Home Improvement Week 2009

Due to the crappy economy I am required to take a week of unpaid time off this year. So I've decided to make the best of things and tackle the guest room, the current price holder for the ugliest room in our home. Current goal is to remove the paneling and ceiling tiles and to begin the process of reconditioning the windows by getting the frames and sashes stripped. Hopefully I'll be able to get more done but without knowing the condition of the underlying walls and ceiling it's difficult to know what kind of challenge awaits.

Stairs Updated Photos

Chris installed the final trim for the stairs this past week here are the updated pics.

Here are the stairs with the yellow paint and the repainted grate.

Here is the new attic entrance. Sure beats the heck out of that old piece of paneling.

Back into the game

It's been awhile but we are back to working on the house. We did do a few random projects over the winter. Chris worked on getting his workshop set up and I finished up the door for the bathroom which was one of the hold overs from the kitchen project. I'll have to post about that one later as it was necessary to do some minor repairs to get the bathroom door in order.

This most recent burst of home improvement mojo is due to refinancing, a 2% drop in interest rate was just way to good to pass up. Especially when the mortgage lady thinks the kitchen remodel may jump up the home's value by 10,000. We shall see, but at any rate I want the stairs to be nice and complete because every little bit helps.

Anyways on to the pictures.

Here is what the stairs looked like in March of 2007, it's frightening but this project has been going on for 2 years. Yikes! I guess we let this one spiral a bit out of control.

And here is what they looked like after the removal of the paneling and carpet. Not bad but the tack strip removal and years of carpet encapsulation definitely was a bit rough on them. On a side note look at those awful kitchen walls. It's true what they say it definitely gets worse before it gets better.

After stripping, cleaning, sanding, and 3 coats of Waterlox over the past 3 days they look like this. I'm pretty excited that whatever the next project it won't involve hanging out on the stairs.
Paint will go on over the course of this next week. I'm looking forward to it. It's going to be nice to finally have this wrapped up.

a quick update

We have more or less taken a break to enjoy the house and the new kitchen. Now that winter is coming quickly we are working on getting our workshops in the basement.

Slowly Plugging Away on the Back Hall

I was able to get the bead board and trim stained this past weekend using the new technique of the alcohol dye. I'm pretty happy with the results the color isn't as vibrant as the dyed shellac but the tone is much more even and it's far easier to work with.

Before we removed the Vinyl flooring from the back hall my plan was to just paint the back steps I figured they would be in horrible condition and it wouldn't be worth the time to ready them for a clear finish. Then I would have added some sand to the tread to keep people slipping with wet feet.

Turns out the stairs other than some damage from the metal tips the stairs were in rather good condition. So I decided to stain and clear coat them however I was still concerned about them being slick so I did a little online research and found out that you could at a clear sand like material to the clear coat to give the stairs some grip I called around and found this http://www.hcconcrete.com/products/solid-color-stains/Shark_Grip_Slip_Resistant_Additive/index.jsp at Sherwin Williams I mixed it in with Waterlox and rolled it onto the stair treads. It's barley noticeable when looking straight on which is really nice. But still gives you that grit that keeps you from riding down the stairs on your keester.

Here is one of the treads with the Clear Coat and SharkGrip

Tonight I'm going to apply another coat then one or two on Saturday and it should be it for the stairs then it's time for paint!

Back from the Hiatus

I'm happy to say that even though we have not posted to the web in awhile we did manage to get a lot done. We have the kitchen to a 99.9% finish point.

Here is the way it looked in May of 2006 when we bought the house.

And here it is this past weekend.
We have also been working on getting the back hall ready for paint. The back hall needed a lot of patching I think that is where the apprentice plaster was at work the plaster is thin and brittle especially around the ceiling area so when they put up the paneling it just got destroyed.

We also removed the carpeting from the living room, dining room, and upstairs sitting room.


All of the floors were in relatively good condition however the living room and dining rooms have rug outlines in the center of the rooms which I thought may be the case considering the age of the house. We bought a rug for the living room and are waiting on the dining room for the time being. It still looks better than that carpet looked towards the end, ick!

We are in the kitchen

Well we are in the kitchen now and it's great to be able to cook on an actual stove and not have to run up and down stairs to eat. We still do not have a pantry but I'm working on fixing that. I need to finish the cabinet for the pantry.

The cabinet is going pretty well I was going to do one piece, but at 89" tall, 20" deep, and 33" wide it is a bit to large to fit in the pantry assembled and assembling it in the pantry will probably compromise it's integrity, so i chopped it in half. Now i have a 35" tall by 20" deep by 33" wide base cabinet and an upper cabinet which means that I can assemble them in the basement and just mount them to the wall when finished.

The deer have been in the Hostas which is a pain. I just need to remember to use liquid fence, it seems to keep them away, but only last a week or so.

I have some pictures of the garden and the cabinet which i will post later.



I will post pictures soon