Here are some realtor walk through pictures of the hall, what it looked like through the years, then the final pictures after we refinished the floor and put up the interest wall.
PICTURES OVER THE YEARS
REFINISHED THE FLOORS, NEW ART, HOW IT LOOKS PRESENTLY:
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So the poly is dry and I painted the trim. Besides a couple touch up paint spots, I am almost ready to move the furniture back in and hang our family pictures. To be continued….
We decided a couple days ago to tackle the floors in our massive hall. After a trip to two home improvement stores plus a tool store, I finally got underway about 1 pm. I really had some ambitious plans today. It didn’t help that the stain color we did the rest of the house in was discontinued…along with the brand of polyurethane that I love. Argh! Lots of reading cans, looking at color samples and deliberating later, I came home with some stuff I think will match pretty well.
Here are the pics from the day. I’ll finish staining the other side tomorrow and maybe poly Monday or Tuesday.
Cleaned all the stuff out the hall.
Sanded with a high grit, down to a low grit.
Cleaned all the powdery dust. This is the most annoying part. I have to sweep several times, mop, tack cloths, the whole nine yards.
All clean
Starting the stain…more tomorrow. Time to eat!
PS: Right after this pic, I told fuzzy to get off my floor!
My two vent huggers
Vivian: Mommy its cold
Me: Yes baby, I know
Vivian: I wish I had a cup of hot water to pour on my legs!
Me: Oh no! That’s not a good idea
Vivian: Why?
Me: ‘Cause it will burn you
Vivian: No it won’t. I’ll put sunscreen on my legs
Me: Baby, that’s not going to help. Sunscreen blocks the sun from burning you, not water. That’s different.
Vivian: They make the waterproof sunscreen don’t they?
That is when I gave up arguing with her. She makes me feel like a dog chasing my tail.
Andrea
While I am in a sharing mood, I will post pictures of our hall floor. I do not have the time or money right now to sand down all of the floors in our house and refinish them, so I bought some Restor-a-finish from Lowes and followed it up with a nice beeswax. You rub the restor-a-finish into an unpolyurethaned (not sure if that is a word) floor and it covers scratches and scrapes until you can completely have your floors redone. It looks nice! I only did half of the hall and you can tell where I stopped!
See the difference?
See, I do work sometimes...
Andrea
Isn’t this pretty? Soon, it will be sanded and stained. I am looking at rubbing Briwax into it instead of sealing it with polyurethane. Yes, it would be more trouble…I would have to rub Briwax into the wood every year or so, but I think the wood grain would be prettier and more natural looking. After scraping off layers of paint and orange-ish puddles of yuck…I think I would prefer not to put any of that stuff back on there.
This is burley or curly pine (I guess depending on where you are from or who you talk to). Legend has it that only the wealthy in Central Louisiana had it in their homes since it is so rare. The curly pine comes from a diseased tree where the bark grows in wavy patterns instead of straight. I was also told that a certain affluent Alexandria family who owned one of the only local mills in the early 1900’s, kept all of curly pine found for their homes. The builder and owner of my home, Sally Hynson-Ringgold (who, from what I can gather, lost her husband in the Civil War), was the former owner of the Kent Plantation (she inherited the Kent Plantation from her father). She must have either had connections, or her husband’s family owned one or more of the sawmills in Ringgold, Louisiana, because there is curly pine throughout my house as well.
Andrea
I finally found my realtor walkthrough pictures of our house. It is interesting to compare before and after pictures of some of the rooms. I will post them all soon, but here are my absolute favorites….the kitchen before:
I don’t know which is worse, the red plastic handles on the cabinets mounted higher than you can reach, or the burgundy damask fabric that was stapled…YES, stapled to the wall, or the fire engine red laminate countertops. The swags were also stapled to the window. If you look close, you can see that they did not even bother to take down the old window hardware before stapling up the swags. And, of course!!!! I almost forgot! The fingerpainted artwork on the cabinet doors! At least it was acryllic paint and washed off! The kitchen was also carpeted from wall to wall. I can’t explain how gross that was. We pulled it up to find a black and white checkerboard floor. Which was a lot better than the carpet.
I accumulated two garbage bags of fabric that I took down from the windows, walls, and every other imaginable place. Look at the front door..yes people, there is a front door under there somewhere!
These doors have: 1) a set of plantation blinds, 2) a lacy curtain, and 3) a set of swags. Can we add anything else?
I do not have any “after” pics, but here are some “in process” pics that show you what things look like now. The kitchen:
***Update to post: I decided to clean my kitchen and take a better picture.
This is not the best pic… it was taken last year when I was trying to clean some things out and get rid of clutter. But, as you can see, the 3 layers are gone from the window. I replaced it all with some very simple semi sheer ivory shades. Isn’t this hall cool? We were living in 700 square feet before we bought this place. I could fit my old place in this hall! I cannot wait until I get all of the woodwork stripped and those awful repro art deco lights outta there!
Well, until next time.
Andrea
Perpetual Renovator 