Day Thirty Six 2011

Hubby Neil was in destroy mode today as round two of our ceiling renovation began. After uncovering some nice vintage bead board in one half of the room a couple of weeks ago, we were hoping to find the same on the other side of the room. No such luck. It was very disappointing but not too surprising to find the other half of the ceiling covered in plywood. There are two separate ceilings because our big old living room used to be two separate rooms way back when. So much for sanding and painting. I guess that would have been too simple. So on to Plan B, which is...we're not sure. Neil is tilting toward Sheetrock. Stay tuned. But don't hold your breath.

Day Sixteen 2011

The ceiling in our living room is finally undergoing a long overdue renovation. Hubby Neil spent several hours this afternoon pulling down ceiling tiles from the 1970s and exposing bead board (or tongue in groove) from the 1920s. It's not a pretty sight to say the least. We've considered several options such as sanding and painting, Sheetrock and re-tiling. We're tilting toward installing ceiling tiles which will be the easiest and least messy. Stay tuned.

Day One Hundred Ninety Eight

Renovation Chronicles.....almost there.......

The cedar (vinyl) shakes on the dormer turned out so nice,

the picture doesn't do it justice, so you'll have to come see it

for yourself. We're glad we did this. And I never thought I'd

gush over new gutters, but these are totally wonderful!

The hole in the wall. Double windows were removed to make

way for the patio door in our dining room. Sounds weird, but

there is method to our madness....down the road....eventually.

The mess that the hole in the wall made. Luckily, these guys

are also electricians. They spent most of the installation of

the door having to re route a few key wires from under the

window to over the door.

The hole in the wall gang. Once they got the wall cut down

to floor level, they checked out why our dining room floor

is so spongy in that area. Turns out the joist holding up the

wall here was totally eaten away by termites at some point

between 1927 and now. The damage was very old. The joist

looked like a piece of driftwood. They had to shore up the floor

before they could set the door into place.

The new door lets in a lot of light which is great since the

back porch is covered and tends to make the house dark.

Neil is standing there, staring at the wall he's going to have

to repair. They had to cut away a lot of wall where the door

had to be set. So there went our vintage wallpaper. Well,

it was new when we put it up. It's vintage now. We'll never

be able to replace it. They patched in sheet rock. Just

something else we'll have to figure out how to deal with.

It's going to take some getting use to having a door here now.

There's still a lot of work to be finished on this side

of the house. The door has to be painted (ugh!) and

the siding guys will return on Monday to complete the

siding and trim around the door. Still have to paint the

porch ceiling and posts. We're so happy with

the way the house is shaping up. It's long overdue.

And we'll be thrilled when it's all done!