Yes I know, I know... we were so motivated, so consistent, so unstoppable... and then we hit a wall (actually a wall with a heating pipe conspicuously concealed within to be precise). And since then we've been off the radar. It's not exactly fair to say that we've been completely lax in making progress on the house renovations. We have, after all, finished a few odds and ends here and there but when we sprung that leak in the pipe as we were nailing the trim to the wall of the bathroom (which, needless to say, resulted in a flooded basement) it's as if the lifeblood spilled out of us and pooled on the basement floor along with the mucky water. Paul, bless his heart, had been secretly planning a 30th birthday surprise party for me for which he desperately wanted to be able to show off all of our clever handiwork. I couldn't understand why he (instead of I) was the one freaking out about it at the time. Little did I know...
In any event, it's water under the proverbial bridge at this point and with the new year has come new resolve. With the wedding less than 7 months away we are faced with the inevitable reality of the deadline approaching so we're back in the saddle. We finally manged to fix that hole in the wall and we've officially moved on. Our latest obsession has been with getting the upstairs bedroom and front entryway/staircase up to snuff. Now let me back up a minute and lend you some context to this scenario.
When we purchased this house the floors (even up/down both staircases) were pretty much all covered in carpeting. The walls, in large part, were covered by wall paper. We thought "No big deal. We'll just rip it up/off and undoubtedly find a treasure trove of original detail preserved beneath!". Wrong. What we uncovered was more of a dull, persistent, nagging headache. The original wide pine floors (as mentioned previously) were unsalvageable downstairs and the hardwoods upstairs were dented and covered in spattered paint. The stairs (both front and back) looked like they had been through a war and pieced together with plywood and paint, and the drywall (which nobody had ever even bothered to tape/mud at the corners and seams) looked like they had been dipped in a mixture of glue and sand.
So, we had our work cut out for us. We started several months ago by applying a skim coat mixture of joint compound loosened with a little water. We also finished off the corners by installing corner brackets, mudded and taped the joints and seams. And then came the sanding. And sanding. And sanding... And along with the sanding came the powdery white dust which, despite our best efforts to contain it, has managed to find its way into every nook, corner, and crevice in the house. And finally last weekend we finished sanding (phew) and we were ready to paint. We selected a yellow called "mixing bowl" from the Martha Stewart Valspar paint collection for the guest bedroom and a color called "wet sand" for the entryway/front staircase/landing.
The next step is to refinish the hardwood floors upstairs. Because the floors are fir (a very soft wood), we were advised not to attempt to refinish them ourselves. So Paul found a local company to do the work who are scheduled to come on Friday and Saturday of next week to do the work. Also left to do is to retread the staircase and (possibly) replace the railing, and then prime/paint the existing trim and install the trim around the front door, entryway door, and upstairs window on the landing. We'll also most likely replace the baseboard heater covers as we have done downstairs.
Lots left to do but we're getting there. For now, I think we're just grateful to have the sanding behind us.
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