The room has the original crown molding. Sometime in the 60s or 70s, the previous owners had the room paneled and the ceiling was sprayed with popcorn. Rather than having the crown molding covered and painted or something, they just popcorned right over the crown molding.  Yup, I cringed too.

Here are some “before” pictures of the dining room.  (And that’s not a bed in the middle of the dining room, it’s my piano and dining room table bunched together with an old polyester bedspread draped over them for protection.)

Here’s a closeup of the popcorn-stricken crown molding. You can see on the left I rubbed some off with my hand. I found out that it actually comes off really easily with water.

So I scrubbed…

And scrubbed…

And finally had it clean enough to paint.

I thought about stripping the paint off and restoring the original wood underneath but I already have too many wood stripping projects that are unfinished. I decided to spare myself this one and paint the crown molding with a layered metallic technique the paint guy at Menard’s told me about.

First I put up masking tape, of course.

Dutch Boy has combinations of base colors and metallic glazes. Here are the labels of the two colors I used so if you want, you can duplicate them.

I applied the first coat of the base color. “Keoki Coffee” is a rich chocolate brown. After a couple coats of this I’d go over it with a metallic glaze with little gold flecks in it and the result would be as subtle dark bronze.

It turned out pretty good! Here’s a picture with the masking tape still on:

Check back for Part 2: more prep work!

Ok time for before and after!

Woo hoo!  I have my kitchen back!  We still have plans to add cabinets over the stove and fridge,  refinish and paint the existing cabinets, and actually paint the walls something other than white, but we’re getting closer!

[tags]cabinets, paint, plaster, future plans, kitchen, ceiling, light fixtures, flooring, dishwasher, drywall, refrigerator, photos[/tags]

When I last blogged, the kitchen had a brand spankin’ new floor and we were trying frantically to get all the wallpaper scraped and the ceiling finished. The paint colors in the kitchen were… delightful.

When we scraped the wall over one of the counters, we found this weird black stuff underneath that wasn’t on any of the other walls we scraped. Not even under the counter where we put the dishwasher in, which was right below that countertop. Anybody know what this stuff is/was?

The funny thing about it was that when we painted it with primer, it bled through and came out just as messy and weird.

But we forged ahead and painted over everything with tons of primer.

(Seen enough of the back of Brandon’s head yet?)

After my friend Laura did an awesome job scraping this wall we found the outline of the original kitchen sink and the outline of some wood trim like is in the bathroom. Maybe you can’t really see it here, but use your imagination. Anyway, the shape of the outline matches the shape of the kitchen that’s now in the basement. We think that sink was originally in the kitchen and got moved downstairs to be a dump sink. I LOVE having a sink in the basement so I’m grateful.

Let’s see… what else did I do?  Oh!  I put joint compound on the drywall on the ceiling.  There was a tricky spot over the stove and fridge where the drywall was about 2 inches too short.  I had Brandon cut me some 1-inch wide strips to fit in there and I glued them to the furring strips before putting mesh and joint compound over them.  They came out pretty good!

The gap:

The drywall strips glued in place:

Joint compound going on over the mesh:

Almost done painting:

Check back for part 2 when I’ll have some finished pictures for you!

[tags]ceiling, plaster, paint, drywall, photos, cabinets, kitchen[/tags]

Now I need to look into options for improving the insulation of the attic.

[tags]attic, ceiling, insulation, air conditioning, photos[/tags]

Brandon and my sister’s boyfriend, Ryan, put up drywall in the kitchen last week. Here they are working very hard on one corner. (Truth is, I only took photos of them while they were working on that one spot.)

Beautiful!!! Now I just have to mud it and we’ll be ready for molding and paint!

[tags]drywall, kitchen, ceiling, photos[/tags]

Behold! My kitchen. It sucks. But not for much longer. Here you see the stupid trim (as I’ve taken to calling it these days) on the left and the area where I pulled the stupid trim down on the right.

Some fascinating wallpaper choices. Just fascinating.

Is that strange golden grainy stuff on the wood sap that has oozed out of the wood?

Anyway, trim is coming down and a new drywall ceiling will be going up very soon.

[tags]wallpaper, photos, kitchen, ceiling[/tags]

(Consider this fair warning: I am cranky at the time of writing this. I worked overtime at my day job yesterday. Then I battled my way in to work this morning through an ice storm so I could work some more overtime. Meanwhile my darling husband’s day job called him this morning and told him not to bother coming in, they were closing on account of the weather. What makes getting out of bed on a cold, crappy, icy day even harder? Leaving behind a warm and snuggly somebody who gets to sleep eight more hours than you do. So, I’m cranky. Try not to hold it against me. Or, you know what? Hold it against me. I kind of feel like picking a fight right now anyway. But I digress…)

This weekend I scraped the last bit of painted wallpaper in the front bedroom, which left me with walls full of brown paper residue. Here’s the progress midway through scraping all that residue off:

I got bored of that room so I went on to the bathroom, which had sad looking strips of peeling wallpaper everywhere. I pulled it all down and made a pile in the hallway:

When I was done pulling, the walls looked like this:

Here’s why having wallpaper in the bathroom (anything more than a border or a trim) is a bad idea. See those water spots over the window and over the woodwork behind the shower? There was mold growing on that paper. The mold was hidden behind a layer of “bathroom ready” wallpaper. Wallpaper in the bathroom? Just don’t do it.

Now the joyful work of removing at least three more layers of wallpaper can begin! Hip hip hooray! Hip hip… oh f*** it.

While I was in the bathroom with a stepladder I took a picture that tells another cautionary tale. Well, two cautionary tales. I want you to look at the picture, see if you can guess what it is, and then don’t bother to tell me your guesses because frankly, I don’t care. Ok, you ready? Go.

The previous owners of my house smoked. A lot. Everywhere. Including the bathroom. An interesting fact about the bathroom in my house is that it has never had a shower. Just a clawfoot bathtub. Brandon and I installed a shower and have been happily cleaning ourselves in it ever since. But one day I looked up at the ceiling over our shower and found these puzzling spots. Turns out the tobacco residue on the ceiling paint has been loosened by the steam of the shower and is now congealing in little blobs over the source of the steam: the shower. So, the moral of the story, kids, is DON’T FREAKING SMOKE A PACK OF CIGARETTES WHILE YOU’RE ON THE JOHN!!! Or if you do, then just never install a shower. Either way.

Cranky Kelli, over and out.

***************************************

Wow, I’ve never written a guest blog post before! I can get used to this!

/me sips his martini and relaxes into his recliner.

Kelli had told me about a number of the tasks she was hoping to accomplish with her house, and when she mentioned the need to break about the front stairs with a sledge hammer, how could I not offer my services? Besides visiting my friends, I could destroy a house!

Colleen and I traveled on Friday night, at one point stopping at a gas station near an interesting sign.

When we arrived at the house, it was a little after midnight, but we still ended up talking for a bit. There was a futon setup for us, and Scratch even let us know he inspected it to make sure we’d be well rested for the morning.

I had to meet the mantis myself, and I was sorry to hear of its recent passing.

Kelli informed us that some cleaning product claims are bunk. After seeing all the work she had done, I am inclined to believe she knows what she’s talking about.

We got a late start on Saturday, so we had a late breakfast before starting our work. Actually, we took a break after eating all that food first. It was a long break. Scratch helped.

Brandon was tasked with destroying part of the kitchen to make room for a dishwasher. I removed staples from the ceiling. Colleen worked on scraping paint off of the wall in the front bedroom, and Kelli scraped stuff off of the floor. I kept feeling like something was missing when I realized we didn’t have any house work music playing! Kelli fixed that problem quickly enough, and we were jamming.

Some of the staples were tricky and didn’t want to leave the ceiling, but I showed them! I also found a spider and decided that its name should be Wally. I should have taken a picture of Wally, but instead I took a picture out the kitchen window into the backyard.

After Brandon removed the greased-up lampshade from the ceiling in the kitchen, I cut the wire that was left. It won’t be bothering anyone for a long time.

After a bit of work, we had a mostly staple-free ceiling, a hole where a cabinet used to be, and cleaner walls and floors. We went out for dinner and watched a DVD as a reward. Colleen went to sleep while Kelli, Brandon, and I walked around the town a bit. Kelli pointed out a number of the other houses in the area that either had been recently fixed-up or will be.

It rained the next day. I learned that there are plants growing in the gutters, which I think would be cool but then I don’t own a house with plants in the guttrs during a rainstorm. They’ll have to go soon, I’m sure.

The basement also had a bit of water. Kelli said that she’ll have to do something to stop the water from getting in under the foundation from the backyard.

Colleen and I had to leave for Chicago relatively early on Sunday. I was a bit disappointed that I couldn’t do too much more than pull staples out of a ceiling. The front stairs will have to wait until the spring to be destroyed. I’ll be ready for them. Still, it was great to visit with Kelli and Brandon and see their new old house up close.

Caution: Men at work!

Brandon went medieval on the kitchen cabinet…

While Gianfranco pulled staples out of the ceiling. “One… two… three…”

“Oy, Mah-gerie, these staples! They’re killing my back already!”

“No I will NOT put this lampshade on my head even though it looks like a sombrero! It’s dripping pig fat for crying out loud!”

What IS that stuff anyway?

Contrary to popular belief, Colleen does not whistle while she works.

We had a great time and the work certainly did go a lot faster having eight hands pitching in.

 The bathroom lights are finished and they look and work great!  The one in the ceiling has a ventilation fan.

My Grandma gave me a couple pieces of furniture to get us started. The bed is nice and comfy and the vanity is an antique that belonged to my great grandmother who came from Mexico.

Once our bedroom was nice and comfortable, I caught Brandon taking a snooze on the bed.

This is always going to be a problem: Brandon’s too long for the bed.

But he’s just right for me.

We stayed in our new old house on Saturday night. I took Brandon to the airport on Sunday morning, and I slept at the house by myself last night. It’s nice and comfortable with the windows cracked open to let the breeze in. The cats love it too. Oh yeah! I haven’t posted about the cats moving in! That’s coming next. Stay tuned!