Rewind: Jan 2010, Happy Birthday Mr. Ehlers

So after two successful runs hosting dinner for friends/siblings/aka people I knew would be way understanding of any mishaps in the service, we went for a birthday dinner with Brendan's parents (and younger brother).

The whole dining table in the other half of living room worked very well:






Dessert was eaten on the couch, and again I think everyone left happy:


***Note the table "runner" is actually a collection of placemats lined up. We got so used to the lovely Christmas runner Nanie gave us that we didn't want to leave it bare again. HOWEVER, we have since gotten a red normal runner... pics to come.***

Great Success!

A Tale of Tiles

So my pics make Brendan look like a bystander- but I swear he did a lot of it!










When it was complete, it reminded me of a cloudy sky. I LOVE it.

A Tree Car I Didn't Desire

Brendan's Dad made short work of that tree (with the help of Aidan):

Just When You Thought It Was Safe...

...Brendan's family came to help do the floors in the bathroom, unfortunately we were put off by some leaky plumbing.




AND YES, THAT IS WHAT YOU ARE THINKING... MORE (AND PREVIOUSLY UNSEEN PATTERN OF) WALLPAPER.

Walls & Floors

Painting continued... we finished the bedroom and upstairs bathroom. Well, really I ran off with Aunt Debbie and crew to Lowes, and Mrs. Ehlers finished painting the bedroom and upstairs bathroom.






Aidan came upstairs to "help".




Actually he, Brendan, and Mr. Ehlers were rockstars on the floors. Note the lovely piece of black walnut I have as an accent now.






By the way, Mr. Ehlers came back for the next week+ to finish the floors. Things took longer because we got like half a foot of water in our basement and saturated the wood.

Recycling...

So OK, it's not bad enough that I have turned to blogging to sort of let everyone know what's going on with the house, but now I am plagiarizing my own emails to use as blog material. Who cares- it's good for the environment!

:)

Picture updates from last weekend to come, but until then... this is where I stand:

Giving up for now on:
fireplace, baseboard heating, finishing bathrooms before moving, and finishing kitchen before next year.

Pending giving up:
residing the house, finishing the sun room. (the outside looks dreadful and will be more noticeable as the weather gets nicer. Can't reside until I am ready to fix/replace sun room windows because they might be a different size. Can't replace windows until I am ready to insulate the walls and fix it up because it would be silly to spend the money on better windows is the walls and floor are still uninsulated)

Reasons why:
have to upgrade electric. had to pay for permits and inspections by licenced electrician, may need to put in hard wired smoke and carbon detectors, will need to pay for some of the painting and trim work that I originally thought I could do myself, some plumbing needed in the bathrooms to put in scald guards, all of which at this point is totalling about 6-8K.

Good News:
getting my 7 radiators picked up, cleaned (via sandblaster), repainted, and dropped back off for about 2/3s of what it was originally quoted. Hooray for the benefits of paying cash and good family friends.
Also, while it stinks that I will be paying for some of the painting, they are giving me good rates on the labor, and I think in the end I will be both happy to have my life back sooner, as well as happier with the final result.

Currently: wall work is being finished, Brendan and father should be doing the floors this weekend, and in between that there shall be continued painting of the upstairs. Electric should be mostly done this week.

Missions Accomplished on Day Four

Me: Taking down wallpaper, which meant dismantling handles, wall hangings, etc... because they wallpapered EVERYTHING.




Brendan: Pulling up Carpet.




Today's Aftermath:

Turns out under the white wrapping paper-like wall paper of the living room was a taste of rustic Europe country side. Is it weird that I actually liked the look of unfinished plaster?




Other rooms without wallpaper or carpeting...








Hardwood everywhere (downstairs, except the kitchen and bathroom).

New Potential Issues

Mold




Asbestos? Mold? Hopefully just dust, but better safe than sorry.

House Storytelling

Apparently in the 50's it became popular to put a pencil sharpener in the stairwell to the basement. Normally there were put in the wall on the side. I find this one an afront to tall people.




They liked the wallpaper so much they cut out bits to use as decoration. We found this a trend throughout the house.




Wallpaper was put in pre-cabinet. Means it is time for me to ditch the cabinet.




This time the wallpaper went from the wall right onto the cabinet, and was then painted over. Classy.




This is where they knocked down a wall and then couldn't match the wood to the surrounding rooms.




Flooring told interesting stories today. I mentioned this one in a previous post. It seems there was hardwood, and then an addition with different hardwood, and then parquet got popular so they threw in some fake linoleum, lastly the trend switched to wall to wall carpeting. It was all laughably easy to lift.




Now we have the upstairs, covered in tiles like from some basement. Likely nothing good beneath, BUT the stairs are hardwood, and why would you put in hardwood stairs leading to a cheaply done master bedroom? Plus if you look at the cross section of the top step you see tile, plywood, and then other plywood or is that hardwood?

Surprises

Surprise! we got mold, and Surprise! we have some pretty sweet hardwood flooring.

It's amazing to me the history you discover gutting a house, figuring out what order things were done by how you have to undo them. For example, the downstairs bedroom had carpeting. Under that was linoleum fake parquet flooring, under that is hardwood, the hardwood is two diff type- the original part being Douglas fir (we think) and the part they must have added being oak. Makes me wonder with what they added, why they didn't add more and make a full dining room (the added part seems to make the bedroom bigger, and makes up the eat in part of the eat in kitchen). Also, there are hardwood steps leading up to the second floor, but that floor is made of junky tile. Why would you do that? I suspect there my be hardwood under the plywood under the tile. Now I just figure out how to check without shooting myself in the foot if I am wrong.