Living Room & Dining Room: Trim Renewal

The former state of the beautiful mahogany trim in the living room and dining room is probably responsible for two of my white hairs. I knew that sanding the trim would take away its patina, yet I didn't know how we could address the paint splatters and water damage without some sanding. And the holes! What do we do about all of those holes? Over the years, many different window coverings were utilized and most of them were mounted directly into the trim.

We decided that our best course of action was to talk to the experts. We took a short piece of trim from behind the front door to a local shop that specializes in stains and paint. The associate instructed us to clean the paint splatters using Krud Kutter and a light abrasive such as a scrub sponge or tooth brush. If the paint didn't respond to the cleaner, we could dab a rang into lacquer thinner and hold it on the offending spot for 10 or 15 seconds and then wipe it away. If not successful with the lacquer thinner, we could lightly sand the spot with 220 grit sand paper being careful to sand just the surface. Then, once perfectly clean and dry, apply several coats of linseed oil. That's it! Although I say, "that's it!", it was really no easy task. We worked on that trim for hours and days and wore the skin off our poor little fingers.

Before (bottom) and after (top).

The cleaning brightened the wood to a shining honey-tone. Black gunk had gathered in the groove of the trim profile, likely from fireplace and cigarette smoke from over the years. Nick diligently worked with various tiny tools to clean the grooves.

Sill: before.	Sill: after.

The sills were an exception to the rule. They HAD to be sanded to level out the warping from the water damage. The sanding helped to reduce the black stains from the water damage. However, in spots where sanding wasn't enough, we very gently applied a bleaching agent that we purchased from the wood stain experts. The result was quite pleasing! The sills may have come out slightly lighter than the other trim, but really not noticeably so.

Oh, and the holes? I patched them with a soft wood filler. You'll only notice them if you look very closely.

Do you see holes?

Living Room & Dining Room: Texturing...OR Cracking Up About Walls

Goodness, friends! Apologies for the delay in posting. In real-time, Christmas preparation and travel kept us occupied for the last two weeks. I hope you were also sufficiently busy and didn't notice my absence.

Continuing on...with the ceilings renewed, the walls were next on the list. Adding texture in the bedrooms and hallway was relatively easy since they were previously smooth. For the living room and dining room, we were challenged to attempt to match the existing heavy texture in places where the plaster required repair. Either side of the fireplace had cracked badly. We ended up scraping off a large amount of loose plaster on the right side (bottom circle on left photo--that's just the start of the scraping). I primed the area and applied the first course of drywall mud and then Nick took over and made it look nice.

Hard to see, but these are cracked areas.	Repaired!

In our earlier texturing, we used a crow's feet brush to create the desired look. Our plaster guy tipped us off that the texture in the living room was created by squishing two drywall hawks together with mud in between and then pulling them apart and applying the hawk to the wall and knocking it down with a trowel. After some practice, Nick came up with a technique that was as close as we could come. As I recall, we didn't knock down at all. Instead, once the patched area dried, Nick gently wiped it with a damp sponge.

Textured, no knock-down.	Lightly sponged.

I can still tell where the repairs are, but it doesn't plague me. It's certainly much better than having cracks or living without sufficient electrical outlets. And, to stand back and take in the entire room, a person probably wouldn't focus on these areas.

Living Room and Dining Room: Look Up!

You'll remember that Nick did the ceiling skim coating in both bedrooms. He did a fine job, but it was difficult and we anticipated that the cove ceilings in the living room and dining room would be particularly hard, especially given the severity of cracking in the plaster. We got a few price estimates and ended up selecting a guy who had strong Yelp reviews and also happened to be the low bidder (bonus!). As you may well know by now, I'm the "unskilled labor" half of this marriage, so it was on my list to dig out the plaster cracks and prime the ceiling. This prep work would save us a fair amount of money. I covered up my hair to protect from the falling plaster sand and took a selfie for documentation purposes. I think I look a bit like a man in this photo. It reminds me of my brother, which is weird.

Clinton? Is that you?

The guy we hired to do the repair prided himself on having done all the plaster work in a very famous local musician's house (ahem...Eddie Vedder). He brought a photo album of his work, explaining that Mr. Vedder didn't want to have any corners in his house...none. So every possible 90 degree angle was altered into a sweeping curve. It was really neat!

What happened here?

The result of the work was absolutely stunning. With the cracks repaired, the room stopped screaming. It said, "Thank you, let's all take a nap now." Nick scrutinized the work with his sharp eye and improved the repair just above the picture rail. Our hired man had worked quickly and the final bill was even lower than the bid. He had completed a long week on another previous job and was anxious to give his body a rest. That meant some extra effort on our part, but since we had more time than money, the arrangement suited us well. After Nick's QA work, we primed the ceiling using the soupy, but fantastic, shellac primer.

Living Room & Dining Room: Before

Prior to moving into the house, we wisely employed a company to remove the "popcorn" texture from the cove ceilings in the living room and dining room. The removal process is relatively easy--you spray the texture with water and then it scrapes right off. Since we weren't certain what we were dealing with, we sent a sample of the texture to a lab that confirmed it contained asbestos. As such, we felt it prudent to hire professionals who could also dispose of the waste appropriately. As with many changes this house incurred over the years, we were left wondering, "Why...WHY would you put a texture on beautiful cove ceilings?" Once the job was done, our question was answered.

Cracked ceiling.

The ceiling was badly cracked! There was a grid of cracks running both east/west and north south. Texturing the ceiling was probably someone's easy solution to a much bigger problem. For us, the repair of the ceiling would have to wait its turn. Upgrading the electrical would come before the ceiling since it would likely cause some damage to the plaster. In the above photo, you'll see that we had recessed lighting installed. I was afraid that the recessed lights would detract from the authenticity of the renovation, but I actually love them. Lighting can transform a space and in dark fall and winter days, it warms the room.

Icky trim.	Water damaged window sill.

During prior paintings, the living room and dining room trim had not been protected and was splattered with specks of paint. Additionally, since the house had been vacant for a few years prior to our ownership, the windows on the south side of the house began to rot and warp, causing the sills to sustain water damage. How would we fix this? Mahogany changes color as it ages and it wouldn't be possible to just slap on some new wood and have it match. Some of the grooves in the wood were deep and I was concerned that it couldn't be saved.

To be continued...

Christmas Spirit

Several years ago, I pushed hard to landscape the front yard in the fall for the sole purpose of putting up Christmas lights. Nick complied with my request, though I'm certain he thought I was irrational. Other posts will cover the landscaping, this one is just about Christmas spirit.

Christmas - 2015

The first Christmas with lights included red lights in the dogwood tree and Japanese maple, green lights in the Italian cypresses flanking the house, and white lights along the roof line.

Christmas - 2016

In 2016, we decided to give the rapidly growing dogwood and maple trees trunks of white, using the red lights only in the branches. We also added white lights to the little weeping yellow cypress** under the front window. We bought a little Christmas tree from the Boy Scout Troop 100, which we put in our TV room (front bedroom). This was our first tree together (married 7 years at the time).

Christmas 2017

The 2017 house has added lights in the front windows and a Christmas tree in the living room.

Front Window	Christmas Tree

We hope the 2018 Christmas will include the perfect tree topper and tree skirt. It has not been easy to find just the right things! How many years until we have a Griswold house?

**Actual name of "weeping yellow cypress" may vary.

Front Bedroom: This is Home

A neglected house is a bit like a neglected animal--although you might have compassion, you don't just want to cuddle up to a dog with fleas and mange. Looking around the front bedroom, I wasn't at home, but gazing out the window with the morning sun streaming in, I imagined that I could feel at home here.

Among the first things done, the windows were replaced. I stripped and sanded the trim, and we dug out the cracks in the plaster for repair.

Things get worse before better.

We even replaced the window in the closet. It was a little removable fellow with a latch and a chain, but the clear single pane glass wasn't practical, and it wasn't necessary to be able to open this particular window. Although you can't quite tell from the photo (below right), we replaced it with a frosted glass window.

	Shoe storage!

Do recall the attic ladder project. Here's where we patched the old access hole:

The patch.	Leave no trace.

By now you know the routine: patching the plaster cracks, skim coating the ceiling, sanding, sanding, texturing, priming, painting. Crammed into a single sentence like that, it sounds like a breeze. Trust me, it took us many moons.

Cozy.

This is home.