Colors!! We picked Colors! (well.. maybe just one..)

Boom!  If that's not a delicious blend of colors and patterns I don't know what is..

 

Wallpaper for the dining room and some colors for the rest of the house

 

To those of you who may have noticed a bit of a dry spell in regards to blog posts...  We're sorry!  We've been trying to enjoy summer as much as possible.   In between the flood, gas leak scare (yes, another one) and general house projects we haven't completed many exciting projects as of late. 

Fireplace Fun

Since we got rid of the wood stoves it was logical to get a Masonry Contractor over to quote some work and sweep the chimney.  When the contractor pulled the flange/hook up thing from the flue we were greated with THIS 

Yeah... that's what happens when you don't know how to work a wood stove and you burn cords and cords of wood and never have your chimney swept.....  Gross... and Dangerous!   Things got more interesting though....

"The wall got a little soft over here" or "A post about plaster"

Plaster is hard. 

It cracks as houses settle and time passes.  To really understand why plaster cracks you need to understand what makes up a plaster wall.  You often hear of these walls being referred to as "Plaster and Lath" or "Plaster on Lath" with the latter being a more correct description.  The lath is a series of wood strips nailed to the wall joists.  The plaster is made up of two different materials, the first (which can actually be a couple of layers) being called the scratch coat which is a darker and more coarse material and the second being the finish coat which is white, very smooth and usually fairly thin in comparison to the scratch coat.  The scratch coat's purpose is to lock into the lath.  This occurs when the dead men who built these homes would put a healthy layer of the scratch coat onto the lath, pressing it in deeply to create "Keys."  These Keys were the portion of the plaster which curled around the back side of the lath and held the wall onto the lath.  The finish coat was then laid on and tooled to create the wonderfully smooth surfaces we know and love. 

No more Wood Stoves

Becca and I aren't really wood stove people.  The whole hauling wood and (irrational) fear of burning the house down and or dying from carbon monoxide poisoning thing just wasn't for us.  So, we decided to sell the two we had in the house....

This is what renovation looks like.

So by now, I think the overall public opinion is "wow, you guys are working so hard and your home will be beautiful!!" Is that about right?  I bet some of you are even thinking about starting a project of your own, or maybe wishing you'd tried this when you were young and full of spit and vinegar.  Well, let me tell you a few things.  It ain't easy and it ain't pretty.  (It is fun, I won't even lie.)

We've been sugar-coating it for you.  I hate to admit it, but this blog is all about romance and dreaming and you'd better be warned before doing anything like this.  If you can't handle it, please step away from the browser window.  I am about to show you unfiltered, unstaged, uncensored view of life in a renovation.  I came home, fed/walked the dog and then took snapshots of everything as I walked through.

This is what it actually looks like.

Sump-thing needs to be done...

I'm just not sure what.....

 

We gave the house a haircut!

Hi everybody!

Once again, Emilio and I have been super-busy on a project that probably makes our neighbors wonder if we've lost our minds.  

You may remember the exterior of the house looking something like this:

Mental Health Status- UPDATE!

Hi there, friends and family!

I can't believe what a slacker I've been with posting, but we've been busy enjoying the wonderful weather and working on projects.

When I last updated, Emilio had stepped on a nail within an hour of the dumpster getting delivered (BOOO) and he was hobbling around.  Luckily, he made a very quick recovery and was able to start work just about two days (and an x-ray, and a tetanus booster) later.  He wanted to show off the nail that nearly destroyed him so here ya go:

You too can own your own Franklin Fireplace Wood Stove!

Nailed it!

What is pink, metal and a taking up half our driveway!? 

Bad previous owners and the underground hose

Remember that time Emilio saw that stupid hose barely buried in the backyard?

Gas leak, living room update, paint stripping!

Wow, who knew that working on a home renovation by yourself is actually really hard?  With Emilio coming and going for business trips (way to bring home the bacon, hon!) I have been starting and abandoning projects all over the place.   So far, the house still stands.

Closet Lights and Ceiling Fans (Oh My!)

Its funny how you think you know what you want... until you realize you have no idea what you need. 

Since we've decided to move full steam ahead with finishing the master bedroom before anything else I started looking at fixtures and hardware for the room.  This seems like a simple enough process right?  Pick a ceiling fan/light, some outlet and switch covers and that should about cover it. 

NOPE!

So much done... So little to show

Its amazing. The first few weeks it felt like every little thing was a huge improvement and you feel like you're making tons of progress. Then... you get to the point where you spend 2 hours turning this:

Why is everything nice so expensive!?

Becky seems to think that I just pick out the most expensive thing anywhere we go and decide that I want that. The truth is that I just like well designed high quality items and it seems that the most simple item is always the most expensive... this is especially true when it comes to fixtures for the house.

We put the "no vacation" in renovation...

 Hi there, Becky here again.

Another productive and exhausting weekend is behind us and I think we're both starting to appreciate Mondays as restful back-to-the-office days!

Emilio already posted a bit about the progress we made, but while he was working on all that stuff, Sully and I had our own agenda.


First off, hiking in the woods.  I've found a nice little dog park near the house and they have trails through the forest where people look the other way on the whole local leash law thing.  So, luckily, the weekend started with Sully getting nice and tired.  Oh, and MUDDY.  Did I mention muddy?  So, the second thing on the list for Saturday wound up being bath-time for Sullivan.

Then, to work!

Asbestos is the Bestos!

ASBESTOS WILL KILL YOU!

Seriously, it will..  in about 40yrs and with prolonged exposure to airborne fibers.  That said, I am of the camp that isn't really scared of Asbestos but strongly believes in proper abatement of friable Asbestos based materials.  Now, for those not in the know, there are two types of Asbestos containing materials.  There are friable materials that can easily allow the Asbestos particles to become airborne by just touching them and non-friable materials which contain Asbestos but are generally not going to release the Asbestos fiber unless you're grinding the stuff up. 

All of that said, I am going to cover my A** and say that I am not an Asbestos abatement professional and anything I write here (or say in person) should be taken as pure conjecture and that you should consult an EPA certified abatement professional when dealing with any form of Asbestos or Asbestos containing materials.  In other words.. I am talking out of my butt. 

So... what does this have to do with our house?  Well, when our house was built Asbestos was a VERY common material to use to insulate steam pipes.  In the form of pipe wrap it isn't necessarily a huge issue.  If the wrapping and underlying materials are in good condition you can just leave it be. 

Unfortunately, our pipes looked like THIS

Gifts from the House!

When you buy an old house you hope to find neat things left by the previous owners.  Sometimes the things you find make you sad... like a horrific excuse for an electrical system and Asbestos pipe wrap.  Other times you find awesome stuff! 

When we first looked at the house I noted that there were some doors up in the garage attic.  At some point I went over and confirmed they were the Pantry door and the swinging Kitchen door that lead to the dining room. More on that later... 

The "find" if you will came about when Becky and I were standing in the basement trying to figure out where the rest of it was.  The basement isn't quite as large as the footprint of the first floor and we were trying to figure out why.  This lead Becky outside to try and figure out where that missing space was.  The next thing I heard from her was, "There are doors under the porch."  This confused me quite a bit as we weren't really missing any doors.  So outside I went to take a look.  I was presented with this..

 The side opening of the front porch with the guard thing removed. 

Minor Meltdown and Staple Purgatory

 Becky here, with a confession.

Tears have been shed.  The first meltdown has occurred, and I was the one to break. A couple of nights ago I woke up to SSSsssSSSsssssssss and a deflated air mattress.

Simple Things

Just a little bit of a brain dump...

Honey, I think I blew up the Dining Room!

Wallpaper

It seems like such a great design decision at the time. Then you paint over it.. Or maybe paper over it.. Then you sell the house to some guy named Emilio and laugh as you drive away.  

I like wallpaper, I really do.  I just don't like tar covered 1930s wallpaper that was painted over.  Or horrible plate rails that aren't really plate rails (they have grooves...for you know...plates) but actually two pieces of base moulding that were tacked together and slapped up onto the wall of my dining room right at eye level such that it makes the room feel shorter than it is and makes the giant dining room windows look funny.  

So I did what anyone else would do.   I TORE IT ALL OUT IN A FIT OF RAGE!!!  Well.. what really happened was that Becky and I went to the Serv-U Locksmiths over in Springfield to get some copies of the skeleton keys we have (the only keys we have for the house) made.  While there we met their "wallpaper guy" who upon learning of our desire to remove wallpaper from plaster walls informed us to go against all commonly given advice and not use wallpaper remover or water or anything like that but to instead dry scrape it with a wall stripper he had, basically a 4in razorblade on a handle).  

We got home new toys in hand and this happened... 

10 things I can't wait to do in the house!

Becky here, just checking in.

My enthusiasm for the house is growing as we peel back the "layers of bad decisions" (as Emilio describes them) but here is what I am really waiting for:

10. Cook a meal.***DONE!***
9. See what those floors look like when refinished! They are going to be gorgeous.
8. Plant flowers :)
7. Finish pulling staples and tack strips! 13,900,875 down and 5,000 left to go.  ***DONE!***
6. Open up the front porch. Wave at a neighbor!
5. Get Internet!
4. Curl up with my wonderful guy and relax for a whole weekend- no house work allowed!
3. Have friends over for BBQ and beers. Well, maybe BBQ, beers, and painting.
2. Become fabulously wealthy from blogging and book rights.
1. Move in day. I can't wait :)

Carpet.. Carpet... Oh god the carpet! Oh yeah... and a bathroom.

I hate carpet.  I could just leave it at that but I really think you should understand why I hate carpet.  I hate carpet because I have horrible allergies.  Steam heat was a definite "want" when searching for homes.  Forced hot air is awesome... if you want to blow dirt around your house like a weirdo.  That said I was torn between being absolutely disgusted by the carpet we removed from the house and being elated by the fact that I was looking at wood floors.  

It wasn't as quick of a process as we expected though.  In the last blog I showed the process for removing the carpet from the stairs and the living room.  That took us most of a weekend.  The rest of what I'm documenting here took another week from start to finish, finish being getting the rolls of carpet and padding into the garage.  During this time we also made the bathroom usable as we started camping out at the house during the week/weekend.  

It's mine! Let's tear it apart!

I don't know what it is about going into 30 years of debt but it seems to drive people to do strange things.... Like tear apart the house they just bought.

  

First things first though... lets get rid of that stupid sign out front!

It's what's inside that counts!

The inside of the house is chock full of original trim goodness as well as horrible renovation decisions which I'm sure seemed like great ideas at the time.  

From the back door we enter into the kitchen which is as Becky claimed when we first viewed the house, "The worst room" 

 

It may be a disaster but it's my disaster!

So I bought a house in a small college town in Western Mass.  I just had to have a project house and after 6 months of searching and dragging my oh so patient girlfriend all across the Pioneer Valley we found this place.  It was listed as a "charming arts and crafts bungalow" which is a nice way of saying an old bungalow with very little updating since it was built.  Since this is our first post I'll do a bit of a house tour...