Plastered again, or we should be

We were sittin out on the front porch last weekend a rockin away, when this here gentleman comes meanderin up the street. He was pushin a wagon that had big scrolling letters painted on the side of it.

Well I suppose we could use some of that, so we flagged him down. Like a whirl wind Mister Kennedy set up his little ole scaffolding, brewed up his buckets of mysterious powders, and with trowels in hand he marched us into position for our lessons.

 

Let the fun begin! Mister Kennedy ready start the Kitchen ceiling.

 Plaster is by no means an easy thing to do. It is physically exhausting. Trowel on a thin layer and then double back troweling and smoothing, compressing and and working the surface until it begins to set, then wet and smooth again, all the time hoping to have enough material to make it to a good stopping point. We chose to leave the plaster natural on the ceilings and tint it with pigment for the walls, this way we have the option of leaving it as is when finished, or prime and paint the entire surface.

Along the way we had great help from friends, Thomy and Janine who are new to Healdsburg, were willing to lend much needed hands to the process.

Janine threw her hands into priming woodwork to protect it from the plaster, while Thomy mixed the brew and kept everyone's tools clean. It was an eventful two days, and we learned so much. We still have much to learn but some progress was made with the Kitchen, the breakfast room, and half of the gallery plastered and ready for finish considerations.

A Coronation is occuring

The Days of Spring are flying by and we move forward as fast as we can. Longer days and Sunshine allow us to work longer days... yeah!...    I think.

With the exception of the addition of drywall over the shear wall in the dining room, the ground floor has all of its walls complete. We have indeed moved onto the second floor, and the first of the four guest rooms is getting walls at last.

Plywood shear wall over rigid foam insulation, awaiting the addition of drywall.

I know its not the most beautiful picture you have ever seen, but it's exciting to see secondary rooms get attention. The rigid foam insulation is indeed doing its job! Keeping the warm in, the cold out, and with the two inch air pocket behind it, the siding is able to get wet and then dry out! Each piece of rigid foam is carefully fit into each bay and then calked around....

Hang on a sec, there's someone at the front door...

OOOH... it was a special delivery. Our friendly boarder runner is back again with beautiful products for our floor. It is so exciting to open the front door and find her standing there. Today we received lovely tongue oil floor finish. Now I will warn you, do not open the can and pour out a big bowlful for your kids to eat, apparently it will kill them.

 

A simple tongue oil finish will give our floors that old world look, and yet they will not look as if they have been dipped in plastic. We can't wait to begin the application, but we have to get through the trim work, and plastering first.

And speaking of trim work.... Crown!

At the same time that the second floor is being sealed up we have stepped back to more completed rooms for another round, or layer of finish work. Crown molding, baseboard cap, and casement moldings are the name of the game. We have never installed crown before and boy does it screw with your head. Making sure that each cut is done at the correct angle, and the correct length is enough to make you run screaming from the house. All in all though, I think we did a masterful job for our very first attempt.

The baseboard cap and the casement moldings are replications of the original moldings that were in the house when it was built. Removing the paint from the original moldings has proven to be incredibly time consuming, unhealthy, and horrifically expensive, only to be left with a beaten and tired molding that is now free of paint. We have to draw the line somewhere. However... we will be selling shabby chic 227 picture frames very soon, so be sure to get in your size requests!

 We chose to keep the crown in the kitchen and the breakfast room on the simpler side. Although it is large, it is just a one piece application that does not overwhelm the space. It also allowed us the chance to learn how to install it while only dealing with one piece of lumber, as opposed to the sample picture below of the five piece crown that will go in the larger more public rooms.

Five piece crown for the living room, dining room, study, and library.

Lastly today I want to show those that I call our little soldiers. All lined up and free of their former drab and beaten dress, they stand proudly naked awaiting their next direction in life. Each of them has spent roughly forty hours apiece under the scraper, the sander, the planer, the chemical stripper, to reach this stage. They still have filling, more sanding, hanging and finishing to go, but right now they are beautiful as they are and will serve well for a few more generations.

 
These four doors bring our total to date to ten interior doors that have been stripped and sanded of their former paint, that's ten out of twenty three.... SIGH.... so now I will leave it to you to figure out if we are cup half full, or cup half empty kind of boys.

*NEXT CHAPTER IN THE 227 SAGA*

The boys learn to plaster... or get plastered, I can't remember which.

OMG, someone might see my Boobs

The spring switch finally was flipped a week ago. All we saw was rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, and oh yeah, did I mention Rain! For weeks, and months, and years it has been doing nothing but raining... well maybe I am exaggerating, but I think you get the drift. But on Monday March 28th spring arrived. It did not trickle in or come slowly, it just was, and it is glorious. Winter blues are lifting, the days have grown longer, and we are pulling out of our shell and working ever harder.

The name of the game has been veneer board and re-trimming the first floor. We now have solid walls on the first floor and some original casings and baseboards stripped of paint and put back where they belong.
To remove the torture of the years, layers and layers of paint, and horrid abuse by folks who did not care, we are again relying on our planer. Yes it dulls knife blades something terrible but it is so much safer for the environment and us that it is worth it. To strip with chemical would produce gallons of toxic waste the would end up in a land fill. and we would still have to sand off the final faux paint layer as the chemical does not seem to cut it. Three or four passes through the planer removes ninety five to one hundred percent of the paint.

They will still need sanding and filling, so much abuse over the years, but as they go back in they are looking great.

We used the same treatment for the window casings in both bay windows, as those particular casings needed to be put in prior to the drywall...

The Living room with solid walls. Note the original window casings in the bay window, striped of paint and reinstalled.

In removing the paint I made an interesting discovery. Holes... nail holes, screw holes, staple holes, thumb tack holes, hole after hole after hole...

So many holes. And what are they from you may ask? Window coverings! Years and years and years of window coverings.

OMG someone might look in and see my boobs!

So get those windows covered. Maybe its a Healdsburg thing, cause if you start looking around at the houses here everyone has their blinds down or their curtains draw. Windows covered with no hope of daylight getting in. Maybe this whole town runs around nekid inside their homes all day and night and they are afraid someone will look in and see their boobs. I don't know, it's a mystery that I just don't get. Come on Healdsburg... open em up, let the sunshine in! Let your boobs out into the daylight. 

Of course we have no window coverings which may explain why cars slow down at night as they pass by. But go ahead and look, and if we see ya we will flash our boobs at you!






















Room by room we are sealing up the walls. When a house like this is completely bare of plaster with only its studs showing, it seems so big. Now our rooms are closing in on us, getting tiny. The Living room (pictured above) is twenty four feet by fourteen feet. That seemed enormous when open and bare, but now it feels so closed in, how will we ever live in such a small environment? how will we get by?

The following pictures are some of the rooms on the first floor that now have solid walls.

The breakfast room.

The Library bay window, still some drywall left to do above it. Note the original baseboards, minus paint.

The opening from the Library into the study. Phillip has actually moved his office into it.

Study doors closed. Yes the pocket doors now work. I begged to be shot while installing them, but they are in.

The Study door leading to the center hall.

The center hall from the back.

The center hall from the front.

Now that the center hall has walls I am thinking of tackling the staircase. I think its time. But every where I turn I can say the same thing. Now that the walls are solid I really should tackle...


So drive on by sometime and give us a wave. Granted you won't see much boob in this house but we will definitely wave back.

And finally today I want to give a shout out to my new followers.... "Hey new followers" Yeah, thank you for joining us on this crazy journey. Give us a comment sometime and don't forget to show your boobs!


PS... In case anyone wonders... the wall board, drywall, veneer board, or what ever you want to call it is actually called Kal-Kore or blue board.  It is naturally a grey blue color, and is meant to have plaster applied to its surface. It is grey blue in color to distinguish it from regular drywall.

New arrivals for Spring

Everyday a little more. That is the statement that describes our lives. Work the jobs during the day and work the other job in the evening. Even if it is only a board that gets denailed and stripped of paint, or a sheet of drywall that is hoisted up onto a wall, everyday a little more.

We have settled into the big house and struggle on a daily basis to keep a clean spot to live in. But I must say it is wonderful to live in town and folks is always stoppin in fer a chat. Spring is in the air and we can tell because there have been new arrivals. Very exciting arrivals actually.

The first one was long overdue in our lives. A great bundle of joy that came down the sidewalk on a dolly.

Off in the distance

Closer, oh what could it be?

Kind of boxy, but Phillip sure has a smile on his face

Ready for a lift up the steps

Meet Mister Bosch

Phillip was so overjoyed at Mister Bosch's arrival that he did not even wait to put the tools away before he loaded it up.

All we need is a stainless steel cover for the bottom and the cabinet run will be complete.

Ah, the simple joys of modern life... a dishwasher. We have been without one for almost three years and have definitely had it up to "here" with washing dishes by hand.

Our second arrival for Spring also came to reside in the Kitchen. A refrigerator! We could not afford to purchase the refrigerator we want, and may not be able to for quite sometime. The cabinets were built specifically for a subzero, counter depth and much taller than a standard refrigerator. We could have purchased a cheap stand in for awhile, and lived with a big gap above it, but I just couldn't do it.
As I do love to say "Viva La DIY", I shall now add "Viva La Craigslist"! I began the search, and after a few weeks located a used Subzero, although not the style we want in the long run, it fits the hole, looks good, and for being ten years old, it works like a champ! It is chilly on the right, and super cold on the left, and makes a beautiful frozen concoction, that you fancy folk know as "Ice", all on it's own.

Buying a used refrigerator does have its pros and cons. The pros... she cost about a tenth of a new one, the cons... OMG, pigs! Now I am sure that all of my readers keep their refrigerators sparkling clean, but the folks we bought this one from were... PIGS! Six hours of scrubbing and more bleach than was available locally, and I was able to bring it back to life. I just don't understand... have these people never heard of house keepers? Hee Hee

Finally I would like to introduce you all to Betty. Betty is someone we should have met long before now, but these things take time...

Betty was born in 58, and although a bit of a rust bucket, she does love to go to the dump and Home Depot!

I am taking some photographs of our progress now and I will get back to you right away with them, so pleased stay tuned.

23 Towels will solve everything

The Master Bathroom has made great strides in the past couple of weeks. The tile is finally all in place and there is only a little bit of grout left to do. I have never been so happy to see a job complete as I was with this tile. The tile we used in our kitchen was a joy to work with, handmade, crackle glaze, that just went onto the wall in a breeze. But the marble tile was painful every step of the way. I am such a perfectionist that I beat myself up when I start looking at it too close, but everyone who has seen it says it is beautiful and would have cost a mint to have a tile installer do the same job... so I suppose I shall stop staring at it and say...

"VIVA LA DIY'RS!"

But then I start staring at it again. Phillip says not to worry, we can put a towel bar there. So our master bathroom will have 23 towel bars. With so many towel bars, I don't know why we bothered with the tile to begin with.

Still so many things to do to finish, second vanity, plaster, toilet, light fixtures, paint, but a bit closer than we were a few weeks ago, and it is usable. Being able to take a shower in your own home is a joy and convenience that everyone takes for granted, but take it from us that it is more of a miracle of the modern age. Next time you stand under that beautiful steam of warm water, imagine nothing come out of the spigot but air.