) stripping more paint.

we now have two heat guns! last weekend the original heat gun died so mathew bought another one. and during the week he successfully fixed the broken one. and then there were two. now we can both strip paint at the same time. yay! more paint fumes!

(left) removing anaglypta in the entry. (right) stripping adhesive in the built-in hall cabinet.

(left) mathew built me this little paint stripping cove to protect my office from dust, paint chips and fumes. (right) and look, here i am doing more paint stripping! (big surprise.)

(left) the anaglypta in the entry was pretty badly damaged by a leak. (right) mold was hiding under the anaglypta.

(left) mathew took over the anaglypta and wallpaper removal in the entry while i moved on to finishing the paint stripping on the built-in cabinet. (right) this is what we looked like all weekend. actually, i pretty much wear the respirator mask all weekend, every weekend. whenever mark’s girlfriend, atsuko sees me she laughs; i guess it’s a pretty funny sight. and she’s started calling us “house monsters.” yes, we are creatures who lurk around, destroying things, making bad smells, loud noises and causing chaos.

where were we..?

we are so behind in posts that this one is actually from 2 weekends ago!

so, my “clever system” for holding up the medallion overnight wasn’t so clever because the unsupported edges drooped. i came up with another “clever system” of attaching a piece of wood to the center of the metal light fixture box. (right) ta da! the unpainted medallion.

(left) mathew sanding the ceiling, it’s the nicest, smoothest ceiling by far. (right) me stripping paint, what i spend the majority of my weekends doing.

(left) mathew made two saw horses to help in installing the crown moulding in the downstairs living room. while we worked together mathew stood on the saw horse platform while i stood on the tall ladder. (right) here mathew is attaching backing pieces of wood for the crown moulding.

(left) cutting the first layer of crown moulding. (right) holding the first piece in place.

(left) we had a brief interruption as my parents and older brother stopped by to help us move our new refrigerator from the garage and up two flights of stairs. the process was a little stressful so there are no photos of the actual move. (right) the old refrigerator leaving.

(left) my dad being goofy. (right) the new refrigerator is 4 inches narrower (!) than the old one but it was the only model that would fit up our stairs. and it’s an energy star model, so it’s earth friendly.

(left) back to crown moulding installation. (right) mathew cutting the final pieces by hand. these final pieces overlay the earlier pieces and because they’re grooved and set at an angle it takes some clever cutting and assembling to get it all to lay just right.

the rest of the weekend was spent paint stripping and prepping for plaster and paint. hopefully i can create another post before thanksgiving. mathew is home this week so there’s lots of progress…

on vacation

i took the week off work to try to make things go faster. it has been quite successful. so far, i’ve done two more skim coats on the ceiling.

skim coating the ceiling

i’ve also plastered the remaining two walls in the entry hallway. above right, i’m plastering the wall that’s westmost in the entry hallway. that’s the door to the entry foyer and front door.

second wall completed plaster, looking into entry foyerlooking towards living room, final wall

after plastering that wall in the morning, i moved onto the last wall in the afternoon. i can never judge how much plaster to mix; i always mix too little. you are supposed to coat the whole wall, then double back and put a second coat from the same mix. if you do that, the plaster behaves a lot better, it’s easier to smooth, and it is much more predictable and strong. it’s all supposed to be out of the same mix, and the plaster sets in 20 minutes. yep, gotta move really fast.

looking towards kitchen and living room, with last wall to be plastered on the rightmathew putting plaster on the wall above the door

in the living room, i added a junction box where there were just two wires sticking out of the ceiling (for the light). then, this evening, janeen and i installed the medallion. i put glue on the back side, then fit it up around the junction box.

there are two tricky parts: getting the medallion aligned with the room, and holding it up while the glue sets. janeen came up with a really clever system; we put bubble wrap over a bucket, then set the bucket on top of the ladder, and spaced it up with a box and some pieces of wood.

temporary support for the medalion while glue sets

starting plaster

This weekend we did quite a lot. The old anaglypta, while quite nice, was rather badly damaged, and had so many coats of paint, it was difficult to see the pattern. janeen took some photos (the color was white — something funny with the incandescent bulb made it look orange…)

so we bought some new anaglypta wall paper, but have to remove the old stuff first. a multi step process. at first, we tried using the heat gun. slow and messy. then i attacked it with a scraper. the paper separated in the middle leaving a layer of paper on the wall. we then used wallpaper remover to get down to the plaster.

removing the paper that was still stuck

above right, janeen painted all the walls with pink plasterweld. she kept finding more loose paint, and so eventually almost every square inch of walls had been scraped clear of paint. i think janeen made two full garbage bags full of paint scrapings from this one room alone. i sanded all the walls and ceiling, and washed the walls and ceiling with tsp.

hallway ceiling with plaster washers for support

here you can se the state of the ceiling. all the little dots are plaster washers. i probably put up more than 200 plaster washers on the ceiling and on the walls. in the pictures below, i’m adding tape along all the cracks. took a long time to tape around a circle. lots of little pieces of tape.

this is the first of three skim coats of lighweight joint compound that i put on the ceiling. it’s starting to look more even.

we then finished preparing the walls for plastering, and we plastered the wall between our hallway and the entry hallway. janeen likes the shadows…

last weekend

countdown to grandma: 8 weeks

last weekend we declined two parties to work on the house. we thought it would be all about plaster prep and plaster, but as we’ve learned, this house often has many surprises and nothing is ever THAT simple…

early on saturday morning we found that the top two+ layers of paint chipped off rather easily…

so instead of sanding and prepping for plaster we found that we needed to scrape loose paint from the walls and ceiling.

we found that the beige layer had a waxed coating that released the paint quite easily. we’re wondering how many gallons of paint we’ve removed… before we plaster/repair these walls we’ll have to sand and clean with TSP to remove the weird coating. mathew had to go to work on saturday afternoon so i spent the day and evening scraping and stripping paint.

on sunday morning mathew began by working on the front door which i had started stripping the day before. there had been many locks added and changed over the last 94 years so the door frame was full of weird holes, cuts, repairs and plaster. and the door never closed that easily.

mathew filled the extra holes with wood and bondo and sanded the frame to make it one solid piece again.

next mathew worked on running wires within the walls instead of along the outside of the trim (that always bugged us!) this spot with the thermostat was tricky, we needed to fish a wire from downstairs in the garage and bring it up through this hole. the only problem was it had to come up through holes in wood inside of the wall that we couldn’t see, and they weren’t in a straight line! mathew had seen this technique in his electrical book that he wanted to try. so, in the garage, mathew was pushing a hooked wire up into the space right below the hole (shown left) while i was up here with a “fishing reel” trying to catch the wire and pull it up and through the hole, all while yelling to each other through the floor. i really didn’t think it was possible, but it worked!

next mathew moved on to creating another switch and outlet at the kitchen entrance, using quite possibly the noisiest tool ever.

while mathew worked on his switch and outlet i continued scraping and stripping paint.

and all of this time there was the crazy annual day of the dead parade going by outside of our house. mark and atsuko watched the entire thing from the front steps. mathew and i sneaked out to watch some of it but continued working through the noise and chaos.

hope everyone had a fun halloween! and day of the dead is over but it’s always good to remember and celebrate those we have lost.

more late nights

early in the week mathew spent his evenings outside painting the repaired exterior. he knew rain was coming and wanted to get everything sealed before it started.

photo taken from the upstairs kitchen.

the rain started this afternoon and now mathew is putting in late nights at the office.

late nights and a birthday

countdown to grandma: 9 weeks

saturday was a steady work day. progress with few photos.

(left) second entrance, exterior before. (right) mathew caulking siding gaps after scraping old paint.

mathew spent most of his weekend outside on the ladder, (right) and up on the roof after a small scaffold was made. i spent most of saturday stripping interior trim paint.

on sunday mathew started by prepping areas that i would work on. (left) drilling a hole for wiring to come through the wall from upstairs. (right) mathew removing paneling in the stairwell leading to the garage.

(left) i spent sunday making this built-in cabinet pretty again. (right) mathew working above the second entrance.

i added insulation. strange stuff with plastic instead of paper.

(left) my cabinet with new gypboard. (right) late night painting. the neighbor came by and asked “when do you sleep?” it didn’t feel that late but it was COLD. mathew should be wearing a sweatshirt…

it was a late night, and mathew’s birthday! we had dinner after 10pm and vegan ice cream for dessert.

happy anniversary to us

this is what our 6th wedding anniversary looked like… but i’m not complaining, i was working till after 8pm myself. i think it’s amazing how hardworking mathew has been, how much he loves working on his house and how motivated he is to have my grandmother move in.