Ba-bye blue gingham linoleum floor! Most of the plywood subfloor is in good condition. Yay. My Herbeau farmers sink was delivered today. Thanks to Larry and Mark for hoisting it up onto my porch when I was at work. Did I mention I have the best neighbors?

We found some rot near the bay area, so had to go down an extra layer

At this point, most of the walls will be opened up. The door opening on the left will be closed off for cabinet and counter space

The wall on the left is where the new pocket doorway will go into the powder room. We will need to take out the existing wall frame and replace since there was an extensive roof leak here for who knows how long. It totally rotted the floor beneath so much that the 2x4’s were loose.

Bedroom doors are getting primed for painting with Zinsser bullseye primer

Closet #2 is painted and ready for drawer inserts and doors

Closet #3 base drawer-set ready and waiting for top cabinet sections

Hallway linen closet also done and waiting for drawers and doors

Got my Subzero fridge delivered yesterday. Can’t wait to plug it in and use it

I am imagining this filled with cakes

Just a little cleaning,  reglazing, and  fresh paint before its ready to install

This is the window that is  being sacrificed for more counter and sink space. See ya!

Good choice.

This is a view from upper hallway into the combined bedroom (new fir)

This is a view down the lower hallway into the bathroom. (old birch)

This is a view from the lower hallway looking into the upper hallway. Its where all the different woods intersect. (old oak in the hall and on the landing)

This is a view from inside the original bedroom. (old fir)

This is a detail of one of the floorboards in the lower hallway where there were two holes. I used an old wooden closet rod, cut it down , sanded the ends down until they were slightly tapered, then pounded them into the two holes. I then took a coping saw and sawed them flush with the floor, so when there were sanded, they would be sanded down evenly.

The house is awake

Now that we got the top windows installed, it actually looks like the house has its eyes open.

Day for Dad
My sibs and I took Dad out for breakfast in downtown Newburyport on Dad’s Day. We had a fantastic breakfast well worth the wait, then we strolled around some of the shops. Here are a few of the cool signs I saw.

Gotta love Gram!

Neon signs are pretty much cool no matter what the application

Floorboards
We just took up the thin oak overflooring in my two-combined-as-one bedroom, to discover the original 1875 floorboards with many, many layers of paint, and gauze jammed between the cracks. I know it will be more work than I wanted, but I just have to keep them. Old floorboards are just too precious to discard.

Stop and smell the flowers
Just a few blooms to brighten the drizzly days; of course they would look better in sunshine, but at least they are opening.

Malva

another look at the Malva

Black Hollyhock, which is a cousin to the Malva

I have two of these guys; they are one of my faves

I like these petunias; they are streaked which makes them more interesting than other common ones.

Thankfully, I had not installed the windows yet as they hoisted the materials up on the crane and through the window.

Here are some images of the awesomeness and handiness of the huge helping hand of a crane.

Lifting off the truck

Clearing the wires

Going in through the window

Please don’t fall and crush me to death

Will with Post Hole Digger

Mark helping Will (one-handed)

Sighting the height of the posts (done by eye)

My little crack-house on the corner, hey man, nice fence!

The Stop sign that NOBODY stops at! Poor, lonely octagon.

I am aware that the pickets don’t match, but I’m not into garanimals for fences.
Sue me.

The beginning before it turned into the white blob

At first, it looks like snow in a can, so I had the urge to make snow angels

Oozing and puffing

Foam all up in there (their, being the ceiling)

Sawing off the excess. Don’t want to get him mad.

The completed room looks like a reverse Tudor

 Extra shavings bagged and tossed out the window. I hope they recycle these…..

These would make fantastic slippers to go with my candy cane pajamas.

We got the rest of the bullshit, cheap-ass faux parkey floor in the office scooped up and digested into the lugster. The original sub-floor planks came up with no problem since it was so old, brittle, and dry. I managed to save a few nice old 15″ planks for future birdhouses. Don’t laugh and stop the eye-rolling. Now.

Next was the new subfloor replacement sheets. By this time it was dark out and we were skill-sawing planks off the tail of the pick-up truck. So Dukes of Hazard meets Sanford and Son. Somehow we also got half the hallway wall framed,raised, and  nailed.

Sunday I spent breaking down the clutter for the electrician and cutting down and reusing lots of the foam board that was in the walls. I made panels that were placed in between all the studs directly over the soffit. This is so the soffit will be spared by the spraying of the sprayed Icynene. Say it ten times really fast now.

Sub-floor removed and raw, like sushi

New sub-floor marked for closet area to come

Partial hallway wall

The weekend was spent preparing for the foam insulation install set for April 10. It’s always the little things you think will be quick that take the longest. We filled all the open cracks in the facia boards and soffits with (orange, yummy!) foam in a can. This will not rot and will effectively seal all the openings from little buggers getting in.

Sunday was spent taking all the nails, screws, shims, and staples out of the studs. This has to be done so that after the foam is sprayed in between them (the studs) they can then take a straight edge and pass it along to level off the foam evenly. Also, I made all the electrical maps for each room and hallway, so hopefully the electrician will respond to my calls. All the ceiling lights, outlets, switches, and cable jacks need to be put in place BEFORE the foam, so this will have to happen very soon.

And… I felt compelled to keep lots of the old wood taken out from the demo. Maybe it will become future birdhouses and planters; it just hurt to think about feeding it to Jabba the Dumpster! And this is only about 1/8 of what I have in the cellar!

I found a nice patch of old floral wallpaper beneath a few layers of drywall.

More scaffolding and unruly wayward wires!

A bullet, coffee jelly, and a floral print

Here are a few more things I found within the walls.

The bullet: I am not sure how old this bullet is; it looks like a rusty case of lipstick that packs a wallop. It could be from WW I or WWW II (my guess). I should have it examined, but I will have to be careful of how I dispose of it as I don’t want to blow my place up; I will leave that to the gas company!

A Floral Print: I found these small crispy pieces of old wallpaper in the bedroom. I arranged them as to give an idea of how it must have looked on the wall. Good Lord! this would have driven me crazy. I like it in small doses, perhaps covering a small oval hatbox? That would be enough!

Coffee Jelly: This one totally gets me. When I took the first layer of plaster off the wall in my bedroom, there was old drywall beneath it. The seams were joined with this very cool seam tape that has (what looks like to me) advertising on it. Plymouth Rock Coffee Jelly. Apparently there is still a company by this name that sells this coffee gelatin powder. I like anything with coffee! I wonder if I lick the tape will it taste like coffee?

Now everything is exposed straight up to the roof. It’s amazing to be able to see the bones of the structure after 130 years or so.

the scaffold support: 

the standing area from above and below:

The opened ceiling and the dirt and mess it creates: good riddance!

Like Buttah
Underneath one of the many layers of debris that was airmarked for the dumpster, I noticed a smaal sheet of paper with some illustrations of cows on it. Turns out to be some kind of label or proof of purchase for Good Morning brand butter. The text below the four cows (I wonder if all four are brand characters?) mentions being able to send away for various items by clipping and mailing in the bottom half of the label. And fantastic things they are like butter dishes, patty cutters, and embossed butter chips. I bet Martha would like those. If they are anything like cow chips, I’ll pass, thank you!

And in between the grit and grime: 
I gorged myself on penny candy that my brother brought over. I grew up on this stuff; Bit-O-Honey’s, Squirrel Nut caramel’s and Mary Jane’s. All individually wrapped in the proper proportions; make mine a double. No, a triple. Ok, I confess, I ate the whole friggin thing. Times three. That’s probably easily 60 pieces of delicious snacks-of-the-Gods. All that is left are the empty, lifeless wrappers. Sad.

Its a bit of a coincidence that I found these during this current economic climate; given their origins were roughly from the latter part of the Great Depression. Maybe they couldn’t afford wooden shims! 

Master bedroom before demo:

After the demo; I like how the room is all converted to lines; its a cool pattern

And here is some vintage wallpaper pieces that I found behind the radiator:
I’m not sure if you can see it clearly, but just to the left of the vertical line of black dots, it reads: “Sears and Co.”    

Unfortunately, who-ever put it up how-ever many years ago did such a good job that I cannot peel any of it off to savour, so as the wall goes; so will go the Red Horse Inn! 

office expansion into guest room

guest room that will break into office