Decisions, decisions

8 Mar

When it comes to the master plan of our house, I pretty much know what I want – right down to the bathroom tile and the refrigerator in our yet to be built kitchen. These are part of bigger projects that are somewhat off in the future. But there are small projects all around our home that could make a huge difference in our day-to-day living – as in make it more like living, less like camping. That is where I seem to have decision paralysis.

For example, I could paint the bedroom. It’s currently an awful shade of beige/flesh. It’s depressing. It’s drab. It’s the last thing we see before we go to bed and the first thing we see when we wake up. And yet, I can’t decide what color to paint it over. I’ve had paint chips taped to the wall for a year. And I still can’t decide.

Exhibit A: curled up paint chips from a long time ago.

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Our bedroom is currently a hovel. It’s utilitarian, but not pretty. A master bedroom as an oasis? Ha! Not ours.

Exhibit B: Our gross walls.

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The walls are cracked and need to be skim coated (I could do that). There is ugly popcorn on the ceiling and moldings (I could remove it – actually  started and got about 1/3 done and stopped for some inexplicable reason). It’s really time to just take a deep breath, pick a color and get it done already!

On a side note, why would anyone paint their walls this awful flesh-tone color?

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Waking up from a long winter nap

24 Feb

Progress has been slow over the past few months. We blew through our funds getting the garden apartment ready to rent, as well as spending money in the very un-glamurous-yet-very-necessary electrical and plumbing departments. Towards the end of last year, with the garden apartment rented, it was time to take a break and save up some cash for the projects ahead. They are:

Façade

Façade: This could potentially be a huge cost. The original façade is made of brownstone, which has been painted many times over the years. In its current iteration, it is pink. And it’s peeling. Our hope is once the paint is removed, the brownstone will be in good enough shape to be left alone, sans color. In case you are wondering, this is what it looks like now. Yes, we are the creepy house on the block….

SAMSUNG

Powder Room: Turning this once-closet back into a bathroom is the first step into a larger project of moving the kitchen down to the parlor level (it’s currently on the top floor, next to our bedroom).

Icky Parquet

Parlor Flooring: The original parquet floor is long gone. It’s been replaced with fake parquet, which was poorly installed and is lifting all over the place (the splotchy marks on it are not dirt, but residual glue form a sloppy installation). The idea is to replace it with period accurate parquet, with a nice border around it.

New Hatches: our house has two hatches, one in the front, one in the back. The front one was used as a coal chute, not sure what the one in the back was used for. In any case, both hatches are in dire need of replacement. The brick in the front hatch also needs repointing and the chute door needs a little love to make it look less like a horror movie set.

So yes, there is a lot of work ahead…

Wallpaper

13 Jan

It’s pretty safe to say that we are light years away making decorating choices for our parlor floor – and yet sometimes you just have to give in and imagine the light at the end of the restoration tunnel.

A while back I read about a Brooklyn-themed wallpaper pattern designed by Beastie Boy Mike D. Ever since then I kept imagining what this crazy toile style paper would look in our yet to be build period power room. I’m not a wallpaper person – quite on the contrary – however I loved the idea of using a very traditional style (in this case toile) with an unexpected twist.

So I googled my way over to Flavor Paper and spent some time day dreaming about what out teeny tiny powder room may look like with this, this, this or this. I ordered up samples and I realize I’m not any closer to a decision. But it was a lovely distraction from the less fun aspects of bringing an old house back to life. It may be a while, but Flavor Paper, I’m coming for you!.

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Happy New Year!

1 Jan

Life sometimes gets in the way of our home restoration projects. This fall was particularly busy as far as work for the both of us, so not a lot got done in the home front. We didn’t even get a chance to throw our 1-year houseversary party we planned for mid-December.

Looking back, we managed some key projects that made the house less of a hovel and more of a home. Remember this?

hoarders-hello

A lot of non-exciting yet crucial work has been done, such as updating the electrical and plumbing (I can’t stress how lovely it is to take a hot shower in the winter!). We also re-configured the house, making it an owner’s duplex over a garden rental (which is now rented – woo hoo!)

There is a lot on the list for 2013: restoring the parlor level powder room to its original location, laying the ground work for a new kitchen, addressing the super tiny third floor bathroom – those are the big projects. There are also plenty of little-ish projects to keep us busy along the way: removing popcorn from ceilings and walls, fixing cracks, stripping paint, re-painting… the list goes on and on.

So here is to another year of restoration adventures. Let the fun, uh, continue?!?

Oven-less Turkey

22 Nov

 

It’s our first Thanksgiving here at the Pink Lady. A lot of work has gone into the house – unfortunately none of it in our kitchen. As a result, we don’t have a working oven. Using the charcoal grill left by the previous owners, as well as a few bags of charcoal – voila! Behold our delicious Thanksgiving turkey!

Yes, we’re still here…

3 Nov

 

It has been a while since the last post. As with any reno project, sometimes life gets in the way. We’ve been tackling smaller projects that we can start and stop as needed. For example, we’ve been stripping our shutters, which is easy – yet incredibly time consuming. Most of our front windows have shutters, all of which are painted in and caked with many layers of paint and goop. At 8 panels per window x 5 windows, there are a lot of shutters in need of some love…

First we removed the shutters and labeled them so that they can go back in the correct location. They are probably interchangeable, but didn’t want to risk it.

 

Cue the tools: PeelAway6, Mineral Spirits, Denatured Alcohol and a variety of scrapers, brushes and small metal tools that will help get paint off the small crevasses. And gloves. You’ll need many pairs of gloves, as they quickly get sticky and unusable.

 

 

The next step is to apply a generous layer of PeelAway6. I have tried all the other non-toxic products and PeelAway6 seems to work the best. It’s a bit hard to find these days, as Home Depot doesn’t seem to carry it anymore.  As the chemicals react with the paint, you’ll see some bubbling. The shutter on the left is almost ready to peel, while the one on the right still has some time to go.

 

 

Once the surface is nice and blistered, use a scraping tool to peel off the paint. In this case, there is an almost intact layer of paint below, which will require a second application.

 

 

Using the scraping tool and a hard bristle brush with mineral spirits, you’ll eventually get to something like this: the first few layers of paint cleared up, ready for a second application of paint stripper.

 

 

Cue the PeelAway6 again:

 

 

After three applications of paint stripper, the shutters look like this – it’s one of those “it will get worse before it gets better.” At this stage I find it’s actually more effective to use denatured alcohol to remove the last stubborn bits of paint. For bigger clumps, however, another application of paint stripper may be needed.

 

 

The back sides of the shutters (the side that is visible only when the shutters are open, was covered in old varnish. The finish has deteriorated over the years, becoming sticky and splotchy. Luckily, varnish is super easy to remove. Apply a bit of denatured alcohol with an old brush and wipe clean with a rag.

 

Here is my disclaimer: If you tackle any projects that involve old paint,you have to be aware of lead paint. When in doubt, assume it’s lead paint and don’t anger it –  meaning if the paint is in good condition, it’s safe as is and you can just paint over it. You can have paint chips professionally tested to determine whether it’s lead or not. I find that the do-it-yourself kits available at the hardware store are hard to use and the results seem to be inconclusive (at least the ones I tried). You should never ever (ever!) sand anything that contains lead paint, as it’s super bad if it gets airborne. Little bits and flakes of lead paint are also dangerous, particularly to kids.

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Garden Apartment

19 Sep

Yes, it took a lot longer than we thought. Yes, there were quite a few unforeseen issue (ugly tile replacement anyone?). Nine months after we bought our place, the garden apartment is finally ready to rent. Here is what it looks like:

We created an entry way with a place for shoes and coats.

For the bedroom, we added a set of French doors in place of the existing archway to give the space more definition (and some privacy). Best of all, the doors were free! In addition to the doors, we put the original summer cover back on the fireplace and also removed old paint splotches and varnish off the tiles. This is what the space used to look like:
The living room ended up like this:
The previous owners used the space as a dining room, since it’s right next to the kitchen. We made the space larger by removing the upper and lower cabinets in the kitchen next to the fridge. We added a small counter with shelving beneath and moved the large lower cabinet to the empty wall of the kitchen.
It used to look like this (photo from the real estate listing)
We also removed the island, since having an island that was mostly occupied by a cook top, plus having a (tiny) separate oven that occupied a huge amount of wall space didn’t make any sense. By removing the island we created enough room to make it an eat-in kitchen. It now looks like this:
The previous owner didn’t tile under the island. You’d be shocked – SHOCKED! to learn that this tile pattern is no longer available. Pulling up the entire floor was cost-prohibitive because of the manner in which it was installed: leveling cement and wire mesh over the original hard wood, which basically turned the original wood floor into something that cannot be salvaged. So for now we ended up with the above patch…
Last but not least, we added shelving units to the laundry area to make the space less awkward. Because of where the existing plumbing was, the washer/dryer had to be in its current location.

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