Walls, At Last!

We have walls, I tell you! We have walls! Plaster guys were here all last week working upstairs putting in drywall and repairing/skim coating the plaster and I have to say, it looks beautiful! So white and clean.


First the guest bedroom:




The Hallway and Bathroom:



The drywall guys said we were going to have to pull down all the plaster in the bathroom because it was so deteriorated due to the leaking skylight. Penny started to go up and work on that on Wednesday (her day off). The guys looked at her and asked if she was going to do it now. As she is having hand surgery on Monday, Wednesday was going to be the only opportunity for her to get the plaster down. I think her pitiful hand made him feel bad so he agreed to laminate the old plaster with new drywall and box in the opening for the medicine cabinet too!

Master Bedroom:




So, what's left?

Downstairs skimcoating/plaster repair has to be finished.
Electrical is wrapping up.
Need to install sink in golden bath.
Skylight has to be fixed as it still leaks.
Downspouts need to be installed.
Need to get a new stove/range as now both the stove and the oven have crapped out on me.
Need to dust and then prime.
Then we get to call in the floor folks to fix and refinish the floors.
THEN we get to move in. I'm still hoping for November 1, but I'm thinking that is going to be pushing it. We'll see.

It won't be perfectly completed, but it will be livable. We are hoping we will be able to put in the powder room downstairs now too. It would be nice to have a house that has two toilets.

I'll be back later in the week with more wall pictures. Promise

Stucco

Apologies for the delay in posting. We pulled two very long days last weekend and I never got a chance to post on Sunday. We are trying to get the walls all prepped and ready for drywall and skim coating of plaster. We'll be back at it this weekend as the plaster/drywall guy starts on Monday. That will make a HUGE difference.

The stucco work was started and completed last week.

Monday they delivered materials.


Tuesday they pulled down all the old plaster and nailed up a metal mesh.




Wednesday they skimmed on a first layer of concrete




Thursday they did another layer.



Friday they did the texture and packed up all their stuff and went home.



Insulation update: Our wonderful contractor, Tommy, found someone to come blow the insulation in and take the huge green machine back to Lowes. What a relief that was. Penny spent much of Saturday insulating the soon to be master bath using the blue fluffy stuff.


We spent the weekend trying to get the last of the wallpaper down in the stairwell and get the walls cleaned.



We will spend this weekend washing walls and getting all the little bits of wallpaper off. The plaster/drywall guy thinks he can do most all of it in a week. That may or may not include skim coating the ceilings. I hope we can get at least the downstairs ceilings done. With walls in and skimmed, I can start priming. Once primer is on, the floors can be done and then we can move in! Oh, I'm so hoping we can make the November 1 date. I am so ready to have something of a "real" home. Well, as much as we can get for now.

We got the quote on tiling the master bath and that is going to simply have to wait until we get the tax check in February. We should be able to get the downstairs bath in however. That will give us a bath and a half, most importantly, it will give us two toilets.

First Night

We slept in our new place for the first time last night and it was wonderful!

Some wonderful friends came to visit and provide free labor. Since there is no room at our little cabin in the woods, we decided to camp out in the new place. Yesterday, two of us went upstairs and scraped more wallpaper (argh!) while Penny and our other guest demo'd the sunporch. They took up the floor and pulled out the paneling in the area that is to be the new powder room. They uncovered the blocked up door. Then, we all showered and headed out for a fabulous seafood dinner and a terrific bottle of wine. Came back, and we each snuggled into our beds. The late afternoon had brought a lovely, and much needed rain storm, which cooled everything down. With the fans blowing, it was quite comfortable to sleep. We kept giggling that we were spending our first night in the house. Didn't hear any ghosts or goblins. We did hear a couple of drunks stumbling down the street at a rather early hour though.

All in all, it was a good night!

We see the light at the end of the demo tunnel. All major demo is done (I hope). I still have to remove wallpaper in the tiny bedroom, the closets, the sunroom and the golden bathroom (which has been de-paneled). Since there is only a week left before I go back to school, I hope to get all the wallpaper down and all the walls washed in the next week.

Things we've done last week: I washed the dining room walls so they are ready for whatever comes next. The paneling in the sleeping porch (soon to be master bath) has been pulled down. All the moldings that need removing have been removed. Sunroom floor has been pulled up and all that paneling has been removed that's going to be removed. Oh, I fixed the leaky faucet in the kitchen almost all by myself (with a little bit of guidance from my electrician). I was quite proud of myself that day.

What's happening this week: The HVAC system is almost finished and we should have AC (and heat) by next weekend. We are getting quotes on the framing/drywall work and the plumbing for the two baths we are installing. We went ahead today and purchased the medicine cabinets for all three bathrooms. Penny has Monday off so we are going to look at pedestal sinks for the master bath tomorrow. This is the style of sink I want in the master bath. Roofing guy is supposed to start sometime this week but do the major work next weekend. Things are moving rapidly. I think we'll probably spend the night here again so that we can get started in the morning.

BUT, the best thing is happening tomorrow! We are finally getting a washer and dryer!!!!!! OMG, I am so happy I could just cry. They will be installed sometime tomorrow. I am OVER THE MOON about this. For the past two months we have been begging laundry time from friends or going to the laundrymat.

So, on to the pictures. As demo winds down, the pics are less dramatic (except for the sunroom ones).

Bathroom without sparkly faux marble paneling (only to reveal pea soup green paint over more @#$% wallpaper)



Faucet Repair: I carefully removed all parts and laid them out in the order I removed them and even took a picture so that if things got mixed up, I would have a record of their order.


Sun Room Demo


Faux Bois Wallpaper

The room formerly known as the "blue room" without wallpaper

Demo Continues

Good Monday Morning.

The demolition continued throughout the weekend and I'm quite proud of our progress. Penny and I got most of the paneling throughout the house down and out. We also got the dining room and foyer carpeting out. Penny pulled up the flooring in the vestibule to reveal rotted/termite damaged floor boards. With some help from my friend Jamie, I got all the wall paper down in the dining room, all four layers of it. I still need to wash off the glue, but overall, the plaster in that room is in very good condition.

Some discoveries we have made:

1. Found the original kitchen doorway.
2. Discovered the reason why the previous owner would not allow us to do an invasive inspection in the foyer/vestibule. There's no plaster left in that wall at all. It also looks like a combination of water and termite damage. Some of the vertical beams will have to be replaced. But the good news is that the horizontal beam seems to be quite sound.
3. Despite the torrential rain last night, no leaks have been found in the house this morning.
4. Other than the vestibule, the floors seems to be in pretty good condition. We just have thousands of staples to pull.
5. Moldings in the foyer are plaster, as are the corbels under the arch. Neato!

Vestibule Demo


Vestibule floor


Dining Room Sans Wallpaper


Original Kitchen Doorway


Hot and Sweaty Penny


Hardwood Floors

A Map and Historic Views of the Area

It doesn't show our actual street on this map but we are on the eastern side of the park, near that corner at Lake View Avenue.  

Boat Lake
These two are Shields Lake before they closed it to swimming to prevent integration.  

Byrd Park

The house has a view out onto Swan Lake in Byrd Park. Gorgeous location. I was all set to write a post about the history of Byrd Park, and then I found a page that did it complete with pictures. Why recreate the wheel!

Byrd Park History