In Process: refinishing dining and living room floors

I spent all day running the floor sander….hopefully tomorrow stain and poly. The last pic is from Viv. It’s kind of a joke that she always takes pics of me working.

The Tiny Hall

This has got to be one of the most awkwardest halls ever. There are four doors that swing in to this tiny space. The master bedroom door, bathroom door, Alex’s room door and the door leading to the large (dog trot) hall. This coming weekend my focus will be on refinishing floors in the front part of the house BUT…this hall is my next project! Buh-bye wallpaper!!! There are three jobs that I absolutely abhor. The all time number one most dreaded evil is scraping paint and caulk off of old windows (misery!!!). Followed closely behind that is floating and finishing drywall (ugh!) you can probably guess what number three is…yup! Scraping off nasty old wallpaper that was put up with superman glue. Sigh….I scraped it out of the other rooms. I guess my time of procrastination has come to an end.

Study Finished

And….the tada! Not sure how I went from having the whole room to myself to having a corner. The closet is my new “craft room”. The wood wall was from reclaimed wood from the attic. We had to take up boards to update the electricity and they were too splintered to put back. So we repurposed them here. It also helps make it look less strange that we bumped a wall out to add a bathroom.

The round window seat is so much more user friendly. The light is beautiful during the day and makes for a great place to study.

Now I can say that one room in the house is completely finished! Ha! Next we will move furniture and refinish floors throughout the rest of the house.

Left on our list: update kitchen counters and sink; strip paint from front hall wainscoting to show original burly pine, refinish exterior wood doors, some exterior touch up paint, front flower beds and porch furniture/beautification, and clean up back yard of all construction materials.

We also have the back porch and some brick work to do, but that is being hired out and will be complete this summer. I am really excited about our plans for the back porch. More about that soon.

Thank you to all my friends for their understanding. I have become quite a hermit over the last six months with so many projects going on. I hope to rejoin society again soon…hehe.

Thank you all for your encouragement and support. After 6 years we are finally seeing a light at the end of the tunnel.

Andrea

The Study Evolution

Just finished putting the last coat of poly on the floor. I’ll be able to move in next week. Yay! These are the pictures of the study evolution from the first being the realtor walk through picture and the last one is from today. I will take more pictures after I move in and get everything settled. But, I love before and after pictures and know you do too. Here you go!

Realtor Walkthrough picture 2006

This is the way it stayed until late last year

This is how it looked for the past 5-6 years. The junk/scrapbook room.

Bumped out Vivian’s bathroom, removed the fireplace. It didn’t work. All of the chimneys were removed at some point in the past.

Recycled 100+ year old wood pieces to make a wood interest wall. Plan to put up shelving to house our book collection.

Interest wall stained and polyurethaned

Sanding the floors getting ready for stain and poly

Started staining to see what the color would look like. Minwax Red Chestnut.

The color came out pretty good, nice and even

Time for poly!

Looking pretty good!

Tada!

This picture shows the biggest difference in the floor. Can’t wait until it dries. I am trying hard not to go in there and touch it.

Now, on to refinish the floors in the rest of the house!  This was the “test” room.

Before and After Tax Rehab Projects

So, I have nothing cute or smart to say. After four months (August-December) worth of Louisiana Tax Credit Rehabilitation projects, here are the before and after pictures of what we accomplished.

Landscaping and other minor fix ups and remodeling were not eligible for credits, so we move on to work on those things this Spring/Summer.

I know I’ve mentioned this a few times, but what we did accomplish through the Louisiana tax credit program was: update HVAC units, plumbing, electrical, roof, exterior carpentry, porch, bathroom addition, some exterior paint, foundation repair and some termite remediation.

Without further ado…..

We are done

It has been too rainy to take the “ta-da!” After pics….so here are a few older pics I neglected to post earlier. We finished most of the work before Christmas and did the finishing right before New Year’s Day! Whoo! Talk about busy!

Anyway, I am waiting for the rain to clear, then I will clean the trash out of the yard and post some good pictures! I am going to put them in before/after collages.

Trying out the porch paint

I thought I hung up my paintbrushes for the week, but I got bored yesterday and 10 gallons of Iron Frost paint were calling my name. So I popped open a can and painted a bit on the front porch to see if I am going to like the color. I love it! Balances out the light blue on the ceiling a brushed nickel lanterns. Sometime after all this rain passes and we get a warm day again, I’m going to paint it on. Merry Christmas!!!