Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

As I was reading the last few entries of our blog, I noticed a pattern...

It has snowed or iced at least 3 of the last 4 weekends. And guess what it is doing right now as I write this? It's snowing. And guess what it is supposed to do tomorrow morning? You guessed it! You would think from reading our blog that Missouri is covered in about 10 feet of snow right now, but the snow and ice is just coming in little bits at a time--enough to make for treacherous driving conditions for about a day or two--then it warms up for a couple of days and melts. Then it starts again, just in time for the weekend.

Last weekend, we knew another snowstorm was coming, but through sheer determination (we ARE going to get those cabinets painted) and a little bit of stupidity (it won't be THAT bad), we decided to "beat" the storm. So we got up early, loaded up the family, and headed to the house.

We got started painting the cabinets while Max played and, by some miracle, he decided to take a 3-hour nap. We took that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to FINISH painting the kitchen cabinets (woohoo!). Joe finished painting the doors while I worked on the cabinets on the wall.

Yep, I'm sitting on the windowsill with my feet in the kitchen sink.

There will likely be a little touching-up to do and we need to re-attach the doors and install new knobs and pulls. But the picture below may give you a little taste of what it will look like when it is finished.
Those of you who have been following our blog know that--working at our pace--these finishing touches will probably take at least a month. But somehow it feels "done" and that feels really good. The kitchen was the last room to paint downstairs. All that's left is the small entry downstairs (which will, as you remember, require removing and stripping trim) and two bedrooms upstairs (which we won't paint until we have some construction done). So we can put down the paintbrushes...at least for a little while.

And while we were triumphantly painting the cabinets, it started to rain. And then it got colder and started to ice. And then it got even colder and started to snow. By the time we left, this was the scene in downtown Lathrop
It was a slow drive home, but we made it safe and sound. We were supposed to go out to dinner that night with some friends, but our sitter couldn't make it with the nasty weather. So, we put the baby to bed, cracked open a bottle of wine, and watched the snow fall while we basked in the glory of completing the painting portion of our kitchen.

Home Improvement Pop Quiz

Q: How can you tell when you've been logging too many hours in home-improvement mode?


A: You use a utility knife to cut your frozen pizza.

Merry Christmas everyone!

How to transform your kitchen for less than $100 (or, "Are we done painting yet?")

As Joe already mentioned, we are in painting hell. Our recent efforts have focused on the kitchen. I was hoping I'd have the complete "after" pictures ready to post by now but, alas, mother nature hasn't cooperated with us the last couple of weekends. Ice and snow have limited our ability to travel to the country estate. So I am going to ruin the suspense and go ahead an post a few "almost after" pictures of our kitchen work. (*If you don't care about the kitchen and want to see gratuitous pictures of Max, skip to the end.)

First, the wall paint. Here's the cutting in shot:

I actually really like the green in the kitchen. But it just doesn't go with anything else. The counters and floor are ivory and the trim is true white. The combo just didn't work for us. So we decided to paint the walls to match the countertops and floor (the color is Sherwin Williams Toasted Pine Nut). That way, the walls, counters, trim, and floor have a sort of cream on white thing going on. It makes the cream/white combo seem deliberate instead of clashing.

"But that's so boring," you say. "Why would you want to paint your kitchen Johnson County Beige?" (Sorry JoCo readers, but you know it's true). In a bold (at least by our standards) move, we decided to put color where it counts--on the cabinets.

The decision on whether to paint the cabinets was quite a debate. Some people (my Mom) were adamantly against it. Others (my friends Sarah and Lindsey, who have or have had painted cabinets) told us to go for it. The fact is, those cabinets are dated. We hated the wood finish. We despised the carving in the doors. So we figured we couldn't make it much worse.

So now, I'm going to present to you the Gagnon method of painting cabinets. We guarantee that, by using our method, you too can get your kitchen cabinets painted in about a month (or two...hell, it may take you three months--we don't know since we're not done yet).

First, you learn to use a drill and take off all the cabinet doors, stripping a couple of screws in the process.

Next, you wash all the doors and stack them in a neat little pile on the kitchen floor. You foolishly believe you will be able to completely prime and paint them the following week.
When you get ready to start priming, your husband will tell you that the cabinets must be sanded before he will let you begin priming. You make him do that.


Then, you prime all the cabinets, drawers, and doors. During this process, you will lay on the floor, climb on the counters, and stand in the kitchen sink. When you are finished, you will have primer in your hair, on your bottom, all over your hands and shirt. Your husband will sigh and ask you how you can possibly get so much primer all over yourself in just one day.

Finally, after the primer dries, you notice that your hand and wrist are cramping from using a paintbrush to prime for 6 hours. Your husband will give you a rest and begin putting a coat of paint on the cabinets (Sherwin Williams Bunglehouse Blue).
You will be pretty encouraged by the results, but still nervous about how this is all going to look when you get done. You will realize that it may take you another month to put the cabinet doors back on since you did not mark them when you took them off.

OK, now it's gratuitous picture time...
*Here's a picture of Max when we took him to see Santa a couple of weeks ago. I'm pretty sure this was the worst moment of his life.
*And here is a much happier picture of Max wearing his own Santa hat.

Painting Pictures

Kendra and I have been painting. And painting. And painting. For a long time now. But we have made progress; only two rooms remain to be painted. We've done the before/after thing with the playroom, office, and the living room, but I don't think we've shown off the parlor or dining room yet.

Here is a before picture of the parlor:

Note the white walls, and the dated ceiling fan. We like the wainscoting, and will keep it, but we couldn't live with the white walls. The parlor adjoins the living room through a set of pocket doors and--most of the time--each room is visible from the other. We had used a light green color to paint the living room, so we wanted something fairly neutral for the parlor. We settled on "Natural Tan" from Sherwin Williams:
The Natural Tan adds just a touch of color without clashing with the green in the living room, which is the effect that we were going for. As you can see, we also swapped out the ceiling fan to match the one in the living room.

We've covered the dining room before (in all its mirrored glory), so I won't re-post a "before" picture. The walls were a very rich red. We liked the red, but with the stain on the trim it just made it too dark in there. We lightened up the room with Inviting Ivory from Sherwin Williams (who names these colors?!). In addition to the nice contrast with the wood, it makes the room seem bigger. Here is an after picture of the dining room (the notorious mirrors are on the wall just left of the camera; the living room is to the right):

A gratuitous picture of Max, due to the
demands of "anonymous" commentators
(we know who you are, Willis).

I must say that painting is the least sexy of the home improvement jobs so far, and I certainly will not be sad when the last coat is rolled on the walls.

An Unexpected Christmas Gift

I posted last week about the winter storm that hit Missouri. This past weekend, we were hit with another round of ice and snow. Undeterred, we managed to make the trek up to Lathrop and work on the kitchen. That, however, is the subject of another day; this post concerns the generosity of new friends.

Earlier in the week, I received an email from our new insurance agent, Aaron Greer. Aaron is about my age, and is one of the few people Kendra and I know in Lathrop (along with our neighbors to the north, Rachel and Emma, who introduced themselves a couple weeks ago--but now I'm getting sidetracked). Apart from getting us a good price on our auto and home policy, Aaron is someone I've grown to rely on for letting me know the ins and outs of the Lathrop community.

Anyway, Aaron sent me an email to let me know that the ice storm hadn't caused too much damage to the trees at the country estate. He did mention that one tree did have some broken limbs. I replied that I hoped it was the ugly, drooping tree by the porch; Kendra and I had planned to have that cut down anyway. I went about my merry way the rest of the week, and didn't think much of the conversation--other than to realize how fortunate it is to have someone keeping on eye on our place.

Then, when Kendra and I arrived at the house on Saturday, we saw a pickup truck in the yard, and a man with a chainsaw doing violent things to the hated tree blocking the front porch.


That's Aaron on the right, dressed appropriately for the weather and the work at hand; and that's me on the left, dressed like a damn city boy.

After a couple hours work in the freezing temperatures, Aaron got the tree down and graciously hauled off the remains. Kendra and I were thrilled to have one of our "problems" eliminated by the generosity of someone who has known us for less than three months. The kindness of those in small towns was one of the reasons prompting our move in the first place, and it was nice to have that decision validated, at least in a small way.

Here is a "before" shot; notice the tree on the left side of the frame:
The tree doesn't look terribly intrusive in the photo, but it looked 100x worse in real life. It was ugly, it blocked the view from the porch, and it did not frame the house well from the street. Here is the house after the removal of the offending tree:

Much better, at least in our opinions.

So Aaron, if you are reading this, thanks again. We owe you big time.

997, 998, 999...1,000!

Last night at 8:59 pm, Gonna Eat a Lot of Peaches recorded its 1,000th visitor. While that is not a big deal for most websites, I am utterly shocked that this many people take time to read the (somewhat) regular updates on our little project. From traffic statistics, I would guess that there are about 15-20 regular readers of the blog, and we are grateful that y'all are reading. It certainly makes it easier to spew forth posts when you know that there is a dedicated--albeit small--audience for their consumption.

I know the suspense is killing everybody--the 1,000th visitor was from Little Rock, Arkansas, having been referred to our blog from Houseblogs.net. Come forward to claim your prize!

Weather-Shortened Weekend

Mother nature did her best to make sure we didn't get any work done on the house, sending an ice storm across the state of Missouri this weekend. Not wanting to face a shut-out, we braved the elements and made the drive north to the country estate. Even if we couldn't put in two solid days of work, by God, we were going to get SOMETHING done.

Forecasts called for things to get nasty Saturday afternoon, so we figured we had a few good hours in the morning to knock out some projects. We made it to the house at 10:00 am, and made surprising progress in 2 1/2 hours. I managed to get the ceiling fans wired and spinning with the help of my new voltage tester from Home Depot. Satisfied that the house wasn't going to burn down, we turned our attention to the kitchen. Earlier in the week, Kendra had supervised the delivery of our new fridge and cooktop (as previewed in an earlier post), and I must say that the fridge sits astride our kitchen like a Colossus:

The thing seems huge, but I think that's just because we had gotten used to not having a fridge in there.

By the end of our workday, we were able to get the kitchen about 95% cut in, too. With some good weather, and some hard work, we should be able to get the remainder of the walls painted, and the cabinets primed and painted this weekend. That would make the kitchen pretty much "done," and just leave two bedrooms upstairs to be painted.

Double Your Pleasure, Double Your Fun...with Double Mortgage Payments!

The moment of truth is here; our first mortgage payment on the country estate is due. I'm still holding on to the check, because I can't bring myself to pay it yet. We are a little disappointed, because we haven't sold our urban highrise yet, but, on the other hand, we are also very excited about the house. So we'll keep plugging away, working on the weekends, and hoping a buyer materializes for the urban highrise.

This should be a good week/weekend for us. Tomorrow our new refrigerator and cooktop will be delivered. We haven't planned out the weekend, but it would be cool to get work done in the kitchen to go along with the new appliances. As always, we'll keep you posted about what's going on, and this time we'll try to remember to bring our camera so we can post pictures.

An Almost Perfect Weekend

Once again, I forgot the camera. Well, I actually forgot the battery. The bottom line is that there are no pictures to post right now, but there is some good news to report. Remember that big list I posted last week? We knocked most of it out this weekend. Paint the dining room? Check. Finish the window trim in the guest bedroom? Check. Touch-up the playroom, guest bedroom, living room, and parlor? Check. Fix the ductwork? Check!

We didn't get the ceiling fan installed, but it's close. When Joe took the old one down, all four wires were green. He marked them so he would know which was which, but somehow the markings rubbed off while he was working. Now we don't know which wire is which. So the fan is all but connected and Joe bought some gadget to test the wires to see which one is "hot" (I am so down with the home repair lingo).

We didn't start pulling off trim in the entry yet either. After much discussion with the guy at Sherwin Williams, I purchased two types of stripper. One is a paste meant for the stuff we'll strip on the wall (the windows). The other is a stronger liquid that we'll use for the stuff we'll take down (trim and doors). I am reasonably confident that these will lift off a fair amount of the stain and that we'll be able to use another stain--probably something reddish--to balance the green that is left and turn it brown. This is a job that will probably need to be done outside--or at least with all the windows and doors open for ventilation. It was cold and rainy over the weekend, so we decided not to start that project.

Finally, I took all the cabinet doors off the downstairs bathroom and the kitchen and Joe and I washed them. Those bad boys are getting primed and painted in the upcoming weekend. We also have plans to paint the kitchen walls AND the new appliances are arriving this week. So expect some "after" pictures of the kitchen soon.

We decided to take a vacation from the house on Sunday, so the three of us read the paper in our pajamas all morning, went out for lunch, and did some shopping. I think that recharged us a bit.

So all in all it was a VERY productive weekend at the country estate and a good weekend for the Gagnon family. The only downer? The Tigers loss to OU on Saturday. And the BCS bowl snub on Sunday night. But we wouldn't be Mizzou fans if we didn't have something to be disappointed about, right?

Hell Hath No Fury...

In the last post, Joe described our low morale and Max's meltdown last weekend. He was kind to me, but should probably be ashamed of himself for blaming the meltdown on the baby. I'm the one who had the meltdown.

For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of painting trim (and I was among you just a few short weeks ago), let me tell you--it sucks. It's the kind of thing you should leave to the experts and exactly the kind of thing that I would like to have hired done but with two mortgages, my accountant (Joe) tells me there's no budget for an professional trim-painter. So I've learned to do it myself, I guess. Last weekend was my third straight painting trim, and I'm going to whine about it a little bit. At the end of each trim-painting day, my wrist (and sometimes shoulder) hurts and my back is sore from practically laying on the floor to paint baseboards. The first room (the playroom f/k/a/ Jayhawk room) was a challenge because I was painting white over BRIGHT red. The second room (the guest bedroom) was a challenge because the walls are highly textured and it was impossible to get a good line. I'm happy to report to you that, save for the windows in the guest bedroom, I think we have painted all the trim we're going to for while. And God bless Sherwin Williams paint because I think I'd still be painting the playroom trim if that paint didn't cover so well.

So I'm in an okay place with it now. But I wasn't last Friday. I was tired of painting trim and tired of it looking like crap. In the morning, Joe's brother Chris showed up while Joe finished up cutting in the living room. They decided they were going to tackle two "quick" projects--fixing the ductwork in the basement and installing the ceiling fan--before resuming painting. Even though Joe has been to the hardware store THREE TIMES for this project, he still didn't have the right stuff. So he and Chris went to the hardware store. In the meantime, Max refused to nap and I managed to get a tiny bit of trim painting done. About two hours later, Joe and Chris show up empty-handed. So they decide to put up the ceiling fan. Two hours after that, it is starting to get dark and there is still no fan. And I've been painting trim all day while giving Max two bottles, two snacks, one lunch, and attempting to put him down for at least three naps.

How many Mizzou fans does it take to install a ceiling fan?

They finally get the fan installed, but there are no lightbulbs to make sure it actually works. Max is screaming. I've had enough. So I pick up my child and threaten my poor husband and brother-in-law with their lives--I am taking the baby for a ride to put him to sleep and the ceiling fan better be working and the living room better be painted when I return. After a 30-minute ride to Plattsburg and back, Max was finally asleep and I returned to the house. All I can say is Joe and Chris must have done some speed-painting (hell hath no fury...), because the living room was painted when I returned. It looked great and the baby was asleep. I felt a little stupid about the fit I threw, but no one said anything so I didn't either. Everything worked out and my blood pressure finally went down.

Living Room "Before"

Living Room "After"

I think you'll agree , the new lighter green (Sherwin Williams, Lemongrass) makes the space seem much more open and brings out the woodwork nicely. And the ceiling fan is actually from this decade, which is a nice touch.

As you know, we didn't do any work on Saturday (go Tigers!) and we only had a few hours on Sunday, so we made them count. My Mom and Dad had Max for the morning, so I finished up the trim work (hooray!) and Joe cut in and rolled the first coat of paint on the dining room.
We still haven't figured out how to get those mirrors down, so they're staying put for now.

So here are our ambitious plans for this weekend:

1. Put another coat of paint on the dining room
2. Finish painting the window trim in the guest bedroom
3. Touch up the playroom, guest bedroom, living room, dining room
4. Fix the ducts
5. Install a second ceiling fan
6. Begin pulling trim off the wall in the entry OR try to strip and sand with the trim still on the walls
7. Maybe--if we're lucky--begin painting the kitchen

It's a pretty big list, I know. Especially for two novice do-it-yourselfers like us. Are we setting ourselves up for another disappointing weekend? Or will we rally and come up with the most productive weekend ever? Tune in next week and find out.

Morale Bottoms Out, and a Weekend Pick-Me-Up

With the holiday weekend, we planned to spend two full days (Friday and Sunday) working on the house. With all that time, we figured to knock out most of the remaining painting, get a ceiling fan installed, and fix the broken duct in the basement.

Good plan, terrible execution. Painting has proved to be extremely tedious. On Friday, we managed to get the living room painted (pictures to come in a later post), and that was about it. Kendra also finished some touch-up trim painting. But we definitely hit a low point on Friday. I went with my brother to pick up the duct work to finish that job, and the local hardware store doesn't carry the pieces we needed. That burned a good 1 1/2 hours. On top of everything, Max decided that he didn't really care for the lack of attention he was receiving, and had a near-meltdown. By the end of the day on Friday, we were ready to burn the house down.

But then Saturday came, and we remembered that we had tickets to the Missouri football game of our lifetime.

Your 2007 Heisman Trophy Winner, Chase Daniel.

The game was a blast, with Mizzou winning 36-28 to grab the #1 ranking in the country.

Our spirits buoyed by the big win, we were able to bounce back a little bit on Sunday. We've knocked out a lot of painting, installed a ceiling fan, and have a good plan to devote some solid hours this Friday/Saturday. We'll post some pics later this week to show the before/after on the painting.

Watching Paint Dry

As Joe already mentioned, the last two weekends have been a little slow. Two weekends ago we traveled out of town for Mizzou football game, and last weekend we had an extra helper.

Max and Maggie

Our 3-month-old neice, Maggie, was with us for the day on Saturday. And we had her baptism to attend on Sunday. So the house went on the back burner for a bit, which is OK since it doesn't look like we're going to sell the city highrise and actually move to our country estate any time soon.

But I think Joe is too hard on us. We have gotten quite a bit of tedious painting (cutting in and trim work) done over the past couple of weekends. And one important task was complete when we left the house on Sunday. In fact, I would say this is THE most important task in light of the MU-KU showdown coming up on Saturday. The Jayhawk room is painted! Every trace of red and blue is gone! And from here on out we will refer that room as the playroom f/k/a the Jayhawk room. Unfortunately, the light was too low to get a good picture of the final paint job, but I took a picture of the room before I put on the last coat of trim paint. I think you'll get the idea, despite the bit of stubborn red that is still bleeding through in this pic.

Go Mizzou!

I also think Joe is too modest. He has failed to mention that, although it is slow work, he is the ultimate cut-in expert.
Exhibit A:
This is a picture of the top of the trim in the parlor, which Joe painted last weekend. Notice the perfect line and the complete lack of paint on the trim? That's the kind of craftsmanship you get when Joe's cutting in. Here, you can see him cutting in the living room WITHOUT EVEN USING ANY TAPE! CRAZY!
The moral of the story of the last two weeks is this:
Even though it can be slow and sometimes the work isn't very entertaining or sexy, we're learning every day and creating a beautiful house--our home--together with the help of our families and friends. So, dear readers, stick with us and watch the paint dry. We promise the pace will pick up soon.

Duct Details

The last two weeks have seen very little work done to the house, as we've only been able to shake free a few hours each weekend. We're hoping to really get some work in over the holiday weekend, so the pace of posting should pick up a little bit.

This weekend, I went down into the basement to check the size of the air filter for the HVAC unit. When I got down there and starting looking around, however, I saw this:

The vent on the right is connected to the HVAC unit, and was blowing out warm air. The vent on the left was just sitting there, disconnected from anything. Just above the rear end of the vent on the left, I saw this:
See that fitting in the center of the picture? Yeah, that's the vent that goes straight into the parlor.

So what did we learn today, kids? Not only is there no active source of heating/cooling to the parlor, but we are also apparently heating the basement. Who knows how long these vents haven't been attached and how much money has been wasted over who-knows-how-many years to blow hot and cold air down there. Looks like I'll need to add one more project to the (growing) list, and run a new duct to the vent. I guess it's just another opportunity to expand my mad home-improvement skills.

The Big One

The kitchen is not bad.

Sure the countertops and cabinets are a little dated, and I'm not necessarily in love with the green on white on cream color scheme. But it is a fairly large kitchen for an older home and it has a nice wall oven and huge pantry (don't worry, we'll be covering the multi-colored paint and replacing the door). The ceramic tile is OK, but--as you read in Joe's previous post--we plan to explore the possibility of ripping it up to expose the hardwood floors and restore them to their original glory. A complete kitchen overhaul is definitely in the longer-term plans for the house. But, for now, a little bit of paint and some new cabinet hardware will make it work. Except for two little problems: the cooktop doesn't work and there's no refrigerator.

So, honestly, the kitchen is almost completely non-workable as it stands. When we go to the house to work, we usually bring a cooler and fill it with ice to keep drinks and Max's food cold. Then we order pizza or go get Subway (and have nowhere to keep leftovers). We decided it would definitely be more convenient and probably better for our health if we had a place to keep food cool. So we needed to buy a refrigerator. And we can't really move in without a cook top, so we figured we needed to buy that, too. But what's a couple to do when they have two mortgages and one member of said couple makes a paltry salary as a grad student/teaching assistant? We opened up the Sunday paper, and it was like God had answered our prayers...
Nebraska Furniture Mart was having its biggest sale of the year! And better yet, they were offering no interest financing for 24 months AND free delivery on appliances! So we did what any young American couple would do and we went out and bought a bunch of stuff that we couldn't afford on credit.

We were automatically approved!

So, our lowest-price of the year, no interest until December 2009, free-delivery Jenn Air downdraft gas cooktop and Whirlpool stainless steel refrigerator should be arriving sometime December 6. In the meantime, we'll be running a gas line to the kitchen and praying that the new cooktop fits into the old cutout. Oh yeah--and we bought a couple of ceiling fans to replace the dated gold ones in the living room and parlor (why not, they're interest free until 2009!), so we'll be trying our hands at ceiling-fan installation, too.

No Pictures, No Problem

Short post tonight -- an out-of-town trip on Saturday prevented us from working on the house until Sunday morning. Even though we just had a few hours, we managed to get the parlor painted. Here is a picture of the parlor, before painting. This shot is from the living room, past the pocket doors, and into the parlor:


We didn't bring the camera today, so there is no post-painting picture. The changes aren't too dramatic--the new color is a neutral tan color. The new color takes a little bit of the harshness out of the (previously) white walls.

While I painted in the parlor, Kendra was painting the trim in Max's playroom (the old "Jayhawk" room) white. She got one coat on, with one still to go to cover up the red that was on the trim before.

Hopefully we can shake some more time free next weekend and knock out a few more projects, and hopefully we'll remember our camera next time.

To be (one of those people who paint old woodwork) or not to be?

Let me introduce you to our entry:
To get to the nitty gritty of this post, skip to the last paragraph. To read my musings about the space, read on.

The entry is a small space, so it is difficult to photograph, but hopefully you get the idea. On the left is the open front door to the home (leading to the infamous front porch) and on the right is the door to the sitting room. What you can't see is that, directly next to the door to the sitting room is a door to the living room. So, when you walk in the front door and into this little vestibule, there are two doors that lead you into different rooms of the house. I've never seen anything like this before, and it is one of those unique features of the house about which we love to speculate. At first, we thought maybe the house was a duplex at one point, but nothing else about the home seems to suggest that. Then, our structural engineer (who happens to be a family member and an old home buff) suggested that the home may have been built by a professional--maybe a doctor or lawyer--who used one of the doors (probably the one to the sitting room) as a professional entrance into his office. That makes a lot of sense, so that's what we're going with for now.

The first thing that probably jumps out at you is the bright color. I'm all for color, but this space is just to small for that kind of intensity. Our plan is to lighten it up with something pale and pretty neutral, saving color for other areas of the house. What you may not be able to appreciate is that, at some point, someone has put a GREEN stain on the beautiful woodwork/trim. I don't know why someone would do that, but I guess that's not the point. It's done now and we need to deal with it.

Obviously, green wood is not an option. So, as I see it, there are really two choices. We can paint the wood, which is probably the easiest way to go. But then we're just a couple of jerks who painted over beautiful, old, original woodwork. The other option is to strip the wood and restain it to match the rest of the house. According to everyone we've talked to, this would be a LOT of work. And probably expensive if we take the woodwork down and have it stripped by a professional. But here are our questions: Would it be worth it? Would we have to take the trim off the wall in order to strip it? If we do that, can we strip it ourselves? Is there a product out there we can use to strip the wood while leaving it on the wall? Is there anything else we can do short of a total strip and restain job?

Any ideas?

Hardware Spa Day, Revisited

After the painted hardware enjoyed a relaxing 24-hour soak in the crockpot, I took a nylon brush and started scrubbing. I think the results speak for themselves.

Before the soak:

And after the soak:


Even though the "crockpot" method removed most of the paint, it took a little more elbow grease than I had hoped. It was pretty effective at removing newer latex paint, but older finishes were a bit more stubborn. Overall, I would recommend this as a good way to remove paint from metal without worrying about harsh chemicals. This Old House has step-by-step instructions for this procedure.

Spa Day (for Hardware)

Many of the rooms in the house have painted trim and doors (ugh). What's more, most of the time the previous owners did not remove any of the door hardware before slathering it in paint. So even though we have all these beautiful antique doorknobs, escutcheon plates, and locks, they are covered in paint.

The thought of stripping these with some type of noxious, chemical solvent wasn't very appealing to me. I decided to surf the web to see what our options were and I found some advice from this Old House. According to them, I just need to plop the hardware in a crock pot with some water and laundry soap, let it simmer overnight, and the paint will come off with some gentle brushing. I'm a little skeptical, but these guys know what they are talking about, right? The hardware from the playroom--f/k/a the Jayhawk Room--is cooking right now. I'll update y'all tonight on whether this works or not.

The Post Wherein I Talk a Big Game, But Fail to Deliver

Remember last week, when I posted about my ambitious plans to remove the ceramic tile in the kitchen and take down the mirrors attached to the dining room wall? Yeah, I didn't do either of those things. Discussions with others made me realize that the ceramic tile would be difficult to remove while preserving the integrity of the underlying hardwood floor. We can live with the tile until we update the kitchen at a later date ($$$). As for the mirrors, I chickened out. I'm a little nervous about trying to remove them and the carnage the removal would inflict on our plaster walls. The mirrors are staying for now, probably until we get someone that knows what he is doing (hint: not me) to assist.

As Kendra posted below, we did get some things accomplished over the weekend. Apart from moving two carloads of clutter from the "high rise" to the "country estate," we also painted two rooms that were absolutely garish.

My big project on Saturday, however, was removing the vinyl floor from the downstairs bathroom. Our thinking was that we could remove the flooring down to the original hardwood, and then refinish if it was salvageable. If we couldn't refinish, then we'd look into options for ceramic tile. We did not want to keep the rolled vinyl that was in there. Not only is the vinyl an affront to the historical accuracy of the house, but it had a terrible faux-wood appearance.

I started by removing the toe board around the trim. Then, I cut the vinyl sheet into 2-3' strips for easy removal. It peeled up fairly easily enough, revealing a 1/4" plywood sheet underneath. The plywood was nailed to the floor, with most of the nails still covered by the bottom layer of the vinyl sheet. Since I couldn't remove the nails first, I just had to start tearing the plywood off, chunk by chunk. After I got most pieces started, I was able to pop it out in bigger chunks, so it didn't take too long. Here's what it looked like after tearing off about 60% of the plywood.

As you can see, underneath the plywood was another layer of flooring, which I assume is linoleum. My guess is that it was probably original to the home, or at least very, very old. It was in awful condition and various leaks throughout the year had taken their toll on its integrity. As you can also see from the picture, there is an active leak around the toilet, which we are hoping can be addressed by a new wax ring.

After the plywood was up, the nails were either popped out or sticking 1/4" inch above the linoleum surface. I was able to remove the remaining nails and then pry up the linoleum, which was adhered directly to the old hardwood floors.

Now, most of the bathroom floor is covered in this black adhesive that's been on the floor for decades. I need to talk to our contractor to see if this stuff can be sanded off during refinishing. If not, looks like we will be scraping/stripping this stuff ourselves.

After I removed all the linoleum I was able to check out the integrity of the hardwoods. They are sound for the most part, with the exception of a couple boards near the bathtub that have rotted. There also may be some rot near the vanity. Our hope is that these boards can be replaced and the floor refinished.

Bye-Bye, Blue

It was another productive weekend at the country estate. Joe spent a large portion of the day Saturday pulling up bathroom floor (he'll be posting on that later) and Max and I were in charge of paint.
OK. We didn't actually let the 9-month-old near the paint and we tried our best to keep his developing brain away from the paint fumes. Luckily, Max's Grandma (my Mom) and Nanni (Joe's Mom) were there to help.
Back to the house...
Three of the four bedrooms in the house were various shades of blue, none of which we were very fond. Those happen to be the same three rooms that need floor refinishing. So we began painting those rooms first--before refinishing--so that any stray paint blobs can be swept away by the sander. We started with the downstairs bedroom, which will be our guest bedroom/office. It was a dark, dark shade of blue (think midnight blue or navy). A little heavy for a bedroom, so we decided to go with a light terra cotta (Sherwin Williams calls it Rustic Adobe) to open it up. The walls in the room are highly textured, so the effect, I think, is pretty good--earthy and kind of clay-like (see before and after pics below). Once the trim is repainted and the floors are refinished, I think we'll be in business.
The other room on the painting agenda this weekend, of course, was the Jayhawk room. It will be a playroom for Max, so we picked Gleeful Green. The trim will be white, but for now it is still red. Maybe we'll keep it in through the holiday season.
I know this is a super-long post, but I have to end by giving a shout-out to Joe's brother, Chris, and my brother, Kevin, for taking on painting and general clean-up duties this weekend. Thanks, bros!