taping & finishing the walls

Taping the Walls
So as I had mentioned in previous posts, Ben and I opted to not tape the house ourselves. I have no doubt we would have been able to do it, but because every single room needed to be done, it would have taken us months. Not to mention its an incredibly messy process so in this case we went for practicality over saving money and we decided to clear out the house and let the professionals get to work. Henry and I took off for a few days- a dusty house is even worse with a mischievous dog..
and Ben sent me pictures of the progress along the way..

Remember we had those horrible tiled ceilings in the living room and office?
We decided to replace them because the house was already going to be a mess and it just seemed like the right time to do it.

living room (aka Ben's living quarters)

office

Even without primer on them you can tell it's a huge improvement. If you look closely you can see that there's a little gap between the new ceiling and the walls, so to correct it, we're installing crown throughout the house.

kitchen

bedroom

Scarily they took out the huge medicine cabinet.. which makes sense but I'm dreading putting it back in..

bathroom

Priming
The taper told us he was going to prime all of the rooms when he was done sanding so he could tell if he missed an spots. And I have to say, I'm thrilled he did- not only is it making the painting easier, but it also meant I came home to white walls!
A huge improvement over the grey sheetrock we've grown so used to.

Painting
As to be expected the last four days have been non stop painting. And it doesn't look like it's going to let up anytime soon.

Here's a little sneak peek..

bathroom

bedroom

office
kitchen

Check back next week for the big kitchen reveal!!

last minute kitchen prep

As I had mentioned in previous posts we've been working on the kitchen in preparation for the cabinet installation. In the last few days three projects have really taken over.

The Ceiling
Once we decided to go with the rustic paneled ceiling look (something I first saw and posted about here) we quickly got to work. Last week I took a trip to Allerdice and looked at a few boards that we thought might work. We were limited on the depth of the boards since the cabinets have already been ordered and delivered.

We ended up going with an 8" tongue and groove pine plank. I posted about it getting acclimated here.

The installation went pretty quickly, one board at a time. While a few were slightly warped and gave us a little bit of a challenge in the end we decided any uneven gaps just added to the "rustic" feel.

The installation took place one step at a time..
1. Ben cut each to the width of the room- we measured each one beforehand to try to prevent any major mistakes.
2. We then applied sub floor adhesive to the back of the board- an extra step and probably not a necessary one, but it made us feel a little better about them staying in place.
3. On ladders we each took an end of the board and used mallets to fit the boards together.
4. With the board up Ben used a nail gun (pictured below) to nail the boards into place.. After the first couple of boards I decided the nail gun wasn't for me.

I'm pretty sure this is Ben trying to hammer in one of the my nails...
We were able to get a little variation in the color of the boards, but they're still a little too "golden" for me, so I'm planning on lightly staining them with a custom stain we've already purchased.

The Radiator
With the cabinets still in the garage we felt like this was our opportunity to finally clean up the radiator and spray it before everything was put in it's place.

Before I got sanding, I protected the floors and walls and the functional parts of the radiator that couldn't be painted.
To prep for the painting I first used a compressor on the radiator to remove all the loose dust and dirt. Then I sanded to get rid of the old chipped paint and any extra dirt. After the sanding process was over I wiped the unit down with bleach and once it was dry I primed it with a spray primer.
With the primer dry I started spraying it with the semi gloss white paint. I went over it and over it- going through three cans, but in the end I was pleased with the result.
But then again, anything beats what we started with.

The Windows
I'm in the process of working on sanding the windows before the cabinets go in- anything to prevent more mess once we can finally put things away!
I still have two and a half windows to go- its been a little bit of a challenge because of the layers and layers of old paint. Not to mention I take frequent breaks- even with a dust mask, working with old lead paint isn't fun!

I know I won't get to painting them before the cabinets go in, but we're going to replace the window and door casings after the installation so I'll plan on doing all of the painting at once. Definitely looking forward to getting rid of the minty green!

removing the ceiling

Our little house is plagued with ugly ceilings and unfortunately they have to stay put for the moment. Originally we were afraid replacing them would be a huge challenge- we were sure the ugly cardboard tiles were installed to cover up water damage. We just don't have the money to start messing with major repairs at the moment. My short term plans include teaching myself how to install wallpaper and lining a couple of the ceilings with a textured grasscloth but until that happens we're going to live with the ugliness above (just don't look up when you come visit).
But because we are doing such an over hall in the kitchen we thought it would be a shame to ignore the big elephant in the room. Again, we couldn't imagine why anyone would mask a perfectly fine ceilings with ugly tiles, so we prepared ourselves for a disaster and we were pleasantly surprised (you can count how many times that has happened throughout the renovation process on one hand).

Ben started taking the crown molding down last night and the cardboard tiles just started popping out.
We discovered that nailing strips were put into place to hold up the boards- which will make it easier for us to install a new ceiling when we figure out what we're going to do.
A few weeks ago I posted about a kitchen design that was very similar to ours here. I loved the idea of the reclaimed wood on the ceiling and had mentioned to Ben that I might want to take advantage of our clean slate and do something a little more interesting. He quickly told me he loved the idea but didn't think it would work- he was afraid we'd have nothing to secure the wood to. But now that we have nailing strips he said it may still be a possibility.. I'm crossing my fingers!

Since the kitchen turned out so well, I've started questioning our originally decision to let the rest of the house be. I just don't want to push our luck..