The Trades

I'm in awe of all the tradesmen (and yes, they're all men) who have helped us transform our house over the past several months:  electricians, plumbers, dry wall hangers, wallpaper hangers, tilemen, plasterers, painters, floor refinishers, roofers, carpenters, cabinet makers, floor layers, carpet installers, gardeners.  Without this crew of skilled craftsmen, we would be lost and helpless before the mass of renovation projects we call home.

And so one question comes to mind:  How in hell did our local vocational school not get the funding it requested?????  We're missing a very big boat here.

Things are moving fast now

As we head down the home stretch to our first guest (4 days!), it's good to see that visible progress is being made every day.  So far we're so pleased with what we've chosen.  For example, the wallpaper on the landing went up today - it's beautiful!  You never really know with wallpaper until you see it on the wall, but this is exactly what we wanted.

Otherwise, I'm moving forward on the smaller bedroom and Dom did a lot of work on the front staircase between the 2nd and 3rd floors, deciding to paint the vertical parts of the stairs as well as the sides.  Big thing was to take out the carpeting on those stairs; they were incredibly filthy.  The stairs themselves are in pretty good shape but we're going to put a new carpet on.

I got to do some of the fun stuff today, i.e., decorating-type shopping:  mirrors, soap dispensers, bathmats, hand towels.  Got the rings for the curtains so I can hem them.  Now to find a jumbo-sized bottle of Dr. Bonner's Peppermint Soap and some good shampoo.

Weekend work

Billy started the wallpapering today - oh my god it looks so beautiful.  Tomorrow he'll finish the larger bedroom and hopefully the landing as well.

Brian came by with the wood for the crown molding and chair rail which Dom will tint or paint this week, then they'll go up on Wed.  We had some bad news on our floor - the milling of the character-grade white oak made from reclaimed barn wood got bumped by the miller for a bigger project.  He can't even give us an estimate of when it might be ready.  So we're going with new wood - still character-grade white oak and from Ohio trees, but not reclaimed.  Very disappointing.   The good news is that it's less expensive, but it's very frustrating that this guy let us down.

Dom painted the second-to-third floor stairwell today and it looks great; just needs the wallpaper on the lower third.  And I worked on the smaller bedroom, which needs a ton of work.  The "accent" wall is ready for its wallpaper, and the other walls are in various stages of priming and skimcoating.  Lots of patching, taping, and caulking required, plus we'll have to paint the ceiling and floor molding.  Fortunately we have until May 24 to get it done.

What's today, Saturday?  We're really in countdown mode:  5 days to go until our first guest.  We're not ready...!!  But we will be (I think; I hope).

I'll add some pictures later; too tired right now.  Where's that drinkie poo?  Or maybe a shower first, in our new shower, that is, one of our 3 new showers!

Together again

The crew has left, the bathroom renovation work is 99% complete, and we are back in our bedroom and in one bed again for the first time since mid-February.  To celebrate we put on the new sheets we bought back in January in Paris.  It wasn't bad, living in the garret, but it feels much more civilized to be in a real bedroom.

I skimcoated the smaller bedroom wall, the one that's going to be wallpapered this weekend, so after I sand it tomorrow all the walls should be ready for Billy, who's coming on Saturday.

The roofing appears to be done (2 days!) although there is some material laying about so I guess they will be back tomorrow.  And the shower doors will be installed tomorrow!!  It's starting to come together...

Where to begin...?

I'm so far behind I don't even know where to start.  Our major renovation project - the upstairs bathrooms - is largely finished; three-and-a-half weeks behind schedule, but nearly there.  Just a few details to finish up and the shower doors to install; they should be here on Friday.

In the meantime, Dominique has finished his office and the little room next to it, and we have painted the large bedroom as well as completed most of the prep work needed to be ready for the wallpaper.  I've made curtains for both bedrooms although they need to be hung before I can hem them.  Now it's a question of coordinating a number of contractors who will, in order, hang the wallpaper, put up the wainscoting,refinish the floors, lay staircase and landing carpeting, and lay and finish a new floor.  Then we'll move in again with the curtains, furnishings, and other final touches.

We've assembled most of the items needed for comfort and beauty:  new bed frames and mattresses, sheets, towels, artwork, bedding.  Need a few more bath items and some area rugs.

Have been trying out and/or refining several recipes:  waffles, granola, buckeye candy.  Have some great coffee and hot water carafes.

In the midst of everything else, our roofers - who were supposed to have started several weeks ago but couldn't because of the weather - have begun roofing this week.

Wallpaper and draperies

Notice that I wrote "draperies," not "drapes."  I have recently learned that "drape" is only a verb, never a noun; the correct word is "drapery."  I will never again speak of curtains and drapes.

Anyhoo, we are in the market for some wallpaper and drapery fabric and I have located 2 stores in Cleveland that sound amazing.  US Wall Coverings is one, with 4,000 different patterns at 50%-80% less than retail.  The other is Schindler's Discount Home Decorating and Upholstery Fabrics, featuring hundreds of fabrics, also at discounted prices.  We're going to try to see one or both tomorrow.  Hopefully they're as good as they sound.

Catch up - again

Not doing too well at blogging every day.

Lots has happened since the last time; unfortunately, not enough as we are officially 3 weeks behind schedule.  We want to talk to Josh about how we can work more in parallel - in other words, we start in on the bedrooms while they finish up the bathrooms - but so far no response from that quarter.  Frustrating.

Anyway, the dry wall upstairs seems to be finished and I think the tile work will begin next week.  We can now clearly see the bathrooms:  all the walls are up and the shower basins are down.  Yes, they're small but not tiny; they're going to be great.

The one on the left goes with the "French" room and the other goes with the "Ohio" room.  Guess we don't have a picture of our bathroom.











As for us, we have 3 main areas of attack:  Dom's office and the back staircase plus we've added the second floor landing.  Thought the landing was going to be relatively easy but of course it's not.  Lots of trim to be painted three times to achieve that "stained wood" look with paint; crown molding that has been plastered into the ceiling; and plaster walls in their usual poor shape.

Walls skimcoated, not yet primed; chair rail with first coat of base paint.

Pried out a piece of the crown molding which broke off.  Why they replastered the ceiling without removing the crown molding is beyond us, but this kind of thing seemed to happen often.  We have toyed with pulling it all down and re-doing the ceiling - especially since a light fixture that was installed on the ceiling was poorly replastered - but Reeny and Jon told us about putting a larger crown molding over this one which seems like the right thing to do.

Part of the landing project includes fixing the window cords.  Very interesting to see the inner workings of these old rope and pulley systems.  The (extremely heavy) iron weight has some interesting markings on them.

We're disappointed at the paint job we discovered on the exterior of these windows.  Billy did such good work everywhere else (that we've seen), but he really cut corners on these - virtually no prep work, just painted over all the old stuff.  Guess he thought they wouldn't be seen.  Dom's doing a better job.


The back stairs are the slowest project since I can only work on them during the weekend.  So far I've skimcoated about half of the area where the bookcase used to be.  I  plan to finish that area tomorrow and also finish patching and sanding the rest of the stairwell.

Dom's office, on the other hand, is voted "project most likely to be completed in our lifetime."  He's done his own electricity, he's hung his own drywall, he's done an amazing job of taping, skimcoating, and priming.  Tomorrow, I think, he's going to paint.  His motivation, if he needed one, is the fact that we bought a gorgeous 1862 bookcase to put in it today at the Medina Antique Mall.  We love that place.  (Got a dresser, granola jar, and salt/pepper shakers, too.)

This picture doesn't do it justice and is about a week old anyway.  Got to take some more tomorrow.