Front Hallway Painted

Another short post to show off the front hallway. I will just quickly mention that for some reason I'm rarely getting my notifications for new comments. Apologies if you haven't gotten a reply on a recent comment.

The front hallway was painted just before Christmas (the week before). I had been planning to paint the hallway for months and I absolutely wanted to have it done before my Christmas party on the 21st. Basically it wasn't a huge job, but it was definitely last minute. In the process of taking stuff down and prepping for paint, I figured out why my doorbell had stopped working. Turns out that the dust from sanding the floors earlier this summer had accumulated on the contact for the hammer and it wouldn't conduct electricity anymore. I just had to clean it. Works perfectly now.

The colour I chose was picked out about 4 years ago, and it's a shade of peacock blue. I had seen this exact colour used in a local historic house and wanted to use it somewhere. Depending on the lighting (especially in the evening in artificial light) it can look a bit more greenish.

View from the living room (which is the light green room):


This shows part of the staircase wall. The wall going up the stairs is very light grey:


Corner view showing front door (wood) with the doorbell I talked about above, the office doorway is on the right. I had put my Christmas decorations up:


View from the office looking across the hallway and into the living room. As mentioned above, the walls going up the stairs are very light grey:


This is the hallway (the main space of it) looking towards the kitchen, which is a hot mess. I had not yet re-installed my wall shelf/coat rack on the left wall:

Pain in the Neck!

Alright, so this is the first house related (progress) post in quite a while. This afternoon I painted the rest of the original tongue and groove ceilings on the main floor (those being the ceiling in the main hallway, and the ceiling in the living room). It took about 2-3 hours, and I went through about 1/2 a can of paint (I finished one and had to start on another), but it's finally OVER.

I've been both looking forward to, and dreading this job for about a month now, but now I can go ahead and paint the living room (tomorrow or Sunday).

I actually started around 1:00pm but I ran out of green painter's tape, so I had to run out and buy more, so I think I got back and was painting just before 2pm, and I finished around 4:30ish (including cleaning the paintbrush and putting things away).

Hallway:



Part of that time was also spent emptying out that bookcase in the living room. The cabinet is only 50" squared, but you wouldn't believe how many books fit in there! The weight of all the books (almost all large hardcovers) must be at least 500lbs or more.





The ceiling in the living room was the one that had the most dramatic transformation. I think it was only painted once or twice, and for the most part, a bunch of the old orange shellac is bleeding through the paint. It actually looked like nicotine build-up, but I tried washing a spot, and it made no noticeable difference, which is why I assumed it was shellac.



This was the last strip to be painted.



The finished ceiling. I notice that in the photos, it's more clearly visible where the lighter white repaired boards are. It's not really that noticeable in person. I'm NOT doing another coat.

Misc

I was planning to go and buy the green living room paint today, and get some cheap shower curtains and paint drop-cloths (dollar store), but I forgot that today was Victoria Day.

I'll go tomorrow.

Tomorrow I might just do the paint/supply run, but this week I'm planning to get the hallway t-g ceiling painted, as well as the living room t-g ceiling and walls painted. It's a lot of painting, but it should go pretty quickly.

That's not the only painting project I'll be working on...

For months now, I've been itching to do some sort of artwork. I was going to do a gouache (acrylic) on a prepared canvas, but the canvas that I have on hand is a bit large, and it's an odd size for framing (I think is 12x16 or something and there aren't that many available frames in this size).

Instead, I'm doing a watercolour. I love watercolours, but I tend to use them in an over-saturated way, where only the very pale colours are transparent. My art teacher hated this about me, but I really just strive to get a colour match from the source image I'm using, and if it has black in it, I want pure black, rather than a translucent back.

The image I'm using is an internet find. It's a photo of a beautiful "Madagascar Moon Moth" or Comet Moth. These are similar to the large "Luna Moth" but are yellow rather than a soft green.



I actually just managed to track down the original photographer who took this photo, and I contacted him to see if he would have any objections to me using his photo. Most people don't mind if permission is asked, but sometimes you just never know.

Finished Crown Photos

Here are some photos of the finished crown. As I mentioned previously, I decided to use a new crown in all the main rooms, and restore the missing pieces of original crown only in the living room and office. The main reason for this is because it will be very difficult to match it. If we had a very similar cutter at work, I would have made matching crown for the entire first floor, but that's not the case. The new crown is still a very nice match to the door casings (mini crown on the door and window tops).



View from the kitchen door. Office door to the left, front door in the centre.





Front door to the left, living room door in the centre, and stairs to second floor on the right.



I decided that I'm going to use my "oops" paint for the main hallway. This was a "slightly too dark" shade of beige that I had originally bought for the bathroom. This was an expensive "boo boo" at 50$ for the 4L can, but I think it will work nicely in this hallway. I haven't decided how I want to address the division at the living room wall/door leading up the stairs. Any suggestions? Ideally, I would paint the entire stairwell opening up to the second floor the same colour, but I don't know if I want to do that (it's going to be a huge pain, and I have a bunch of drywall repairs/patching to do up there.

Here's a shot of what I'm dealing with (I literally laid on the floor to take this). Living room door to the left, and you can see the bathroom fixture/fan opening upstairs. Just out of frame is the ceiling light fixture in this stairwell, which will eventually be that 4-light chandelier.

Note: the rectangular hole in the drywall at the top of the stairs on the right was from when I redid the sloped/angled ceiling part in the kitchen. It hasn't been fixed/patched yet.



Here are a few shots of the crown in the dining room.



Facing partially into the kitchen. The garage (ugly metal) door is visible. Note the beautifully repainted/restored arch. I'm very happy with how it turned out. This entire casing is warped. Like a LOT. I have about a half-inch thick gap filled with caulk in the top against the wall. You can't tell, though. And that's despite the crazy amount of nails I put into it, to try and flatten it out. It's solid white Ash (which is harder than oak), so that's the best I could do. There's also a TON (50+) of huge chips and holes in the front board that have all been carefully filled/patched.



Here you can see the basement door opening, and then the opening to the front hallway (where the first photo above was taken).



As for the doors project, so far I have the double coat of primer done on two sides. Next will be a very quick light sanding, and then the first coat of final paint.



***

Side note, remember the other day how I mentioned my "ghetto curtains" situation? Well, I thought I'd share that. This is the one in the living room window, and the office window is the same. Basically just two nails in the top crown (where the holes won't show), and some old tab curtains from my old apartment.

Always Doing Things the Hard Way

I will have a bunch of posts and tons of photos coming very soon.

As some of you know, I'm currently laid off, so I've been fairly productive with the house. Yesterday I finished installing the crown moulding in the main hallway (and it looks awesome). I've also done some work on the living room door jamb (which had to be shimmed-out to match the new (thicker) drywall that the PO put in).

This is a copy of a post I made to my personal (online) journal about what I did earlier today:

I seem to like giving myself extra work and extra headaches. I tend to do this often, and intentionally, but always in the pursuit of a better looking finished product.

What the hell am I talking about? The bathroom vanity.

I started to install it today and I didn't get that far. I wanted the vanity to fit into place with as few "tack-on" pieces as possible. Normally when we install a cabinet like this, we would install the main cabinet, then a filler piece on the side near the wall/casing. I chose instead, to have the "filler" piece built into the cabinet. That's fine, and I left enough room for it, but it's a lot more work.

I also went and used solid maple on the entire face and bottom, which I had to cut-away/sand to shape, and my belt-sander is a piece of crap.

I did manage to get it cut and shaped exactly how I wanted, but it took like 2 hours.

Additionally, I'm going to have the exact same problem when it comes to cutting/sanding the base of the vanity, since I need to remove at least 1/4" along one whole side to make it sit level.

Again: the finished product will look so much nicer, but what a headache.

Front Hallway and Living Room Floor

A lot has happened with the house in the past few weeks. I am currently laid off due to a work shortage, so I've been home alone and bored. This means I've had some time to work on projects.

But first, I thought I should show off a bit more of the stuff you guys haven't seen yet.

Here are a few shots of the vanity. The first shows what the glazing process looks like. The effect in the photo looks pretty severe, but you have to remember that the first sealer coat of lacquer has been scuff sanded, so the overall door colour looks paler than normal. The glaze is also wet, so it looks darker. After the final coat, it shows up as just a slightly darker shadow in the crevices.



Here are a few shots of the main cabinet after it's been glazed and with the final coat of lacquer applied (and fully cured):



You can just barely see the glaze in the ogee detail on the toe-kick.





Here are the office built-in doors propped-up in place temporarily (just for a preview):





And the linen cupboard door:



Alright, so the first big project I tackled recently was the tear-out of the living room floor. I knew what to expect, and I ended up with no real surprises. Work started off with the removal of the large finger-joint 1/4 rounds (which is why they're in so many small pieces), and other garbage patch work.



I removed 90% of the furniture from the room, but the TV stand and the pine bookcase were too big (I had no room to put them anywhere else). I worked around those.







This large patched hole was expected...



I have no idea why there's an electrical box inset into the floor here.



I knew about the hole since this was the view from the basement:



I have an old vent that I THOUGHT originally went here, but it's about an inch too narrow for the hole. I can probably make this work by moving all the short boards near the wall inward.



The bright peacock blue visible in this corner is the original CALCIMINE paint. It is powdery and chalky, which is how I know it's calcimine, and there's nothing below it. There are several wallpaper layers and paint over it, however.





A few areas that will need annoying and painstaking patch jobs:





These were taken the following day in daylight. The floor looks absolutely terrible (worst than a barn floor) but I know that it's nice birch under this filthy crud layer.







This is where I had to stack many of the books from the bookcase. Believe it or not, but all of those fill only TWO of the three shelves in the bookcase. The cabinet it only 50"x50". With all the books in it, it's absolutely immovable even on a slippery laminate floor.



Lastly, this is just one quick and crappy photo of the latest major project, which has been the repairs and drywall work in the front (main) hallway. I decided not to make a narrow built-in around the duct stack next to the front door, so I built the framing around it and drywalled that.



I also made repairs to the dividing wall between the hallway and the staircase, as well as the office wall (in the hallway).

I also completely gutted and rebuilt the entire portion above the stairs as you go up. It was at a bad angle, and I've hit my head on it (lightly) once or twice. This was a pretty big job. I had to cut away two of the ceiling t-g boards, and I also discovered that they had stopped this "arch" piece short because they came up to the joist "X" braces. I actually had to remove the "X" braces and add other 2x3 pieces. I also had to re-cut the end of the joist to accommodate the new angle. The slightly
scary thing is that this joist isn't really well supported either. It just kind of sits there and the floor above, plus the ceiling t-g below kind of keep it in place. I added a bunch of screws on the end of the joist up into the wall over the "arch". Photos of that later.

I also started installing crown in the hallway. It's not going to be a match to the original crown mouldings. I plan to restore the original mouldings only in the office and living room, and everywhere else is getting new crown. This is the same crown as in the master bedroom (on the arch), and it matches the profile on the door and window casings (only it's larger).