What we've done so far, part one

I talked to A the other day, and she asked me what we had done to the house since we last talked. Since I am chronicling rural life here, and all that goes with it, I thought it would be good to remind ourselves later of what had been done and when.

When we bought the house, we immediately had the appreciation for the past. As I said before, we appreciate every worn spot, every little piece of evidence that someone has been calling this place home for the past 84 years. Despite some of the garish cosmetic issues, we knew the house had good bones. There was rust-colored shag carpeting in the downstairs, but I peeked underneath when I removed a register, and saw that there were likely beautiful hardwood floors underneath. So we took the chance and bought it.

Good thing we did! We have discovered a home full of treasures, and we are polishing them up!

The kitchen had two layers of flooring over smooth, oiled wood floors. We removed the vinyl and some yellow linoleum. That was pretty easy, and we were beside ourselves with excitement about the condition of the floors. The cabinets are handmade, probably one of the owners made them long ago. They are pine, but the doors are painted white. I don’t think they can be stripped. They had a sort of dark, gothic hardware on them. We removed that, freshened up the white paint, and bought some antique porcelain knobs. We have a great stove from the 1940’s, which looks perfect in the room. We also treated ourselves to a restored hoosier and a solid maple bakery table, which we use as our kitchen island. We need to refinish the floor (there are some spots ruined by the linoleum tar), paint, and do something about our large, late-model refrigerator, which just doesn’t go. I also want to put in new countertops, and we are really considering cement countertops. (They will look similar to soapstone, that dark, slate gray.) We will replace the vinyl backsplash, too.

The living and dining room had paneling from floor to ceiling, which complimented the rust shag carpeting. We tore up the carpeting, to reveal the most wonderful honey-colored wood floors! We took the paneling off the walls, and the plaster is in amazing shape. There are some cracks to patch, and some remodeling disguising to do (they moved a doorway, and the evidence is still there). They also removed all of the woodwork in the livingroom/dining room, which is probably the worst thing that has happened to the house. While it is a sad thing, it can be replaced and we intend to replicate as closely as possible the original woodwork. So we have removed paneling, scraped layers of wallpaper from the plaster, and removed carpeting. When we took the paneling out of the dining room, we found what appears to be the opening for a stained glass window at the base of the stairs. It was paneled over on the inside, and sided over on the outside. We plan to restore that, too. Of course, we’ll have to find just the right window (in just the right size) for that opening. Any ideas?

One other travesty in the living/dining room is the foam tile ceiling. The positive thing is that they put it up with furring strips and staples, it’s not the dropped T ceiling frame. We have considered removing the tiles, strips, and wallpaper, and then just restoring it to plaster. A LOT of work, and we are uncertain about the amount of damage caused by the nailing up of the furring strips. It might be a lot of overhead work to get it restored. So we are also considering removing the tiles and strips and putting up the wallpaper that simulates a tin ceiling. However, I am concerned that it will sag over time and look like wallpaper. We don’t have air conditioning, so it gets hot and humid in the summer, and I foresee falling paper. The other option we are considering is a tin ceiling. Obviously, that is the most expensive option, as each of the rooms is approximately 215 square feet. Home Depot sold some crappy looking tin ceiling tiles for $8.75 a square foot. The cheapest I have seen has been about $4 a s.f.

The last room downstairs is the mud room. It looks like it used to be a bedroom, or maybe a back porch walled-in. It’s obviously newer than the rest of the house, because it’s over a crawl space instead of the basement like the remainder of the house. It’s a generous size, so I would like to utilize it. It’s now just the laundry room, with paneling. (that paneling again!) I plan to just paint that, and leave the dated but pleasant floor covering. I want to make it a super-organized room, with hooks, shelves, bins and baskets.

I hope to get a ton of this stuff done over the winter! We won’t have all of the outside chores calling us. Of course, we’ll also need to win the lottery to get all of it accomplished. : )

Tomorrow I will tell you all about the upstairs.