Soon, Very Soon...

The front half of the house is almost complete. A little more scraping of the trim and we will cross over into the second half of the house... A time for celebration perhaps? We shall see. Although there is less old paint to remove, there are many new problems that will take some creative thinking and assumably lots of labor.

So let me recap what had been going on in the house since the last time I posted.

The dining room had some fake brick around the stove. It was a thin veneer that didn't match the surrounding brick. I tried hard to let it go, but it HAD to go. We removed the old brick wall and found a heat vent that runs along the wall there. We decided to re-build the wall, but will have to use a heat shield to protect the new drywall, since the old wall was a little toasted from the previous owners.

Before


After demolition


After the wall was re-built (Eventually, I wouldn't mind fixing the bend in the pipe as well.)


Remember the hallway? Well, the drywall is completed and the trim has been replaced. It looks crappy at the moment, but keep in mind that we will paint the trim white and everything should be happy again.





Plus as far as the trim goes, I cut all the cove pieces throughout the first part of the house. They are just setting in place right now, since we need to take them off while we finish the floors.

Before


After


Sorry I can't resist showing off the baseboard work, since that was my project. Notice the cutout around the new brass cable plug. Oh yeah!



After a lot of convincing, Brice fixed the crack in the ceiling from the living room fan. He really didn't want to, as he thought he wouldn't be able to do it, but he did a great job with joint compound and a comb...it will be painted.



In the master bedroom, we worked on the closet. Lots of small things there. We ditched the closet organizer, since it wasn't even put in straight and fixed the walls.

Before (look at the baseboards and the plywood wall on the left)


Rebuilding the wall


Almost there...just need some paint and a new closet organizer.

Demolition

Now I couldn't wait until I got into the house and was able to rip some things down. I wasn't planning on taking any walls down, but some ugly tile...definitely.

The fireplace before... Sure it looks okay in the picture, but the pink tile was not only ugly, but they did a poor job with the installation as well.
The fireplace after. You should have seen all the paint on the fireplace! Obviously the brick can't be restored. Someone actually painted that green color on almost every surface in the house. And someone else painted the brick red and outlined each brick in black. After removing the tile, I am not even sure that the fireplace was the original. You can see a sharp line in the brick that might indicate a larger fireplace that may have once resided there.

Here is what I want the fireplace to look like...

I will probably tile the surround again, since brick seems out of the question. Also my ceilings are too low and crooked for the crown molding. They actually dropped most of the ceilings in the house. That is common when the plaster starts to crumble. Unfortunately they shaved off almost two feet from the original ceilings. Some of the rooms still have the high ceilings, but they look like they are additions, so their ceilings are still in good shape.

We also removed that ugly kitchen backsplash. Not only did it not match the color that I am planning on painting the kitchen, they previous owners horrible job putting in the tile...sharp edges everywhere.

Here is a shot of Doyle removing the last of the tile. Thanks to Molly and Doyle, the project went really quickly! They have been a lot of help considering I can only pay them in pizza and tile (for Molly's mosaic table project).

You can see that the plaster was removed under the cement board for the tile. And then to level it, some various chunks of plywood and paneling were stuck in there like a puzzle. There was also years of wallpaper under there. It was like a archaeological dig.

Most likely, I will tile the backsplash, but with something more to my liking. I found these great tiles, but since they are $15 each, I will probably just use one for an accent... You can't tell from the picture, but they are actually a little copper, and everyone knows how I like copper...