The Last Four Years of My Life.

Every so often I look through the old pictures of this place to remind me of how it used to look. Then I think about what I could have done with my time if I didn't have this place to work on. The answer is always the same. If I didn't do this, I wouldn't have what I have. I could have done what many folks do and drank an excessive amount of beer and absorb a whole lot of television in the same time but after three episodes the "Gerry Springer Show" becomes a blur.

So, if you are ever feeling overwhelmed by your own renovation work, just think, someone, somewhere is worse off than you AND that someone could well be me....

Here is a reminder of where I was in October 4 years ago, three years ago and 2 years ago.

I've come a long way, Baby!

Ready for Another Bash!

For those of you who remember my "Matching Pair" of fingernails from April. Well, here they are a mere five months later. Aren't they in fine pristine condition? You know what that means? It's time to start some more hammering!

Maybe if I make enough noise my pigeons will go away. (Maybe if I put a ceiling on my balcony the pigeons will go away sooner....)

The Epitome of Bad Taste!







We took Elizabeth to Columbus Zoo today. When we left we stopped at a store called "Garden Ridge" and looked at all the "Made in China" future land fill products they had to offer. Among them was this for $150.00. It sings six tunes.

For $150.00 I would expect it to wash windows, wax floors and scrub the bathtub! I hope that anyone reading this doesn't have the misfortune of "inheriting" one of these for Christmas!

My Door is telling stories

Our house originally had 2-panel doors throughout. However, there are only 5 of them left. One separates our bedroom from the bathroom. The doorway was made sometime after the house was built because the molding is different and projects into both rooms. Original molding is flush with the plaster walls and closed doors were flush with one side of the molding.
The door tells it's own story. Now 34 inches wide, it was originally 36 inches wide and occupied the doorway between our dining room and what we call the cottage living room but was the original kitchen to the house. I know this because one side of the door was painted green and the other side was given a coat of shellac. Each vertical edge had 1" trimmed off exposing the tenon joints and exposing raw wood that was painted over (making stripping harder). This picture verifies the story. The mortise lock was moved to adjust for the cut sides.




This was not a simple task because this is the lock and each section has it's own mortise! Ever seen one like this?

An affair with Joint Compound!

I hate textured walls and rough textured ceilings. Texture is usually added to obscure or cover cracks in plaster. I prefer smooth walls and smooth or lightly textured ceilings. Unfortunately the "Old Crackhouse" lives up to it's name. It really is old and cracked!

This week I have been smoothing the walls in what will be our bedroom. They were smooth to begin with but had some really nasty settling cracks and a bunch of divits where nails had been driven into the plaster which is applied directly over the brick walls.

This is the ninth room which I have had to smooth the walls and ceiling. I am getting REALLY good at it. I don't even need to finish by sanding the walls any more! I have gone through so many 5 gallon buckets of joint compound over the last couple of years I have lost count. The bedroom has only needed two buckets and a small part of a third. Most of our rooms require 4 or 5 buckets.
Today I applied "Top Coat" to the ceiling of the bedroom and bathroom with a medium nap paint roller. This produces a fine texture to the ceiling and saved me hours of time trying to make the ceiling smooth while at the same time covering the smoothed over joints and cracks.

While I was at it, I even smoothed out the walls in the closet! Don't ask me why.

OOOH OOOH Gotta get me one of these!

I'm back to stripping paint in the bedroom so that I can finish smoothing out the walls in case anyone thought I wasn't doing any work around here! In the meantime, I came across this in case anyone was remodelling their bathroom and wanted one. If I hadn't put all that tile in and all those shower heads I could quite easily consider this as a period alternative. What do you think?
Water tower sold separately.

A Builder in the Family?

Elizabeth has a new boyfriend! They met at Wal-Mart. I understand he is quite well known and owns his own construction company. He took her out for a ride this evening. She is quite infatuated with him at the moment. He owns earth moving equipment too. I could approve of this relationship. One problem though, batteries not included....