Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Why stop with the bedroom?

So we decided that while it was still nice out, we'd get the flooring out so we weren't dragging the bags of demo materials to the curb in the snow.  So...here's the results from the hallway:

Before...this is before we closed looking towards the living room


And the progress



I bet this is a new one for most people.  At some point, someone found the rot in the floor.  Rather than fix everything, they...poured concrete in the rotted area.  Yup.  Concrete.



All the rotted stuff is out, this is the concrete slab we sit on.


The floor


Mold on the wall.  The tub leaked.  For a LOOONNNGGG time.



Took out the moldy drywall.  You can see the long standing water damage.



This is one spot where the water ran down.


I have treated all of the mold with vinegar.

We didn't stop with the hall.  Major props go to Mr Eclectic for this part-he did all of the linoleum removal in the dining room and kitchen.

This was the dining room before we moved in.  It was faux wood adhesive "planks"  The enterprising person that laid it did so end to end rather than staggering the joints.  It looked ridiculous.


You can see the floor that was below it in this picture, it was worn but kind of fun-faux brick.  Too bad it had MAJOR adhesive (the black stuff all over the floor below).  That'll be "fun" to remove.




This is the floor in the kitchen now, the dining room is the same.



Another option, instead of trying to remove all that residue and patch in something in the hall, would be to completely replace the floor.  In the process, we could replace/repair the "sleepers" (small pieces of wood that sit between the concrete slab and actual wood floor to keep the floor raised up and give something to nail it to) that seem to have given away in some spots in the kitchen.  This is an option, light pine floors:


or stained a little, like these



Thursday, September 20, 2012

Bedroom Updates, and Crates

We're moving along with the bedroom!

Here are some pics of the progress:

Before paint on one wall, you can see the tiger strip look to the plywood paneling


This was test crackle.  We decided against it though:


This is the walls painted but before the floor was.  It's a little dusty in the air


The floor, pre paint


All painted!  We need to cut down more plywood planks for the bottom, but the rest is all painted.  This is basically done though-from nearly the same angle as the before:


Painted floor


Painted plywood plank walls


Have I mentioned lately that I *LOVE* vintage crates?  I don't think so...so I think I should!  So, here are some of our vintage crates...



Sunday, September 16, 2012

Break from the bedroom

So we're still working on the bedroom, but I took a little break to get a few little odds and ends painted while we were still being blessed with nice weather.

First up, one of the 3/$1 chairs.  This is going in the dining room.  All four chairs are mismatched and painted differently.  Currently some of the bedroom "parts" are also hanging out in the dining room (remember we're less than 700 sq ft here!) so no pics of that room.

Here's the chair before



I used what I can best call a "dry brush" painting method on it.  I meant to have a darker green, the color on the lid DOES NOT match well to what's in the can, in my opinion.  Oh well.  Here are some during photos






And after




And a few videos to show how I did this.  It's funny, I didn't speed them up but it seems like it.  The second one shows how little paint I actually put on the brush!


I didn't stop with the chair, which may or may not be the last of the four we need.  The jury's still out on one of them, as it's shorter than the other three.  We'll see.  Anyway, there has been a succession of various things next to the front door to use as a spot to place things, like a bag or purse, when walking in the door.  Originally we had nothing.  Then we had a treadle base, which was too big.  Then there was a crate, which seemed out of place in the dining room.  Now we have a small vintage table, which made it's way over from our old house.  IF my memory serves me correctly, this came from Mr Eclectic's family.  I know we've had it around for a number of years no matter what.  One thing I've never loved was the color, but it's last home was in a room with some yellow in the wallpaper so it more or less matched.

Here it is



It's got great details




I noticed while I was painting it that someone, well before we got it, used scotch tape to fix a cracked leg.  It never came apart during the at least 15 years in our possession, so I painted over it!  Here's the final result





Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Misc. Stuff from the Bedroom remodel

#1.  SOOO annoyed with Lowes!!  We ordered the Lake Cottage fan I posted online and went to pick it up.  Had to wait in the will call line long enough that it was a grab and run or be late to work (picked up on lunch break) thing.  Didn't notice the box didn't show the crackled blades, but rather "distressed" blades.  Noticed it later but figured they were reversible as someone had noted in a review so didn't worry about it.  We pulled the wiring and decided to put it up so we could turn the electric on in the bedroom.  Opened the box to find...it's NOT what's show in the photo!  The blades are "distressed"...but in such an ugly and fake way the fan had to go back.  They have "holes" stamped into them, in the exact same spot in each blade.  So much for randomly distressed, lol.  We bought another Northshore fan like we have in the living room.

This:



I might end up painting it, since the bedroom is going to be mostly painted.

#2 we decided plain white paneling just isn't us.  So we're experimenting with crackle.  Pics to follow, so far we're trying elmers white and wood glue, wallpaper paste and sherwin williams crackle glaze.  It will be a green base with white over top.

The only photo I could find online for inspiration




this is also along that line, but it's more antiqued/distressed than crackled




#3 We are a few boards short for the planks!!  We're hoping to get the remaining ones from the same source, otherwise we will improvise.

#4 We can't find the bifold doors, we are going to bring out our stockpile of vintage shutters and see if we can make those work for our "closet"

kind of like this

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

More bedroom work

I forgot to show the before!  I can't believe I did that.  Oops.  This is what it looked like when we bought the Cottage:


We did a little more work on the plywood paneling.

Here's the pile o planks we bought for $37


Here are some that are painted.  This is one coat with the poor performing True Value paint.  Notice the knots.  I would suggest looking at each piece and chosing the side with the fewest filled knots.  They absorb the paint differently.





We installed a few courses.  These are the nearly 10" wide pieces.


Because there is no drywall or other backer, we are using some of the small cut off pieces to hold the ends together where there is no stud.


That's where we're at.  We also picked up the ceiling fan today.  We are going to work on trying to get some more planks painted and find the bifold doors used.