Let there be Light, Part II

As my husband said today, our house is looking more like a home: we have electricity and light fixtures at last.

Yesterday, my mother-in-law and I primed the living room ceiling in preparation for the new fixture going in there.  The primer dripped in my hair and my face and also spattered all over the floor even though we had drop cloths everywhere.  Still, the primer somehow managed to land in the sliver of uncovered floor, which meant we had to stop and scrub the floor about every five brush strokes.  But it's done. That ceiling in particular was in serious need of primer, as a lot of water stains from the leaking roof showed through the plaster.  

Remember this?

I now recall from past experiences how terrible it is to do any work on a ceiling (specifically, the ceiling we wallpapered in our last home…but it did look amazing when it was done).  My mom swore she would never assist me again in wallpapering a ceiling, but these are the stuff memories are made of, right Mom?

Here's the peek of some fixtures installed today:

Dining room

Kitchen pendant

Den

Living room

Also, I think I finally found the kitchen cabinet hardware:

Atlas Homewares Distressed collection medium pull

Continental Home Hardware White Ceramic and Oil-Rubbed Bronze Lever Pull

Moving day is next weekend and there is still so much on my to-do list.  This weekend I hope to finish painting the trim upstairs.  Tonight I finished scrubbing down all the door hardware.  It's hard to prioritize what needs to be done when it feels like everything needs to be done....

The Miracle of Sandpaper

This post is dedicated to the person who invented sandpaper.  You are truly a genius.  

I went to the house on Saturday morning to choose a stain color.  The decision was a lot harder than I had anticipated…I mean, I can't mess this choice up or I will regretfully live with it FOREVER.  Lots of pressure.

I was so excited when I got to the house because most of the floor sanding had already been done.  Here's what I saw when I arrived:

Living room

Sunroom

Den

I went upstairs and the maple floors up there looked almost brand new:

The guys put down 6 different stains: some too red, some too dark, some too yellow.  Here's what the process looked like:

I debated for some time between the two on the left and had my paint samples there to help me choose. Ultimately, I chose the darker of the two because there are some stains on the floor and I figured the darker stain would give me a little more coverage.  I hoped it wouldn't be too dark...

All day long, I was itching to get back to the house to see how the floors turned out.  I went there tonight and loved them!  Perfect amount of patina.  

Sunroom

Baby's room

Den

I had to choose 2 different stain colors because there's oak in the front of the house and maple in the back and upstairs.  Here's how the transition worked out:

                 

Here's some progress shots of the dining/living room & back bedroom:

Also, I chose the countertop!

Sorry for the glare...darn fluorescent lights

To Paint or Not to Paint

[First of all, thanks for all the encouragement I received during my panic attack last week.  I have decided to proceed with life as a mature and well-adjusted human being.]  

It seems like there is always a debate with older homes: to refinish the original woodwork or to paint it? Our last home in the same neighborhood had pristine woodwork in most parts of the home, which I never considered painting.  

Our new home has woodwork in fairly good condition, but I have decided to paint the woodwork on the upper level.  This project began on Friday evening, but I didn't make much progress that night.  The prep work itself took about 3.5 hours.  This work involved scraping the top of the baseboard to remove the plaster/sanding mess; next, scraping the inner crevice of the baseboard, which has been compacted with years of grime; then, scraping the top of the base layer of molding to remove more grime; and finally, scraping the floor to remove the compacted dust and debris.  After that process was complete, I swept the mess away from the baseboards so the dust wouldn't get into my paint job.

The "before" condition of the baseboards

After that job was done, then I moved onto removing the millions of hooks from the closet.  Some of the screws were badly stripped, which made the removal of the hooks, well, interesting.  Also, I removed the hinge plates from the door frames and put each hinge into a labeled bag so that I would return the hinge plates to the rightful door.  

*Whew.*

Then I was ready to paint.   

I got the first coat of primer on in one part of one room and quit around midnight. The next morning, I returned to the mess around 8:45a and painting for 15 hours,  people.  Keep in mind that the house has no plumbing and no toilets.  But also keep in mind that Greg had taken the girls out of town for the weekend and I don't know when an opportunity to work continuously like that will happen again. And also keep in mind that I am a woman in the middle of a severe nesting crisis and was bound and determined not to let little things, like hydrating myself, get in the way of the work that I was doing.  I made a lot of headway and by late, late Saturday evening, I had all the woodwork upstairs primed (one coat).  I felt proud, although my knees were bruised from kneeling and my hand that held the paint brush was swollen.    

I decided to leave the window sashes unpainted.  I think that the wood allows the leaded glass to pop a bit more.  I have to sand and refinish the wood sashes, but that is a project for another year.  Here's some shots showing one coat of primer:

.

I returned on Monday, armed with three children, a caulking gun, a laptop and a giant pail of animal crackers.  I was hoping to get all the gaps caulked before putting on the paint.  I put on a movie for the girls on the laptop, gave them the pail of crackers, and hoped for the best.  I strapped my two year old into a portable highchair so that she would be immobilized, but she figured out how to crawl around with the chair strapped to her back and bottom.  She is as determined as her mother, I suppose.  But all things considered, the kiddos did well and I got most of the caulking done.

Today, I painted some more with my mom and mother-in-law and we finished the second coat of primer on all the woodwork and began priming all doors.  I wanted to take the lazy way out and paint around all the doorknobs, plates, and hinges, but it just looked ridiculous.  So I removed all of the hinges, plates, knobs, and hardware because this is a job that I never, NEVER want to do again and I want to get it right the first time. As of now, most of the doors are primed with one coat and the second coat may be going on tomorrow.  

One coat of primer

We took all the hardware home and cleaned it up. I am so glad we did because the knobs really needed a good scrubbing.  We also discovered that the hooks are solid copper after scrubbing the layers of tarnish off.  I love surprises like that.  I need to find a good product that will remove all the tarnish to expose the copper.   Here's the hooks and knobs after a good scrubbing:

The carpenter was there today to patch the wood floors where the radiators used to be and also to fill in the back room where the floor was severely water damaged.  Here's what it looked like this afternoon:

On Friday and through the weekend, the floors will be sanded.  This feels like the moment I've been waiting for:  the house will look so much better after a good sanding.  I am meeting the stain guy on Saturday morning to choose the stain color for the floor.  Also, the piano is now residing in the kitchen and is precariously balanced on blocks of wood to make way for the sanders .  (Let's hope for the best).

It's been a busy week and I am covered in paint that won't come off my hands and arms despite my vigorous handwashing.  Color me happy.

The Hardware Dilemma

I have a dilemma. A first world problem, really, but a problem nonetheless.

I chose antique brass sconces for over the kitchen window to coordinate with bronze and brass pendants for over the stove.  I originally was going to get the coordinating brass faucet to tie in the brass until I realized that the one I wanted was….twelve hundred dollars.  Not rupees, dollars.  (I have great taste).

I decided to go with a brushed nickel faucet, mainly because I figured that a nickel faucet would blend better into a light countertop and wouldn't be in competition with the brass sconces.  In my many sleepless nights given over to thinking about kitchen fixtures, I realized that an oil rubbed bronze faucet would draw more attention to the disparity in the finish between the brass light directly above the faucet.  Clearly, I have spent too much time thinking about this.

Here's the fixtures I chose:

Brizo Tresa Bridge faucet in Stainless

Visual Comfort Boston Library Sconce in hand rubbed bronze

David Hicks pendant 

I have been hardware shopping this week and I don't know if I should choose the oil rubbed bronze finish or a weathered nickel finish.  Do I try to tie in the bronze from the pendants or the nickel from the faucet?!?!

Here's the case for bronze:

And here's the case for nickel:

While I was out yesterday, I did find a pull that I liked.  It's simple, and has a bit o' bronze in with the nickel.  Or perhaps I should just decide on one or the other and stop all this in-between nonsense?

What say you?  Oil rubbed bronze or nickel hardware ?