And the Paint Goes On - The Dining Room

The fun continued in February.  Our washer and dryer were installed on February 9, 2012.  The dining room was painted in February —  the above photo of the dining room in-progress was taken on Valentine’s Day.  The color is Sherwin Williams Gala Pink -- the same color that I had painted my dining room in Houston.  It's a really warm, luminous color.  (The living room was not be painted until late April or May because painting was interrupted by floor refinishing).  A note --- all of the prior posts are from the first 46 days we owned the house — from our closing on December 16, 2011 through the end of January 2012.  No wonder we felt like we were in permanent disarray.  I haven’t mentioned the dust, but dust was everywhere, all the time, from the constant sanding and paint prep work.

Fireplace and the $1000 Garage Sale Sofa

After Jamie moved in on January 26, 2012, he moved two items into the house from a storage unit -- a free-standing fireplace and this sofa (above left).  We had purchased the sofa for $250 at a garage sale almost a year earlier, in February 2011.  At that time, since we hadn't bought a house yet, we thought we could store the sofa in Jamie's Galveston apartment until we could put it in a house.  But when he got it to his apartment, it would not fit through the door.  So Jamie leased a storage unit at about $70 a month.  One year later..... that was an expensive garage sale sofa.  Fortunately, we were able to store the fireplace there as well, after we found it (also at a garage sale, for $100).  Here is a picture of the sofa when we bought it --- it was in great condition and suited our style and anticipated color scheme.

January 26, 2012 – Jamie Move-In Date!!!!

About a month and a half after our purchase date, Jamie moved in. Fortunately, he did not have a huge amount of stuff, because we still needed to have the floors done and all the walls painted.  Here, some of his stuff is piled in the office.  Below, Jamie has set up his computer temporarily in the breakfast room.

A New Stovetop

Also in January, we switched out the existing gas stove-top for an electric one.  Like many things, this did not go smoothly.  New new electric stovetop was installed on January 13, 2014, but not hooked up because the installer said electrical work was needed.  From a Jamie email on January 13, 2012: “The guy was a jerk from the moment he walked in.  He complained about the way the gas hook was done and said he was surprised the house hadn't blown up. . . . Then he said the stove top was too big( it wasn't) and then went on about how the electrician should have wired the outlet differently and on and on.  I tried to convince him that he should just go ahead and wire it the way it was,but  he refused - something about how they don't work with soft wired plugs or words to that effect.”  We had to hire our own electrician to hook up the stovetop.

Beadboard Wainscoting? Sorry, No

 We were very excited when we discovered beadboard wainscoting under the sheetrock in several locations.  I wrote in an email on January 15, 2012: “One really cool thing is that Jamie removed sheetrock from several places in the house and discovered original wood beadboard wainscoting underneath.  To the extent that time, money and energy permit, we're planning to expose this beautiful woodwork and refinish or paint it.  We think it might go throughout the house.”  Ha.  The wood was full of nails, and did not go all around any one room, so we covered it back up.  Actually, we paid other people to re-sheetrock the area.

Did I Mention Mold?

Here are some samples of what awaited us under the wallpaper.  From an email on January 15, 2012:  "Apparently, there is a kind of mold that thrives on wallpaper paste and is nourished by the moisture that comes up through walls and is trapped behind impervious vinyl wallpaper.  These days, fungicides are added to the paste, but that probably that wasn't the case when this wallpaper (which we're starting to regard as horrible) was installed.  Fortunately the mold does not go through the sheetrock.  We haven't found any other mold in the house.  Jamie has purchased washes that will kill the mold and then we'll paint the walls, and the conditions that were favorable for this mold will no longer exist."

This product became our friend:

My Partial Move into the Studio

Here is the beautiful studio!  This is looking toward the front of the studio (and the back of the house).  I partially moved in on January 12, bringing stuff from the Houston house.  From an email: "“On Saturday morning we rented a truck and packed it with 13 boxes of art supplies, plus easels, a drafting table, cabinets, two letterpress presses, an etching press, shelves, at least a dozen canvases, and other art-related miscellanea.  I had also found some great work tables on Craigslist made by a guy who only wanted $75 apiece.  We left enough room in the truck for two of them, and added them to the load.  I think the total work surface with these side-by-side is 5 feet by 5 1/2 feet. . . . We unloaded all of this in the alley behind the house in Galveston and carried them in to the studio.  This will be a wonderful place to work in the future."

This is an attempt to do a composite photo looking toward the back of the studio.

The Magic of Magnetite

Still in January!  Jamie had heard about this product called Magnetite, which may be used to turn a single-pane window into a double-paned window.  This was a fantastic product for us for several reasons.  Broadway is a pretty major thoroughfare with plenty of traffic, and you could easily hear traffic noise in the house.  Magnetite creates a pocket of air between the outside (original) pane and the Magnetite panel, which not only insulates against outside temperatures but also dampens noise.  Because the house is in a historical district, we did not have the option of simply replacing all the old windows with modern double-paned windows.  The Magnetite gives us the same effect.  It is a thick, strong, clear synthetic panel (they told Jamie it's the same substance used in airplane windows).  It has a metal rim that seals against a magnetic strip that is installed around the window frame.  This is supposed to create a complete seal.  We had these installed on (I believe) 12 windows.  We did not put it on the windows at the back of the house because we wanted to be able to hear everyday noises like bird song, and those windows are far enough from the street so that you don't hear traffic much.  The outcome was amazing.  You hear virtually no traffic noises, except for loud motorcycles and trucks, and there's not much you can do about those with any product.

But Wait --- Back at the Electrical Box....

It wasn't all fun and wallpaper in January 2012.  We also hired electrical people to upgrade the electrical service and correct some of the issues on the inspection report.  Jamie took some photos of the process.  If you've ever wondered what you would find if you removed your electrical panel box, it would be something like this.  (Note: do not try this at home.)

Still De-Wallpapering the Dining Room and Living Room

Jamie solved the challenge of reaching the upper parts of the walls by setting up this rolling scaffold.  Here, on January 29, 2012, you can see that the living room is mostly peeled.   I have the enzyme solution in a spray bottle and am working on getting the last areas of yellow paper off of the dining room walls.  The wallpaper removal in the dining room was complete on this day.

Before and After - Master Bedroom!

On January 24, 2012, Jamie had finished painting the master bedroom (see right) -- whether it was the first or second coat, I don't remember.  (You can click on this photo to see a larger version --- that's true of most of these posts.)   In this photo, the color looks similar to the material under the wallpaper in earlier photos, but it's actually a Sherwin Williams color, "Inviting Ivory."  We love it.  The lamp hanging there we didn't love, and it will be replaced soon.  Here's another view of the freshly painted bedroom, this one looking toward one of the front windows that overlook the porch:

Halfway Through January 2012

We got used to living with enormous amounts of debris.  Of course, it helped that neither of us had moved i n yet.  Jamie kept a large trash can in the living room and dining room area and we kept it full.

On New Year's Day, We Peeled Wallpaper

Oh, did you think we were only peeling the master bedroom walls in December 2011 and January 2012?  :) No, we were also working on the living room and dining room.  That is about all we were doing, all the time.  The top photo shows the dining room and the bottom two show the living room.  These New Year's Day (January 1, 2012) photos show that several walls in both rooms are well along.  We still had to tackle the yellow underlay in most places.  Also, at this point, we didn't have a good way to tackle the higher areas of wallpaper, as ladders are unstable for such work.  So there was a lot of wallpaper left higher up.

A Wood Floor for the Studio

While the de-wallpapering (deflowering?) was going on, we were busy with other things.  Almost as soon as we closed on the house in mid-December, Jamie began laying a floor in the garage room that was to become my art studio.

Here is the garage room before the flooring.  This is taken standing at the back of the room, looking toward the front of the garage building -- the house is opposite, beyond the door.  There is an ugly kind of green tile or linoleum floor.  Jamie has removed the baseboards so he can lay a new floor.  You can see his pile of laminate flooring and subsurface material.

Here is the beautiful new flooring.  In later photos I will show the whole studio.

The Wallpaper Wars Begin in the Master Bedroom

We started in the master bedroom because we figured we'd have to have somewhere to sleep, and it would be hard to do this room once we'd moved in.  (We didn't know when we started whether we'd be able to finish all the walls before we had to move in.)  Above is the rose madness that we faced in the bedroom.

Here you can see me at work peeling some wallpaper while Jamie takes a photo.  The "yellow" wall behind the wallpaper was another layer of stuff we had to remove.  Jamie did most of this work in December during the week while I was in Houston.  Here's another photo of me at work on the master bedroom:

We finished wallpaper removal on January 15, 2012.  I described it in an email:  "We finished stripping all the wallpaper from the main bedroom and Jamie has been getting it ready for painting.  The wallpaper removal is a two-step process. First you have to peel off the vinyl surface, which can at times be easy (a whole swath at once!) and at other times maddeningly difficult (only fingernail-sized pieces coming off at a time).  This leaves a yellow paper backing that is stuck to the sheetrock with paste. To remove this, we spray the walls with an enzyme compound that breaks down the paste, and then the backing can be peeled off easily."

Here's a view of the same wall from a different angle.  All of the wallpaper has been removed and Jamie has started repair work.  On almost all of the walls we worked on, Jamie had to do a lot of repair work and then several coats of primer and usually two coats of paint.

The First Step – Foundation Work

Fortunately, neither of us had to move into the house immediately.  We bought the house in December 2011, and I still had my house in Houston, which didn't sell until April 2012.  Jamie still had his apartment down the street.  So we could attack some of the issues in the house without the complications of furnishings.  One of the first things we did in the house in December 2011 was to hire foundation people to stabilize the foundation.  Very few of the angles in this house are exactly right angles.  Windows have shifted so they are not square to the vertical, doors are slightly askew and some have had strips attached to their top to make them fit their frames, the floors have a lot of unevenness and the back bedroom floor has a slant with over an inch drop (Jamie believes it was originally an outdoor porch intentionally designed to slope downward for drainage).  The foundation people replaced some posts and did other things to strengthen the foundation, but said we won't be able to straighten the floors without causing serious problems everywhere else.  These issues became less noticeable after we furnished the house in the coming months, and we’re used to it anyway.

In the Beginning

Here it is --- the house as it was when we first saw it.   This photo disguises a failing paint job on the outside, and a multitude of sins on the inside.  For example:

Also from the listing photo.  Some people may like florid Victorian wallpaper, but we are not among them. This wallpaper (or a similar, slightly more palatable one) covered the hallway, all three bedrooms, the living room, and the dining room. Since the ceilings in these rooms are 13 feet high, this wallpaper extended up the wall for at least 10 feet.  We have met people who had considered buying this house but were deterred by the wallpaper.  These people sensibly wanted to be able to live in a house from the get-go without months of hard labor (or thousands of dollars paid to others).  We naively thought that it would not be a huge deal to get all the wallpaper down and paint the walls.