When I Paint My Masterpiece

So we got sheetrock. Then what?

Well...

Mom dove right into painting. I'm telling you, the woman loves to paint. She claims that she finds the activity "meditative," which I guess is what happens when the stresses of own your own business become "normal" daily activity. But hey, I ain't complaining. My whole house got painted in less than a week, and I was only there to help one day!

Oh, but let's talk colors! So last May or June, I'm talking 2014 here, before we nailed a single nail, before we even dug a single hole, I went to what would soon become our second home (that is, Home Depot) and picked out the paint color of my dreams. I mean literally. It was this soft, pearly shade of gray that looked not unlike a little slice of heaven. It was as though someone had taken a cloud at sunset, when the sky begins its deepening, when the cool indigos and navys of the night are softened by the last remaining rays of sunlight into that mystical purplely hue, and had, with one dreamy fistful, taken that a fluffy cotton-candy chunk of that cloud to turn into a very lovely shade of Behr paint.

We each were assigned jobs at the beginning of this house task, and luckily (I mean, seriously thank goodness for us all because can you imagine ME as project manager? We'd all still be in the park gazing at the sky. Heck, we'd probably have just removed the roof and decided to live in the house's bare walls at this point), I was assigned "lead designer." Yeah, ok, I could handle that. BUT that doesn't mean that all my ideas were taken without hesitation (which is often fine because I certainly need to be reigned back in sometimes). Case in point: the paint color.

I bought the sample one day after work (along with two other options because I was already getting some negative feedback on just the 2 inch slice) and splashed a good square foot section on the wall. I also added the other two color options for good measure. Nobody, I mean, nobody liked the color. Mom thought it was pink, Todd thought it was too feminine, and Dad, well he's colorblind so he thought it was some olive green I suppose.

So one early morning, Mom, in her attempt to thwart the pink overhaul, bought a number of samples and swatches of her own and called me over on my way to work to examine the options.  This is what I saw:

What's your favorite? That brilliant, soft, purplely gray in the center?  That one that looks like the chunk of sunset cloud? Mmhmm. That's what I thought.

In the end, we decided to go with the original color I picked (aka Behr's Oyster Shell Grey) plus the one of the other color options I picked that first day (Behr's Urban Gray). It's amazing to watch the colors change throughout the day with all the abundance of natural light, especially in the downstairs. The first few days, Mom and I played "name the color," chasing the light around rooms and attempting to name the shades as they morphed. It's rather entertaining, and you know what? Everyone likes it.

I knew when I was dreaming about the inside of this house that I wanted it to be airy and bright, an ethereal surround to inspire and awaken thoughts, and I'd say at this point we're definitely on the right track. I mean, hey, who doesn't love clouds....?

The house's main color, so airy that it's barely visible without white trim.

Behr Urban Gray for the side rooms, including the band room.

The dining room in Urban Gray with gold leaf stenciling.

Kudos to Mom for allowing me to have my way with the paint colors (and trusting me even when she had her doubts!), letting me stencil the dining room with this shimmery gold leafing paint, and for doing such an amazing job painting!

Did I mention she did all the priming (55 GALLONS WORTH!!) and painting in one week? The woman is a legend....

The Moment We've All Been Waiting For

SHEETROCK!!!!!!!!!!

There are nearly no words to describe how excited I am (I say nearly because there are in fact words because hello, this is me, and I will find words for everything).

This is what happened.

Todd left at the end of April for another round of touring in Europe (see ya Todder!), while the rest of us got to work with insulation. In our minds, we thought sheetrock would be in by the time Todd arrived home at the end of May, but in reality everything between sheetrock and the end of May gulped up more time than seemed necessary. That is to say, insulation took a long time. But then again, hasn't everything we've done up to this point taken forreeeevveerrr?

In science, they call this the "rate limiting step." That means the total measurable rate of chemical reaction (or overall time it takes to build a house) is largely dependent on this one slice of pie if you will, and that is a fact I can largely attest to. Everything up to here was largely dependent upon a single thing happening before it, i.e. framing lead to plumbing, lead to electrical, lead to a trillion other random tasks that couldn't be finished until another project was or at least until Dad was free to start again.

And in the end? Those tasks collectively became "the work behind the walls," six months of tedious and tireless work quickly covered and forgotten.

[An aside: My mother described the process like childbirth: once you see the beautiful child you made you forget how much awful work it took to get there and end up making that crazy mistake again. Hmm...Who was the second child in this family...?]

But now? It's game on because instead of waiting on Dad's work, we're free to busy about like little ants, and now almost everything we do will be visible and...dare I say fun...? Yeah, I won't go that far. But - just like in a chemical reaction where the final step to end product that you might actually see is in fact not usually the reaction's rate limiting step - the final steps are the most pronounced.

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for....pictures!

For most of the walls we used snow-like spray insulation. First we hung netting by stapling it to the framing and then we used a giant machine to blow insulation into the walls.

Only one of us was NOT made terribly itchy by the insulation.

For the ceilings, we used the old pink stuff to fill in.

Being inside the house during insulation was not unlike being trapped inside a giant, pink stuffed animal.

You know, one thing I didn't mention about sheetrock is that we didn't do it. Uh huh. Pick your jaw up off the floor. When we started the house, we knew that the one thing we hoped to outsource was the sheetrock and luckily we were able to budget for labor.

So without further ado, I present:

THE TRANSFORMATION (Oooo Ahhh)

Looking in from the kitchen. Taking out the walls in this area totally opened the floorplan of our house without taking away any of the historic design from the entryway rooms.

Check out that tray ceiling in the kitchen! LOVE how that turned out.

The formal living room at the front of the house.

Looking from the formal living room to the back of the house.

Back to front: kitchen to the left, music room, stairs, den, and formal dining on the right.

Yeah, it's pretty stinking amazing. Next up: painting like crazy. Stay tuned...

History, [Her]story

I am not a very religious person. I never grew up with the church, never sang hymns on Sunday morning, never said prayers at night. Nor am I the most political, flag waving, foot stomping, change-making kind. You may think then, that I've had little to hold on to, little to stand for, to turn to in times of trouble during these near three decades that I've lived, but you'd be wrong. What I've always believed in is love.

It's become clear to me during the past 10 months that we've been sawing, nailing, glueing, and caulking (and I know I said I don't usually pray, but when you've spent a few hours making a window frame and then need to fit the existing window in it, you've got to do a little praying that it will fit!), that our house has experienced so much love during the past 100 years. Honestly, even without the insulation and sheetrock, the house is so warm, so inviting. It's like a cocoon (the natural kind, not the creepy 80's movie).

This became even more clear yesterday. Now, I wasn't lucky enough to be there when they stopped by because I was working, but Judy, the woman who grew up in this house, stopped by yesterday with her three sisters, and according to my mother (whose opinion I hold highly), these women were the closest family she had ever seen. Judy grew up in this house with her 7 siblings (4 boys, 4 girls) and the many other children throughout the years that her parents fostered. Judy has told me time and again just how much her parents loved children, and other neighbors have told us stories too. When we had some dead branches off trimmed off our large trees last year, Jimmy aka "Tree Man" told us about growing up in the neighborhood and remembering Judy's father who once brought Jimmy and his brother bikes when his own parents couldn't afford to.

The fabulous Raymers. Thanks, Judy for all the loving memories you've shared and of course, the most wonderful bread I have ever eaten!

I just love hearing the stories about our house's history, especially Judy's memories of her childhood, like how she and her siblings used to save their lunch money under the loose floor boards upstairs or how when Wendy eloped with the boy across the street, the sisters threw her shoes from the upstairs window as she was driving off.

It's all kinds of love that shapes our lives. It's love for our (sometimes literal) neighbors, our friends, and that deeply woven, uncompromising love for our families - And I'm thrilled to know that our house has seen them all.

Deck the [House]

Once you start a house project, it's quite easy to forget what your life was like before. I wrote music? WHAT?! I read books?! Maybe it sounds pathetic and maybe it is, but when you've got a list of home things to do that if actually written down could quite possibly squash you, the need to stay busy becomes an addiction. When I'm not forced to be at the house, it's still on the forefront of my mind - paint colors, wood floors, lighting, wallpaper. I've done so many google searches on wallpaper alone, that my mind has more than once gone into a sort of system failure where everything becomes so characteristically different and yet potentially the same - not unlike the blue/black, white/gold dress situation. Is the wallpaper purple and metallic? Wait, no that's gray/silver. Wait...

Unfortunately, it's hard to stay busy during the mechanical when you're not Dad. So this week, when a I had a number of consecutive days of work and both of the parents were out of town, Todd and I decided to test our building knowledge and take on a short project of our own - the back deck!

Our current back deck at the time was a smallish, square structure that we were planning to expand on at some point down the road, but hey, no time like the present right?

Here's the deck before. It wasn't terrible, but not exactly the best deck for entertaining and enjoying the summer.

Mom gave us the idea to move the stairs, so we started by removing those to allow for better "flow." Thanks to a little phone guidance from Dad, we were able to draw out and measure our plans before setting the posts that first afternoon.

We had a successful first day setting the posts, and when we came back the next day, we set straight out attaching and leveling the outer rim of 2x8's. At some point in, Todd asked, "Should we measure again just to make sure it's square?" to which I responded, "Nah. Looks great to me!" We proceeded to attached the remaining 2x8's to the outside, and then I began measuring the 16 inch centers for the inter support 2x8's.

Only the measurements didn't match up...exactly. One side? Four inches longer than the other side. I remeasured both to make sure. How could it be? We measured the diagonals before we left last night, I thought. So I measured the shorter sides. Two inches off. If that deck was square, I was drunk.

You know those oh-shit moments? Yeah, that was one of those.

So we weighed our solutions. Move the posts? We'd spend all day just getting back to the start and by that time, Mom and Dad would be back and we'd be back to the inside. Lay the decking diagonally? Not a bad option, but we'd use way more deck boards that we planned and we'd spend more time getting the cuts perfect. We even considered leaving it as it was, but the longer I knew it wasn't square, the more and more I begin to think it looked rather like a kidney bean.

So we employed a couple two by fours and a number of notching techniques to push and pull the sides until we had that thing pretty close to perfect. I say this like it was easy, but it took a good 8 hours and a small pizza to get the thing just to the point where we could begin the 2x8s once more.

Todd notching one of the posts during our tedious correction process.

More notching. Five out of the six beams required some adjusting to get the deck sides square.

BUT we made it through. And you know what? Despite the urge to point fingers (YOU put that post there, YOU took that faulty measurement), we found a solid solution without killing each other in the process. It's a tiny step, I know, but I can't help but to feel a little proud, especially in these months before our marriage.

I mean, hell, if we can make a kidney bean shaped deck and then turn it into a decent rectangle in three days, I doubt a little tiff over loading the dishwasher will be the end of us.

Refinishing, Rejuvinating

After a long, gray winter, the sun is finally shining again, and THANK GOD for that. After many months of avoiding the outdoors and dreading all situations which expose me to the cold for longer than 10 minutes at a time (including every activity at the house), the weather FINALLY hit 70-flipping-gorgeous degrees yesterday. Hallelujah! I even dared to bare my pasty white legs in a pair of shorts today (no, no one was blinded)! And yesterday? I went to bed excited, yes excited, to get up and work on the house again today. Sheesh, I don't think I've been excited about working on the house since...well...the last time the sun was shining...sooo last summer?

But I'm not the only thing getting refreshed around here. While Dad and Todd have been tying up loose ends on the electrical and starting to run duct work for the heating/AC, Mom and I have been tending to some of the finishing work on things like the fireplaces and old woodwork.

I'll be honest, I can't take much credit for the fireplaces. I think I spent one solid afternoon scraping, during which I was more than likely moving at the speed of a snail while silently debating whether I would wear boots or wedges, or wedges then boots, at our wedding this summer.  

Mom, on the other hand, worked her butt off first scraping the bricks first with a chisel to remove all the tangbile debris then scrubbing away the remaining mortar with an acid wash. It was a multiple day process that required more than one wire brush and a lot of muscle, but I think even she would tell you it was worth it. It's amazing to see the original brickwork in all its luster!

Un-chiseled brick v. chiseled brick

Chisel and Cleaned brick - looking brand new!

Halfway through the chiseling effort on the kitchen fireplace.

We're leaving both the kitchen and den fireplaces exposed so we had to clean the full faces of both.

This week, I got to work removing the old paint from the outside window trim. It was a process we had originally turned down, opting instead to just paint over the 100-year paint build-up, but after we installed the new windows we realized needed an additional small piece of trim to cover any gaps between the outer frames and the new window sashes. Once I started scraping in preparation for the new trim, I got a little carried away and decided to try and smooth out all the trim as well. Two days in and not even two windows down. Worth the time? To be determined...

Partially scraped trimwork

There are two things I like about this photo: a) fully functional windows and b) sunshine!

Finally getting down to the wood

The trim has shape? One that doesn't resemble a drippy sandcastle?!

Meanwhile, Mom started working on refinishing the old back porch ceiling. Many years ago, the house had a small back porch which was later closed in and turned into indoor square footage, a common occurrence in so many old homes. Then, when Dad and Todd installed the patio doors for the upstairs a few months back, they replaced some rotting beams on the first floor ceiling and removed the old porch ceiling which had been left hanging for all these years. Surprisingly, Mom insisted on saving the wood for some crafting later, and I, being the character-obsessed restorer that I am, agreed to save it for whatever she had in mind. I'm glad we all trusted her! This week, she went to work sanding and waxing the boards to bring out some of the old paint colors which had long been hidden, as well as the original wood underneath. How's that for character? We should have just enough to use the wood as an accent wall in our downstairs bathroom (the bathroom I've insisted on being funky and charm-filled).  Hoorah!

Wood in it's original state, 17 layers of chippy paint and all.

The beginning of the sanding process...

After: Sanded and waxed to funky perfection.

A Light in the Attic

Yes, folks, the train is rolling again!

When you spend a solid two months  of your renovation in some odd state of chaos, where projects are determined at random and tend to be nearly invisible after completing them, it sure feels good get to something big done...and yesterday we did! 

Despite my parents warnings at the beginning of this project about how winter would be slow and disheartening - nothing exciting about spending an entire afternoon chiseling away pieces of the ceiling framing to make it perfectly level - I, of course, let it get to me.  Really, though, it takes a warrior not to loose steam when you know your Saturday will be spent filling in missing pieces of insulation or hanging more can lights (those suckers have the most annoying wobbly legs) or any other odd tasks that begs the question, when is sheetrock going in??

BUT yesterday?  We did WINDOWS.  And you know what?  We all eight of the downstairs replacements in one single day.  Bam!  And finally, I have something exciting to take a photo of, and thus, a reason to blog. 

Our beautiful house was blessed with some beautiful 78 inch tall windows all around it's downstairs, but sadly, over the years the pulley systems gave out on one end or another and they were painted shut (in red, then in black, then blue, the green, the white...).  We considered having them re-weighted and hung, but we also considered our budget and the relative energy savings we would encounter if we switched to something 100 years newer.  Or really, Dad did, but I didn't fight him on this one.  We did leave the original large square windows at the front of the home with their leaded glass panes because that represents a huge portion of the homes great character, but the other 9 windows downstairs we decided to swap out (or add in as two of the windows were missing all together).

We started in the morning with Dad's enthusiastic welcome greeting ("Today, we are doing windows!"), and hit the ground running, me helping Dad build the frames while Todd worked one window ahead of us, ripping out the old frame and the mounds of demo crud that was inevitably sitting atop each one.  Just when you think the house is getting cleaner....

By lunchtime, we had two windows in place, and then by 3pm we had five.  

At 3pm, I was beginning to doubt our ability to finish in one day, and dusk was already threatening, but we pursued.  

Now that we really had a rhythm to our work, we were really starting to move along.  The last two windows in the music room went up like lightning.  Booyah!  All in a days work.  

We still have to add a bit of trim along the outside to cover some gaps (the windows the company sent were a bit different in size than the test window Dad ordered last summer), but wow - what a difference it makes to have clean, usable windows in the place.

BEFORE - KITCHEN WINDOW

BEFORE - KITCHEN WINDOW WAS TOTALLY MISSING

BEFORE - KITCHEN WINDOWS

BEFORE - KITCHEN WINDOWS

AFTER - KITCHEN WINDOWS. Who wouldn't be excited about all that natural light??

AFTER