Almost Done

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted, but I’m nearing the end of my “punch list” on the house. My parents came up this weekend and helped out. My dad repaired the porch railings and repaired a break in the wiring to the water heater.

I did a skim coat on the new greenboard in the tub, touched up the paint wall around wall repairs, and painted the bathroom trim.

Over the past few weeks I’ve replaced doorbell buttons, installed cabinets with Dad, and doe a lot of mudding and sanding, leaving the usual coating of white dust on every surface.

The plumbers are finally done setting the fixtures and making repairs, and the utility company has upgraded the electric from the street.

New Retro Kitchen Floor

Peter Herman installed this Armstrong flooring in gray and black. The checkerboard pattern is vintage, and the tile pattern is straight out of the 40s and 50s. This stuff lasts forever and the color goes all the way though, unlike sheet vinyl where the printed color can wear out.

The light blue is the new wall color. The darker blue is the original wall color under the backsplash and broom closet (now removed.) The brown is the inside of the wall that sort of broke open (oops) when I was swinging large objects at the broom closet. I’m patching that with drywall. Really.

Can’t wait to see the finished kitchen with the new cabinets!

Post-Thanksgiving Projects

It’s turned cold, so it’s a good time to work inside. This morning I demolished of the old kitchen base cabinets and the broom closet. I’d debated about the closet, but finally decided to get rid of it because it was built over a heat register and would block the flow of air. Brooms can be hung by hooks on the basement stairs.

Dave and Rick came and worked for awhile on the tool shed while I drove to get materials. We’re replacing the joists and flooring in the tool shed and making some wall repairs. Tomorrow it should be warm enough for them to finish painting.

I installed luan plywood over the subfloor in the kitchen toady as well. Tomorrow Peter Herman will come and instal Armstrong composition tile in a checkerboard pattern.

In the Home Stretch

This weekend was fairly productive. I worked half a day Saturday and all day Sunday uninterrupted. I got all the shoe moldings cut and nailed (except for one wall I noticed tonight.)

I replaced two cheap light fixtures with nicer, period ones. The sconce in the hallway replaced an old surface mounted pull-chain fixture, so now I’ll need to figure out a way to put it on a wall switch. I can either rewire the three-way on the ceiling fixture so the back switch works the sconce, or I can run a new wire from the ceiling fixture to the sconce so they’re both run from the same three-way switches. The other fixture was a coach lamp for the side entrance to the study.

Dave painted the storm windows today — all of them. We rolled out plastic sheeting and leaned them against the fences in the back. After they were dry and reassembled Ricky out them inside by each window, to make it easier to instal them later.

I started patching the washer and dryer holes in the kitchen floor, and decided to chip off all the old blue and white tile in the kitchen. I’d originally planned to just fill in the broken spots and tile over, but many of the old tiles were loose. Now I’m down to the subfloor and a tarred layer of old linoleum.

Beautifully Restored Floors

Peter Herman, an American from Romania, did the work. He does hardwood and tile, and can be reached at 865-966-8225.

Here he is with his assistant who is vacuuming with a backpack rig. They’ve just finished the sanding and edging, and are just about ready to put on the first coat of polyurethane. Peter’s repairs look great. He took out some deep gouges in two bedrooms and a stain in the living room.

Exterior Painting and Restoration

We’re seven weeks into this project and about halfway done. Things are coming along nicely except for plumbing delays.

Dave and Ricky have been painting the exterior and restoring the windows this week. The new color is a dusty blue that looks great against the orange maple trees in the front yard. The hardboard siding still needs replacing along the side behind the air conditioner and along the back where it’s still unpainted.

Dave used a heat gun on the window and door frames in the front, taking them down to smooth wood before painting. The rest of the window frames required resurfacing with exterior grade wood putty — the yellowish color on the door frame in the photo. It took longer than we planned, but the results were worth it.

Progress Report

This week Dave and Ricky continued working on the exterior. The porch roof got reshingled because of the damage we discovered. Most of the trim is painted, the porch roof is primed, and the siding is scraped. There’s still some siding to be replaced in the back and on the side.

I’m not happy with the plumber, who has been here twice only to tear things apart. The last time, I paid him and he promptly dissapeared. But first of course, he had to make useless the one operable plumbing fixture in the house — the toilet. Now the painters are having to wash their bruches out using the hose as it gets colder, and they have to go to the bathroom at a fast food place on their lunch break. At least I hope that’s what they’re doing…

Yesterday I trimmed some huge dead limbs off the tree in the backyard, cut out the scraggly shrubs along the porch and shed, and trimmed the lawn. Tomorrow is Halloween and the leaves are coming down. I finally got the new light fixtures up in the kitchen, hallway, and entry. The eave lights have gotten put on the first circuit with some of the interior lights, so that needs to be fixed when the electricians come back to finish things up.

Steel doors removed

I finished the last major change to the exterior today. The ugly old steel doors are gone! The metal security doors are not original to the house, are not necessary in this Leave-it-to-Beaver neighborhood, and hurt the curb appeal of the home. I borrowed Dave's angle grinder and ground the heads off the aluminum rivet heads (see photo.) Working from the bottom up, I ground off the heads, pried the heavy door and frame of with a large J bar, and rocked the rivets out of the wood framing and trim with vise grip pliers.


Inside the house, I installed the new, stylishly modern cabinet pulls and knobs to the existing kitchen wall cabinets and cupboards, the linen closet, as well as the bathroom cabinets. They look great, and should pull together the new and existing kitchen cabinets.

I installed new outlet and switch covers inside, and also spring doorstops to protect the paint and crystal doorknobs.