FrankandSteinHome

One project that I am so happy to be done with is the upstairs bathroom. When I first moved in, I was lucky enough to be offered a claw-footed bathtub and a lovely vanity for next to nothing (a friend of a friend was completely upgrading a new home and getting rid of pretty much everything which was almost new). That tub and vanity moved around my house from front porch to bedroom to hallway and back again for two years awaiting their new home in a renovated bathroom. The time has finally come, folks!

This upstairs bathroom was not in working order when I purchased the house: the toilet was ancient, and the bathtub/shower insert was intolerable. In fact, the hot water tap fell off the first time I tried to get some water running through. The most annoying part: the original baseboards and trim were painted turquoise - a similar colour to the walls. I was afraid of that bathroom. I would quickly mention it while showing the house to friends, and for two years pretended like it wasn't there.

Here are the before and after:

So here's what we did: My father and Jason gutted this thing almost a year ago. They took out the bath/shower insert, toilet, vanity, and vinyl tiling on the walls.

This is what we had afterwards:

We hired Jamie,  a former co-worker of Jason's, to tackle the rest. He took down all the drywall that needed replacing and all the floors (I took out the vinyl flooring while removing the upstairs flooring in 2012, and Jamie removed the sub-flooring). He also took care of the plumbing and electrical while the drywall was off (kind of a disaster - turns out this house is full of half-ass work done by previous owners...no job is easy in this house according to Jay who is, as I type, filing down a door because it doesn't fit standard-size doorknobs). We then had porcelain tile put down, and Jaime got the tub, toilet and vanity put in.

Then came our job. We removed all those turquoise baseboards I mentioned and refinished them to match the rest of the house. This was tedious and took days as a result of the many steps required. I also stripped, sanded, stained and finished the trim around the door and window which were also turquoise. A plea to all home owners: please don't paint over your 100 year old wood. You're an ass if you do. As a result of the insert bath/shower, the original baseboards around the tub area were at one time removed or non-existent altogether, so we had nothing to cover the wall which would surround our claw-footed tub. Luckily, Jamie is awesome and made some replicas which totally matched.

Removing the turquoise paint (don't mind the front porch floors which will eventually be redone):

Door before:

Door after:

Unfortunately, I was not able to strip the door - there were like 8 layers of paint on it. I was happy with just using paint. The doorknob was a lucky find at an antique store in Rosseau, ON. It was also stripped and made to match the others in the house.

Another lovely addition to the downstairs: a wood-burning fireplace. The upstairs uses electric heat, so we're trying to cut costs by burning wood instead. And it's awesome to have. It's connected to the original chimney running through the wall between the dining room and the kitchen.

 The blog is back after quite a hiatus. With Jason moving in, the renovations are in full swing!

I never anticipated that my next post would be about the floors on the house’s main level; in fact, I hardly had any intentions of tackling hardwood floors again after completing the upstairs, and the newer hardwood on the main floor wasn’t unbearable. Alas, I was convinced otherwise. And glad I was. These floors were so much easier than the four-week disaster on the top floor.

We used the same stain that was used on the main staircase and upstairs floors, so there is finally some consistency throughout the house. It also feels really satisfying to get all the gunk and scratches out with the sander: it really highlights my O.C.D. tendencies.

We started the resurrection on Good Friday. I made sure to lift the quarter-rounds enough to get under them instead of removing them completely and tossing them into a closet without labeling them (I still have piles of quarter-rounds scattered throughout the upstairs rooms because I never labeled them or kept track of them. Putting them back is like solving the world's largest jigsaw puzzle. Anyone up for the task?) Since these floors were not covered in glue, gunk and asbestos like the upstairs (see below), it quickly became apparent that stripping the floors was unnecessary and actually impossible. We watched nothing happen to a strip of flooring with vanish remover on it for 30 minutes (this remover will burn your skin very quickly. It's a hostile and bold substance). So, this turned into a day of rest and movie watching.

Saturday was sanding. This was a delight - with such an open space, it was so easy to go with the grain and not leave any markings. It's hard on the body, but the results are satisfying to say the least.

Easter Sunday was for staining. It didn't take long, but may have caused some hives on one of my legs - lets leave that for a different blog altogether. The stain changed the room completely. Finally, we put down the varnish (which may result in either hallucinations or a splitting headache). The floors look fantastic, and I hope the pictures do it justice. Otherwise, stop by and see for yourself!

Here are the floors before:

After the sanding:

After stain:

After varnish:

I finally got around to one of the few jobs I have been dying to take care of since I bought the place. It doesn't quite beat painting the exterior of the house but comes very close.

I painted my walls upstairs. (Pause for applause).

That's right, people. The mustard yellow is gone. Like every other nasty burgundy, pink, and baby blue in this house, this yellow died a slow death, and now the upstairs is a pleasure to walk through.

I had Jason's gracious help and dedication (he was a much needed motivator), and it took three full nights to complete. It wasn't so much the nooks and crannies, the narrow hallway, or the beautiful trim I tried so desperately to protect that gave us such a hard time. Two staircases did us in. At first, I planned to get on a ladder to colonize the impossible-to-reach areas, but that bright idea quickly turned into a bad one once we realized we both had a fear of heights, and well, it just didn't feel right. Thanks to a paint brush taped to a stick and the extra foot or so of height Jason has on me, those corners eventually went from mustard yellow to mayo white.

It was a big job - not to mention the fact that we thought we were going crazy because after 3 coats of paint, it still looked yellow. Such offensive colors, I'll have you know, burn and sear their way into your brain so that you never forget them. All in all, it's not quite done yet: I still have to restore all of the baseboards and trim. Another massive and tedious job. Until then, here are some before and after (some "before" pics are from when I first bought the house and others are more recent).

Having recently submitted my dissertation (yes, you read that right), I finally got around to doing some work that I've wanted to tackle for some time. My new-found freedom allowed me to paint some walls, shift things around some, and even throw out some more hideousness.

I've been back and forth with whether or not I want to rent out some of my space since I bought the place - five bedrooms is a little extravagant for one person, is it not? So, when the opportunity presented itself, I got to fixing up one of the worst bedrooms in the house (no, this is not the rainbow room as many of you who have received the tour in person would suspect). This room was a disaster from the start. The walls were Pepto-Bismol pink and had the opposite effect of soothing the stomach. The floors were a total mess with vinyl and then carpeting on top of the original hardwood. It was such a pain when it came to getting the floors restored that I used it mostly for storage and kept its door shut for the past 6 months.

Although the baseboards need a complete overhaul, I am really happy with the current condition of the room. With the generous help of one Mr. Jason Turnbull, I cleaned, painted, and retrofitted the space. It is now a rentable room which otherwise belongs to my parents for when they make their way into town from Wolf Lake.

Here are some before and afters:

Please note the lovely carpeting. It's shocking to think that someone made these design choices.

You may recognize this from a earlier post. This is the asbestos from the vinyl and glue left over after we tore out the flooring. This took many, many hours to scrape off by hand.

Getting ready to paint: here you get a real sense of the previous owner's decor with the choice in lighting fixtures.

Here's where we're at now.

When I first saw the house, the kitchen and its adjacent main bath looked and smelt like a sewer off a rooster coop (Okaaaay, that's a little exaggerated, but you get the point). Everything was dirty and dreary: browns and grays abounded, and it seemed like a lot of work...and it was, but boy was it worth it. Now, I love my kitchen and have no problem  spending a lot of time there cooking, eating, marking and writing - especially thankful to Julie Dugas for her great table.

I saw the kitchen and bath like a paper needing revising. The foundation was there, but it needed some reworking: a little creativity to get beyond the boring ideas, some fancier words to cover up what didn't work, and sneaky tricks of the trade to make it happen (ask me later for my tricks for papers...)

When it came to the floors, I was hoping to uncover some hardwood in the kitchen as I did upstairs, but - thank the lord - I didn't (which would have required restoration, and as you may know from my previous post, it is the HARDEST job ever). I was told that there is hardwood about four layers below the flooring itself - obviously not worth it (trick: if you take out the floor vents, you can see the layers or flooring and what was covered - most of you will be checking yours now, won'tcha?!)

I knew immediately that I wanted ceramic throughout the kitchen and bathroom, and it didn't take long to find the black and white checkerboard at a relatively manageable price at the unfortunately ridiculous Home Depot. This experience was horrendous, and I have been boycotting them ever since. But that's besides the point. The floors look fantastic. I got a friend's uncle to put them in, and it took about two weeks. He did a fabulous job.

I also replaced the light fixtures, sink and faucet, and the cabinet handles in the kitchen (Lowes). They sure make a different from the filthy, grimy old hardware. I won't even tell you what we found on the kitchen light. My dad and I also painted the fake red brink which actually makes it look more real. It finally feels livable.

Here are the before and afters:

The bathroom was an interesting project I just finish last week. It was painted baby blue with a wall of fake tiles adorned with the same blue flowers on every second tile.

Atrocious.

Insulting.

I'd like to say it was outdated, but I don't know when it would have been acceptable to have this on your walls.

I'm being harsh.

I'm sure a sweet older lady loved those walls and the baby blue that welcomed her every time she entered that room. Either way, it was all going to go....somehow. The good folks at Barrydowne Paint and Wallpaper provided me with some excellent advice.

Painting the blue walls was relatively easy: two coats of white and it was done. For the fake tile, I washed it down with TSP (the stuff my friend Andrew brought over weeks earlier that we used on the floors to take off the glue), lightly sanded the fake tile, primed it and then painted the white over top. It turned out much better than I expected. I also changed the light fixture (given to me) and toilet (Costco).

Look closely for the flowers on the tile:

I also finally have my books up on the shelves. They've been packed for four months, and I was very excited to liberate them. Anyone who is an English major or reads excessively is a total geek about how he or she organizes his or her books. I've had many conversations about this - you can go by title, author, genre, country, etc. (see? it can get pretty intense). Anyhow, after seeing this video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKVcQnyEIT8 - I decided to organize by colour. After four hours and a lot of bending up and down, my back was killing me, but it turned out well. Black and white is by far the most popular colour for a book's spine...

I've come to know my upstairs flooring quite intimately. I've exposed them, scrapped them, cleaned them, stripped them, sanded them, stain them, and sealed them. Although I will never be interested in getting that close to my floors ever again (becoming a slave to them and sacrificing my hands and knees), I appreciate and adore every stick of wood I now walk on. My dad and I have finally finished the floors upstairs, and I am ready to move in this Friday.

I can't emphasize how big a job this has been. If I knew going into this how much labor and time this would have taken, I would have covered it in newer flooring (GASP! I know...) I cursed the previous owners for covering up this hardwood, but reverence came with the sacrifices and hand cramping that came with restoration. Who in their right mind would CHOOSE to do this? Me, of course. In the end, I'm glad I did it...but never again.

On these floors, we used a stain that we sort of created at Home Hardware. Their stain was a little too red for us, so we added a few colors and came up with "Frampton's Japanese Maple" as they so lovingly referred to it. We sealed it with an oil-based Polyurethane (which is only available in quarts, unless you get the contractor's size - 21/2 gallons - at Home Depot which we eventually did. There are some environmental concerns with this product, so the government discontinued all gallon size. This proved to be annoying and costly). It's curing right now, getting ready to endure my furniture and the heavy traffic to come.

Here are some of the spaces upstairs as seen in previous posts:

Here is the progression of the stairs from carpeted, to sanded, to stained and sealed:

I feel like my house is starting to breathe. I've released parts of it from varnish and bad paint prison. I've exposed wood and covered up nasty, restrictive colors. Take a look.

Walls.

Waiting for the right day to sand the upstairs floors, my friend Julie and I tackled the kitchen walls last weekend. It's not that the color was terrible on its own, but in this kitchen, it made everything look dirty and small. We had some fun slapping on primer and two coats of "Cloud White". The Alexander Keith's sure did help too...It all made the room look so much bigger and brought the wood trim to life. 

Before:

After:

Eventually, that brick will be painted white (it's fake, much to my chagrin, and covers the original brick coming up from the original fireplace in the basement. Sometimes, I don't know what people are thinking...). You can also get a sneak peek at the flooring going in the kitchen and bath in that last photo.

Floors.

My dad and I have been tirelessly working away at the upstairs hardwood. After taking off all the gunk left over from the vinyl, we had to strip the varnish off. This was much more difficult than I ever anticipated. We had to paint on a gel-like stripper (we used this stuff called Circa), wait for it to lift the varnish, and then scrape. Most of the time, we had to do this twice over any given section (keep in mind that my upstairs has FIVE bedrooms - 1700 square feet). What came off was a thick, gooey slob of very old varnish which hardened quickly. We filled two garbage bags. This Circa stuff was strong and got me high for most of the process (bonus?). Once that was complete and we took off all the bottom trim, my Dad did some patchwork (all of the bedrooms used to have hot water heaters. Someone took them out - again! what is wrong with people?! - and left gaping holes in the floor). On a hungover Sunday, we finally got around to renting the sanders and bringing that wood right down to its birthday suit. I received a lot of warnings about sanding (it will go right through your floor if left standing in one spot), and although my dad did all of it while I was on edge duty, I think I could definitely do it myself.  You'll need some guidance about the papers and using the right grit, but otherwise, it's all in the motion.

Take a look:

I started staining the first bedroom tonight, and it looks amazing. More of that later...

Stairs.

After taking out the carpet on the main staircase, I discovered a ton of glue and more varnish that needed to be removed. Considering these were stairs I was dealing with, I was surprised to discover that this was the easiest thing to tackle so far. I striped it with the Circa in an afternoon and sanded it down with the hand sander in about an hour. I didn't touch the back of the risers. My father and uncle cut out some thin boards to just place right over them to hide all of the imperfections from all the carpet staples and prevent me from having to remove more glue and varnish. I will also be staining these the same shade as the flooring upstairs.

With the return of my parents from Mexico, some good work was underway this weekend. Turns out you can rent an electric scraper (ummm, wish I would have known about this last week; I wouldn't have spent four days on my hands a knees scraping away!) Fathers are a wealth of knowledge. We tackled the two back rooms which had a layer of black spongy glue under the carpet.

The scraper was amazing. It left some surface glue behind, but we figure the sander with take care of it. Only time will tell!

After a weekend away, I arrived home to a massive snow dump. With shovels in hand and a determination to remove snow for the next 5 hours, I was thrilled to discover that someone has plowed my driveway. I haven't even moved in yet, and people are already helping me out. Amazing.

So, I decided to tackle the upstairs flooring immediately. Throughout the hallway was this hideous vinyl or linoleum (it was so old - I have no idea) which was cracking already and looked easy enough to remove. My real estate agent, Jessica, actually lifted a few pieces while we were viewing the place: "Comes right off!", she confidently said. She was right - for the most part. What I didn't anticipate was that it would also be found under some of the ugliest carpeting you have ever seen in the bedrooms.

Taking the sheets of vinyl off wasn't the issue; the paper and glue left over was the problem. It was everywhere and as stubborn as a mule. I received some advice from a friend's step-father to wet it down and scrape it off moist. Worked like a charm. We used TSP (Trisodium Phosphate Powder) and water to get the gunk off. I had the generous help of a friend Andrew, and the scraping was almost complete four hours later. It took about 10 washes with scrapping in between to get it where it is. It was a very difficult task: the smell alone could have knocked anyone out. I still have the windows open upstairs as I type just to get the stink out.  There was also a ton of black glue in some spots. I started just scraping it and then thought I would melt it. Neither worked. Andrew's TSP did though...

Here is the hallway before and after. 

I also had a burst of energy yesterday and took out the carpeting on the stairs. I wasn't sure what was under there, but I was glad to find some nice wood covered in (you guessed it!) glue. I will again take the trusty old TSP to this one and hopefully sand it down and stain it very soon.

Ever since I saw the 1986 film "Money Pit" (a hilarious comedy with Tom Hanks and Shelley Long chronicling a young couple who buy what they think is a simple fixer-upper which, of course, turns into a disaster), I wanted to renovate an older home. I wasn't disenchanted by the name of the film. NOOOooooo, all I could see is turning something hideous into something amazing. Even after Tom Hanks is caught in the floor for hours, they lose their staircase the first night, and their kitchen is set aflame with old wiring, I only really remember the final scene where the house is done and turns out their marriage isn't.

A couple of months ago, I somehow ended up choosing to stay (semi) permanently in  Sudbury, Ontario - at least for the next little while. After years (and I mean 10 years, folks) of university, I finally got a job and decided to buy my first house.

There was something immediately enchanting about the place - maybe it was all the original hardwood, huge baseboards and wooden doors throughout, or the great neighborhood that was always my number one choice in a city with little choice. I saw potential and value that I could not find anywhere else.

But of course, it was not all such a dream. I found yellows, burgundies and pinks throughout the rooms and covering the 10 inch baseboards and trim. Stripping the paint off of the wood would take as much time as the house was old. Some of the flooring made me want to run for the hills, and the baby blue-flowered tiles in the large bathroom was almost a deal breaker. However, in all its montrousness, I saw something. It was like Frankenstein's Creature staring me in the face asking for guidance and a little love. I couldn't resist.