Sunday, February 2, 2025

Dining Room Upgrades!

 As we start the pretty stuff, the dining room is the first room to get all of its finish carpentry.

The window looks out to the sunporch

Doorway to kitchen and living room

It was a pretty simple room, with doorways to the living room and kitchen and two windows - one exterior window and one that went to the sunporch (our guess is it was originally an exterior window).  Oh, and LOTS of wallpaper! 😂



That all changed when we eliminated the wall between the kitchen and dining room.  We also moved the door from the kitchen into the dining room space, to make the kitchen a bit bigger. We also removed 3 (THREE) ceilings to gain almost 18 inches of ceiling height! 

This room had 3 ceilings - look how much removing them has changed the space!

But one of the biggest changes was swapping out the old double window for something much more charming.  I found this window at Old House Parts and it's a great way to bring light into the dining room, with a bit of architectural interest.  The door is from a former project - it was in fabulous shape and I've been hoarding it in my storage facility for years!

We've recreated the antique trim to match the rest of the house

The dining room originally had a closet - but it was really shallow and didn't provide a lot of storage. We needed to use some of the space for the gas fireplace in the living room.  But there was still space that I didn't want to waste.  So Kyle is creating a custom china cabinet in place of the closet.  

This will be such a great addition once the doors are on and it's painted!

Of course there is more to do - paint, staging, etc - but this space has already changed dramatically since our starting point!

It's obviously doubling as a storage area right now!






Pin It

Thursday, January 16, 2025

First Peeks of Kitchen Progress

With the new floor installed, we’re ready to move forward with the kitchen.  It's so exciting to see it come together, because the kitchen install is a long process.  We started months ago with all new electrical, plumbing and insulation.  That was followed by drywall and flooring.  It's taken 6 months to get to this point!


I chose a traditional style, in keeping with the age of the home. 


The biggest changes in this kitchen?  The ceiling height change and the big new window.  They both make the kitchen feel so much bigger and brighter!

Look at the change in ceiling height!


On the right side of the kitchen, in the space that used to be a closet, we have recessed the refrigerator into the wall.  And there is a step-in pantry next to it.

Look how bright the kitchen is now!
 

At the end of the kitchen, next to the window, there will be a tall, glass front cabinet.  It can't get installed until after the countertops are in place, so I'm trying to be patient and wait.


But even with all that storage, I thought it needed more, so an island will be installed, to provide even more space for all the essentials you need in a modern kitchen.


Once the cabinets are installed, the countertop folks need to create a manufacturing template and then we wait for that to be completed and the tops installed.  When that is done, the tall cabinet will get added as well as all the crown molding.  And the shelving and door need to be installed in the pantry.   Finally, I'll get the custom tile backsplash installed.  Still so much to do - but it's coming along!  

Pin It

Tuesday, January 7, 2025

The Front Porch Beautification Project

I love the little front porch on this house.  And it was in pretty decent shape.  But as we started to update all the other finishes around it, the ‘while we’re at it’ syndrome hit us.  The floorboards had gouges and splinters, the railing was the wrong period and the steps were a bit wonky.  So 'while we're at it', we decided to update it to look as nice as the rest of the exterior.



We decided to give it a facelift.  As you can probably guess, this facelift was a little more than skin deep!  The guys updated the framing with joist hangers and modern building practices.  It included adding some new substructure, so the deck can be‘picture framed’, to give it a more polished appearance.


The first step was new decking.  While I’m a fan of composite decks for their low maintenance, I just couldn’t bring myself to put plastic floorboards on this antique house.  So we opted for mahogany decking – you can’t beat the beauty of natural wood on an old house!  

Updating the framing to meet current building code

The steps are 'picture framed' to provide a more finished edge 

Underneath, we wanted to use traditional lattice like we found on the house when we started (it also helps deter critters from living under there).  But since this is all close to the ground and will get splashed in the rain, we used a PVC product that can’t rot and will look great for many years.  It will be painted, so it will still look traditional.

Meranti is naturally decay resistant, but we added this oil to enhance it's beauty

 

The next step was the railing, with the antique balusters I spent so many weeks working on.  We modeled the design on other railings in the greater Portland area. They include the tri-color paint scheme that we’ve used on the rest of the exterior.  


 

The final step is to reinstall the brackets that were on the porch.  I’m not convinced they’re original to the house – but used them as a style guide for the rest of the brackets we added to the house.  And they are in good shape (under 50 coats of paint!), so we will reinstall them - after I get them cleaned up.


Look how close the rings are on this wood!!!  These are old! 


The result so far?  I’ll let you be the judge, but I’m pretty pleased with the first impression this will create as someone enters the home. And of course that ‘new’ antique front door is a big part of the overall look! 

The newel posts are still a work in progress
It's changed so much in the last 6 months! 





Pin It

Thursday, January 2, 2025

Trials and Tribulations of 150 Year Old Floors

I knew there would be challenges in this house, but the floors were the least of my worries.  They had been covered with wall to wall carpeting for decades, so I assumed they were well protected and in good shape.  I budgeted accordingly – big mistake.  They’ve turned into a budget buster.  

 

We should have called this the house of many flooring types.  The foyer, living room and dining room all have 2” wide maple (or so we thought) floors.  The kitchen is sheet vinyl.  The office is 2 1/4” birch flooring, presumably laid over top of the 2” maple (but probably ruined due to lots and lots of nails through it)

The second floor hall and tiny room have 2 1/4” birch – same as the office downstairs.  The bedrooms have wide pine boards (no tongue and groove).  It’s not unusual to find the simpler flooring on the second floor and I was fine with that.  It’s part of the house’s history.

 

But then it all started to unravel as the work unfolded.  

 

I really wanted the main living area to flow seamlessly with the 2” flooring that's original to the house. We cleaned up a sample piece and determined it was maple, so we had lots of new maple custom milled to match (at triple the price of regular flooring $$$).  That would give us enough wood to replace the kitchen floor (I don’t even try to save kitchen floors, they’re always full of water stains and holes from old plumbing).  

400 sq ft of new, custom milled 2" maple flooring


We thought we could find lots of wood to patch problem areas (ex: heating vent holes in living room and dining room), when the kitchen floor was taken up.  But as the guys got into it, they discovered the kitchen had two sheets of luan plywood screwed and nailed over the original 2” wood in the kitchen.  It was a miserable job to remove and there simply wasn’t any way to save the antique flooring underneath of it. 


 

So how do we patch the old floor vents, spaces where walls were opened up and problem areas under the radiators?  We can’t use the new maple, it will stick out like a sore thumb.  


So many places need patching in the original flooring

Our only option - we had to tear out the foyer floor, to give us sufficient patching material.  That means the foyer will now also have the new maple.  I was devastated, I really wanted a uniform floor from the moment you walk through the front door. But sadly, that flooring had to go.

Foyer with old flooring removed - to provide patching material for living & dining room

 

But wait, there were more problems. As the guys started to sand through the dark finish on the original floor, we discovered it wasn’t all uniformly maple.  Instead, we discovered it also has birch and ash mixed in (probably not unusual, given the period when the house was built.  They used what was available!).  So now the maple floor we are installing in the kitchen and foyer will be much lighter (new maple is very, very light – think Scandinavian finishes), without that wood type variation. 

Once the dark finish was sanded off, we discovered maple, birch and ash wood

 

At this point, I was starting to lose it…..  See the dramatic difference as Pat starts sanding the new and old floor? 

 

Pat talked me down off the ledge by finding a stain to minimize the difference.  Typically, maple doesn’t take stain well.  But by water treating it before the stain, it allows the grain to pop and the stair adheres much more readily.  Take a look at the photo below.  Freshly sanded maple with just a clear finish looks blazingly white (IKEA bright!).  So he prepared some sample boards and we started experimenting with different stain colors.  After some experimentation, we came up with a color that will closely match the natural color of the original floors.  


 

With that plan in place, we addressed the 2nd floor.  When we looked at the primary suite (now comprised of 3 different rooms from the original house), we realized we didn’t have enough of the original pine to fill in all the gaps and damaged boards.  So, we made the difficult decision to replace it.  We’re going to use oak, which is certainly different than pine, but it’s readily available and a nice traditional touch that isn’t as crazy expensive as the custom milled maple from the first floor.


And on a bright note, the stair treads are all pine.  Some are damaged and need to be replaced.  If we used new pine, it would look really odd.  Old wood has different colors, but also much tighter grain that can’t be matched with new.  So at least we have lots of antique pine boards to create the replacement treads!


So the guys are busy getting the floors in and it's all coming together.  The patches made with the narrow 2" flooring we got from the foyer are making the old holes in the floor disappear! 

The old heat vent is getting carefully 'stitched in' with original flooring

You'll never be able to see this patch once the floor has been sanded

  This won't be a quick process, but getting these floors cleaned up will make this home shine!



Pin It
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...