Sergio's Week Off

Kitchen ceiling : FIXED!

Wallpaper : (MORE!?!) Stripped!

Here's our very first gas bill. Awww....how cute...it even has my name with the new address!

Here's my mom cleaning off the soot from the walls. Finally, those are ready to paint.

OLD PIPE....

NEW PIPE!

NO LEAK!

Here's what the front rooms looked like with the curtain boxes....

Here's what they look like now!

PS --- Its not snowing in that picture (above). The camera is just really dirty. Yucky.

Painters have been working hard

And here's my mom again. She stripped all of the woodwork on the windows in the kitchen. She's sleeping on the couch right next to me, now. She's so tired!! It was a two day job. (Thanks Mom!)

We don't need no education ... The Wall

Hi! Remember me? I'm the non-structural wall separating two different rooms.

Sergio and Russ** (my dad) started taking this down because we have a leaking pipe. Up until now, we haven't been able to locate the pipe....

My Dad

<---

More work...

And finally....VICTORY!
PS : the pipe is in the lower right hand corner...leak found...not fixed :(

KITCHEN CHANGES!!!

Here's the sink after some wallpaper scraping....



x


Then, we took the light down from the top of the sink. Electric looks a little fire-hazard-ish, but our electrician is coming this week to fix that. Plus, don't worry--we have a fire extinguisher.

There's masonite board behind that sink. We took that off, risking the unknown about what was underneath.

The Unknown--
Now, the sink needed to be covered up to avoid getting messy. Here's what was underneath that masonite...scary.

We have to replaster that big hole in the wall (obviously).

The wooden boards underneath are staying.

Once we took down the cupboard over the stove, this patch of wallpaper and paint appeared. It is actually numerous layers of wallpaper covered by paint, and then covered by wallpaper again. The paint was so strong, I honestly think it could have withstood a nuclear bomb. Fortunately, it did not withstand about 10 hours (I'm not kidding--just for that patch) of chipping, steaming, soaking with DIF, chipping, steaming....Victory finally came.

Once we finally, finally stripped all of the wallpaper, we took down the masonite all around the room. We exposed (you guessed it) more wallpaper (see below). Wow! Only this was older, yuckier, and stickier.

We also exposed more wood! (Hooray!)

Interestingly, the wood had a very dark, charcoal film on it. We think there might have been a kitchen fire long ago, and the masonite was put in place to cover the damage.

This picture (below) really shows the layers of wall.

Here's my husband, looking for something to do. I made him clean the fridge out.

Another picture of the wall...all of the wallpaper is gone now. Plus, I've been stripping the paint on the windows. They've been repainted so many times, that the edges aren't rounded anymore. Were trying to either restore the wood (if its nice) or just sand it down so that it looks sharper once its re-painted.

AND finally...the only part of the house that doesn't need any work--the backyard. We just bought the table and chairs at Home Depot. The previous owner had planted all sorts of bulbs and we've been loving watching everything pop up from day to day. Its soooo cozy back here.

"Before" Downstairs Pictures : Part 2

This is the dining room. There might be a nice chimney under there. Then again, there might be a not so nice structure. We're not sure.

Here's the kitchen. Its a little small, and its carpeted. We are planning to pull the carpet and put some flooring down. The kitchen has a lot of wallpaper. We are pulling that down, as well.

The sink (below) is so cool. We are keeping it. We just bought legs to go underneath. So we'll get rid of that cupboard and the sink will be standing on two legs.

There's a bathroom off the kitchen. You can't really see the walls here, but they have wallpaper, too. We plan to pull that down and repaint over the pink. The toilet has a crack in it, so eventually we'll replace.

Eventually, we will probably get rid of this bathroom and extend the kitchen. Its a hire out job, so give us maybe 5 years.

"Before" Downstairs Pictures : Part 1

So its done! We closed!


Here's a blog to so that you all can see the crazy renovation projects Sergio and I are attacking at 837 Richmond.


First, here are all of the pictures that we took at closing so we will all remember the "before".

Here's the front. Painters are coming at the beginning of May. Sergio and I are deciding on a shade of green. The house right next door is blue, which is why we are changing to something different.




Front porch is closed in with storm windows, which come out during the summer. We just found a bunch of screens in the garage that fit the front porch.




The front windows inside the house open to the porch on the other side. They are locked right now with some sort of special key (?!?!) that we can't find yet. We'll keep you posted on that.
<-- This what the front door looks like from the inside. Eventually, we'll can the carpet on the stairs. -->







Here is a non-structural wall dividing two separate rooms on the first floor. We are going to get rid of this eventually. It may not look too bad in the picture, but once we open it up, there will be more sun, more open space, etc.







This the dining room. All of that green is actually very nice wood. We plan to strip that wood eventually. There's a ton of it. I'm sure my IQ points will go down a bit afterward. It'll be worth it.























The windows in the dining room are leaded glass and desperately need repair. You can actually hear the glass rattle when the wind blows. The design is so nice. We plan to hire someone to repair it.


This is what I look like when the alarm company calls because we put the wrong number in the pad.










To be continued...