Glass Knobs!

I adore glass door knobs. We had a few in the house. There is a stunning large size glass knob on the craftsman door that leads to the porch. It's the largest glass knob I've ever seen and I will update with a photo of it one day...

Anyway, Liam and I browsed some local antique stores to find some more glass knobs for the upstairs doors. They are pretty expensive, as you might imagine...but thanks to eBay, I was able to come up with a set of four stunning glass knobs from a 1906 house for only $44! I'm in love with them. We just installed one on our bedroom closet and we plan to put the rest of the entry doors in the hallway when they are refinished.

Sometimes I day dream. I get little visions in my imagination of what the house looked like when it was first built inside and out. The house gives me lots of clues. It speaks to me. It knows I listen and I look.


I know that it was slate blue gray and dark green trim. It had a large colonial revival full open porch. The inside was filled with gleaming dark rich lacquered wood work. The staircase was stunning with its art nouveau details that still remain today, although it shined with the most glossy dark finish! I don't doubt that you used to be able to see your silhouette in the stairs and the floor. Many things changed even 10 years after it was built perhaps...always changing. It was always a house built to entertain! It was the most lovely hostess. It could take your coat at the door, and it danced you right into the warmth of its over sized fireplace surrounded by glowing book cases...it longs to entertain again. I promise that it will.

Card Room Update

Hello, I've been really busy. I've been meaning to update this blog of course. I can't even think straight right now. Let's see...

We are almost finished with the drywall repair in the back addition. A few more days to go on that. The wall is looking much better. It has received a couple skim coats.

We had a new gcfi outlet installed and a new electrical box. The previous outlet was rusted to the core from the water coming through that wall from the bad roof.

The large double window casing has been stripped. It's ready to be gently sanded and then we will apply a polyurethane finish.

The eat-in-kitchen window casing is in the process of being rebuilt. We'll update you on that as we go along.

We will be preparing to prime the walls shortly. Then, stipple the ceiling.

Master Bedroom Update

Almost finished decorating the master bedroom. Added a new quilt and pillow shams. Still hoping to hang a nice shelf with some candles and maybe a picture or two, but it's really amazing to us that this is how our room looks today, and to think of how it once was only a year ago.

Cardroom + Kitchen Renovation Part II

Here are some photos to show what's been going on with the drywall. These were already taken several days ago. Currently, the wall is almost finished and looks a lot better than it did here in these photos. New photos will be added shortly.

Wall is currently undergoing skim coat treatment to smooth any imperfections. The window casing has been stripped of all the paint and the stain has been lifted to a medium brown shade that will look nicely with some sanding and polyurethane to finish it.

1950s CARD ROOM comes to life...

IT'S ALIVE!

This is the major renovation project going on right now. Future Card Room & Eat-in-Kitchen. Busy, busy, busy...very little time to blog about it, but I will post some photos to display what has been going on.

To sum it up, we're rebuilding the portion of the wall that was damaged by the carpenter ants, installing new insulation in that portion of the wall and ceiling. Then we will be installing new drywall segments to refinish the water damaged wall.

The window casing has been mostly removed, saving the left side & as soon as the new drywall is in place and skim coated, Liam will begin building the new window frame.

My job is to cover all the cosmetics. I am stripping the large double window. It was caked with many layers of paint, and in taking it off, it will become a stunning wall of beautiful woodframe windows. This project alone will take me about three weeks to complete.

In the meantime I will be repairing all the joint seams, and carefully spackling all of the drywall.

I am also reviving a walk in storage closet as our future walk-in pantry. Liam will be building new shelving.

That's all going on right now.

stripping window casing...(day 3 photographed here)

Liam's beautiful carpentry patch for the damaged wall.

super handsome carpenter at work.

lumberjack lamb!

getting started here.

handy laddercat.

future somewhat walk-in-able pantry.

major split wall joint about to be magically repaired.

There's really a more impressive before & after than the one you're about to see. Before this, I chiseled and knocked-out and sanded gobs and slops of caulk from a crazy lazy previous repair.

& now for the drywall tape miracle.

AFTER

BEFORE

HEALED!

some like to use a drywall hawk...I prefer a drywall cat.

CARD ROOM COMES TO LIFE...

BEFORE (August 2008)

Garage being rebuilt

Basically most of the garage is being rebuilt. This was day two of the garage roof being put on. The back wall will be rebuilt probably by Friday. We'd like to put some vinyl siding on it to match the house, but that might not happen until next year. It's probably the best we can do to keep the old decaying walls sealed out of moisture and carpenter ants!

Day 3: Back Addition Renovation

We found that we had carpenter ant damage to the water damaged area of the back addition. Unfortunately, that leak went on for far too long and there was nothing we could really do about it right away. Carpenter ants like to burrow in wood with a 15%or more moisture content. We figure that they came from a large colony in the garage and moved to the house. The colony is gone, however we've had to exterminate our entire house. It's a good thing that I began working on the back addition this past week so that we could address the issue as soon as possible. Fortunately, they only burrowed in the moist wood surrounding the window casing and left the rest of the house alone. There was sawdust packed into the wall when we removed the drywall. It was quite a sight to see...