Living Room Update

An update on our progress is overdue!

The recent snowy weather has helped us to get quite a bit done around the house. (That doesn't mean I'm not ready for spring.)

So, let's start with the living room. I hesitate to post too many updates showing unfinished products, but, knowing us, it'll take so long to finish them that I'll forget some of the in-between steps.

In the living room, we have decided to add transoms above the doors (as I've mentioned before). One of the door frames is pretty much ready for a transom. The other needed some work. We tackled this project one Saturday, with the hope of starting and finishing that part of it in one day to maintain the structural integrity of the door frame. Basically, the height of the doorway between the entryway and living room was taller than the door into the dining room. It has enough space for us to add a transom without having to make that doorframe taller. The doorway to the dining room needed to be taller to make room for a transom.

We started by opening up the wall above the doorframe to see what we were working with. (Sidenote - sometimes when I say "we", I truly mean David and me. Others, like now, I mean just David. I was way out of my element!!) David then removed the trim around the door and the existing door jamb.

The existing header and cripple studs (circa 1904 construction) - and David cutting down the shiplap in the dining room above the door.

We then built a temporary wall on both sides of the doorframe to support the ceiling joists while we removed the existing header and cripple studs. We set the top and bottom boards for the temporary wall down on be floor and measured to the ceiling so we'd know the exact height the temporary studs needed to be cut to. Once we had our temporary walls in place, David cut out the existing header and cripples.

Temporary walls on either side of the existing doorframe to support the ceiling joists

Once the temporary walls were in place, we [read David] removed the existing header and cripple studs

Now it was time to reframe in the opening to allow for a larger doorway and transom. Because of the way the door was trimmed out, we were lucky that there was enough space for us to add our own header and jack studs, and still maintain a 32" finish width.

We started by finding the height we needed the header to be at. Then we measured the necessary height for each jack stud. We tacked the jack studs to the existing wall studs, attached the header (which we made by sandwiching a 1/2" piece of plywood between two 2x6s), and then placed the two cripple studs above the header, lining them up under the ceiling joists to make sure the joists were well-supported. (Clearly I had to get David to explain what the heck we did for this post. Again - out of my element. Although I did use the framing nailer a few times.)

New jack studs tacked into place

David got tired and had to call the big guns in. Actually, he made me use the nailer. I'm glad he did though. I'm basically an old pro at this (Dad always had my sister and I help him with projects around the house. Just don't ask me to engineer any of it!)

Once all of that was in place, we removed the temporary walls from either side of the doorframe. And, later that night I about gave David a heart attack by yelling "David, when did the ceiling by the new doorframe crack?" It didn't. I was trolling. His response was exactly what I was hoping for, and the words he used are not appropriate for posting on here. :)

A view of the new header and supports, prior to us removing the temporary supports on either side

Now, we have the framing in place to handle a transom. We just need a transom. It is on order and will hopefully be here soon!

In other living room news, we have lights! We're already enjoying our overhead lights immensely. It makes working in there so much easier, and I can't wait to see what a difference it makes once we finish the room and get our furniture back in there.

David has also started framing out the fireplace and mantle. I'll have to do a separate post about that. It's technical enough too that I have no clue what he's doing, but it looks good and looks like progress so I'm excited about it!

We have a little work left to do on framing that out, then will be hanging Sheetrock on it. We also need to replace the Sheetrock behind the baseboards that we removed to insulate and to run electrical (we have several more outlets in the room now too...yay!).

Once that is done, we will tile the hearth, add built ins next to the fireplace, paint, work on the windows, replace the baseboards and the window and door trim, add crown molding, hang our center light fixture, and then hopefully be finished with this room! Bets on how long it'll take us to get that all done?

And, it should be mentioned, we have the sweetest helper when working on these projects. It wears her out though! Thank goodness for her love of Disney princess movies that keep her occupied, and for overcoming her fear of the sound of the air compressor and nail gun in the next room!

Opening Doors

One of the things I've learned about fixing up an older home is that there is no such thing as a small decision. It seems like every decision has a big, long-term impact.

With the living room, for example, we can't just decide on a style of crown molding for that room. What we choose will eventually be installed throughout the house, so we have to make sure we choose the right thing from the get-go.

Another one of those things is the doors in the house. Most of them have coats upon coats of paint from throughout the years. We had tossed around the idea of stripping them then repainting so that you could see the detail in the doors that is hidden by the coats of paint. But, David had a better idea.

Probably two or three weeks after we moved in, if it was even that long after, David took off the door to our bedroom. I don't think I was here or I might have objected. :)

Regardless, that door was a thorn in my side for weeks. He researched the best way to strip a door and decided to sand it. Countless sheets of sandpaper later, without much progress to show for all his work, he grabbed some paint stripper from Lowe's and tried that instead. Being our usual impatient selves, the first coat of stripper he didn't give long enough to have time to really work on the paint. But the next coat was magic. Imagine that - paint stripper actually strips paint.

He painstakingly worked on this door for a while, off and on. Every morning when I'd take Sagan out to the garage to get in my car to head for daycare, she'd comment on the big mess her daddy was making. (One such mess was caused by him using the belt sander and having some socks lying nearby because he was using those to clean the crevices of the door - the sander ate the sock. I'm still finding sock shreds in the garage.)

But, the result was soooooo worth it.

Instead of painting the door, we decided (actually - I'll give credit where credit is due: David decided) to stain it. It looks amazing!

David used the Early American stain from Minwax Wood Finish.

After one coat of stain, he applied two coats of Minwax Polycrylic to seal the door, protect it, and give it a shine.

We finally have a door for our bedroom again!

I'm super excited about the finished product. The color looks so rich against the white trim in the house. 

So - to my earlier point. We've now decided we would like all the doors in the house to be stained instead of painted (see...one small project equals a decision that impacts the rest of the house). I'm not looking forward to having to do this on the 10,000 other doors in the house. But, we'll get there eventually!

And, on a side note, the electricians did come last week (or was that two weeks ago? Time flies!) and we now have LIGHTS in our living room! Real, live, overhead lights! It's amazing! We have been very busy at work in there. More on that coming soon!

Slowly but Surely

I think I've alluded to my impatience before...so I am a HAPPY girl at how much progress we have made in the past couple weeks in the living room.

When we first moved in, we set the living room up, then very shortly after moved all of our furniture into a room downstairs that we hadn't set up yet so we could get to work in the living room.

A few of the things we want to address:

• There are no overhead lights
• The weight/pulley system on all of the windows is broken - at least a weight or two has come off on each window
• The fireplace, which I explained here
• Add crown molding
• Update the trim (I mentioned in a previous post that the sheetrock butts up to the trim instead of the trim sticking out from the wall like it normally would)
• Insulate
• Paint
• And probably 100 other things I've forgotten

We've started and stopped working on the room countless times, but have felt over the past few weeks that we have more of a game plan and can really start making progress.

So, for a status report of sorts:

The shiplap. I previously posted about finding shiplap behind the walls, and how we exposed the wall next to the fireplace, but had to figure out how to get the millions of tacks out of it. That's right: millions. Might be a slight exaggeration. Regardless, I took a small pry bar and a hammer and went after every. single. one. of those tacks and removed them. Some warm water and a rag helped me get rid of the rest of the felt, with the help of a scraper in hard-to-remove places. I am happy to report that what used to look like this...

Felt. Tacks. Yuck.

A close-up for dramatic effect

...now looks like this, and we couldn't be happier!

It's so pretty now that we can see it as a blank slate instead of with all those tacks in it

As soon as we saw how beautiful the wood was once it was cleaned off, we decided we couldn't bring ourselves to paint it. Assuming we don't run into any snags, our plan is now to polyurethane it to preserve the gorgeous patina it has developed over the past 100 years. Our plan is to add cabinets at the bottom and shelves. (Added to the growing list of things David needs to build.)

Next, we've tossed back and forth the idea of adding transoms to the two doorways in the living room. Both front entry doors have transoms, which we absolutely love. We hope to keep much of the house's original character, but also want to add some of our own in a few ways. We have decided that adding transoms is one of those ways. 

David tore out the sheetrock and shiplap above the doorway between the living and dining rooms, and found the bracing is a little strange, though not uncommon for older homes. We will have to add some temporary support, reframe the doorway where the transom will go, and then add the transom. And of course tear out the sheetrock and shiplap on the other side of the wall, but we aren't in a huge rush to do that yet. 

Getting above the door prepped for a transom

As I mentioned, there are no overhead lights in the living room. We have decided to add can lights and a pendant, and are leaving that work to an electrician. But, being obsessive over detail, we decided to measure and mark exactly where we want the can lights and pendant placed. So we measured (and maybe remeasured), added chalk lines, decided to change the measurements, added another set of chalk lines, and are ready for the electrician to come on Tuesday and run the wiring for the lights.

Chalk lines for the electrician to place the can lights and pendant

While we have the electrician here, we want to have all the outlets grounded in this room, and add a couple of outlets. We also have found that there's no rhyme or reason to what circuit each room is on. To get the living room outlets off also turns off part of the kitchen and part of upstairs. We'd rather have the whole living room running to one breaker, so we're having the electrician work on that as well.

Our prep for the electrician has also required us to pull down some more of some walls. When we first met with electricians about adding the lights, they were afraid we'd have to pull the entire ceiling down. We were determined to not have to do that, so have gotten creative. We pulled out two rows of shiplap around the bottom of most of the room to allow them access to the basement to run the new outlets and to re-run the existing ones. 

This also gives us the opportunity to seal this space. Bryan alluded to the cold winters living in this house, and we completely understand what he means. It's natural for cold air to enter around windows and such, but what we feel are drafts. As we pulled the baseboards out, we found different temporary things stuck under them to try to combat the draft. Our plan is to use caulk and spray foam to seal the open spaces so we can hopefully put an end to the draft.

So maybe we accidentally butchered the sheetrock there. That baseboard was AWFUL to get up. It will be repaired though!

We also opened up around the ceiling in places we knew wire would need to run between joists for the can lights and pendant. Most of that will be easily covered up by the crown molding we will eventually add (and all is on interior walls). For the exterior walls, we will add the sheetrock back at the bottom and then the new baseboards. 

Hopefully we have made things easier (and therefore cheaper) for our electrician to do. He is set to come on Tuesday, so hopefully I'll have an update then showing our lovely new lights, three-way switches, and grounded outlets!

A Priceless Gift: History of our Home

It's so easy to take for granted the history that lies within the walls of our olive on Olive. One hundred years is hard to fathom.

We have heard bits and pieces of the house's history from neighbors, but I was thrilled this weekend to hear from a gentleman who lived here with his parents and siblings for many years. He saw my blog and reached out to me on Facebook, and I will forever be grateful for the stories and photos he shared. I look forward to sharing many more with you all, and hope you enjoy them as much as we have!

Bryan Terhune, the youngest of five children, was nearly 5 years old when his family moved into this house in 1961. His parents owned the house until 2005, when Bryan's father sold it to the couple we purchased it from.

When I received the message from Bryan explaining how he grew up in this house, I asked if he had any stories or photos he might could share. I can say it no better than he did, so...in his own words:


"...The house has a very warm spirit and was a wonderful house for growing up. But I have to admit, we were a large family of 'rough and tumble' kids. When we lived in the house it was very careworn."

Bryan described the yard as having worn patches that reflected more of a sports practice field than a manicured lawn, sure signs of the five children who were living there.

"When we moved in, the interior walls still had the layers of wallpaper that grew worn and ratted with young children and teenagers bouncing around the house. I remember as a little kid punching holes in the corners where the wallpaper was loosely attached. So there were places where you could see the cheesecloth nailed to the boards and the cold winter wind made the house drafty and uncomfortable. On the other hand, the fireplaces made for a very close and warm gathering place on those cold winter nights. 

"By the time we moved in, the prior owner - an old-maiden piano teacher named Hattie-Laura McConnell, who had grown up in the house - had replaced the old coal-burning furnace in the basement with a gas furnace. But the remnants of nearly 50 years of burning coal still remained - tiny charred coal pebbles in the back yard and (as you discovered) coal ash that smoked its way into the attic."

I have to admit that at this point in reading Bryan's message, I breathed a sigh of relief. It most certainly was not mold we found in the ceiling upstairs! It was coal ash!! WHEW!

Bryan went on to tell of his brother finding a Civil War shell in the backyard, and how he and his siblings liked to fabricate ghost stories about the house because, as he pointed out, "the character of the big old house lends itself to that."

Bryan's brother Dan and their father working outside the house in October 1962. This is the entrance on the east side of the house.

I so enjoyed reading of Bryan's memories of the creaks in the floors that we have grown to love so well (except for that occasional moment when I freeze or make David stop in his tracks to make sure our heading up to bed hasn't woken Sleeping Beauty - a.k.a. Sagan - up).

"We have stories of trying to sneak downstairs early on Christmas morning to see what Santa brought, only to be turned back to bed because the boards in the upstairs hallway creaked and Mom and Dad sent us back to bed."

To read of the summer nights Bryan and his family enjoyed in the house was beautiful.

"The house wasn't air conditioned when we were growing up and we had a big exhaust fan mounted in the window on the landing that required all the doors and windows to be left open for cross-ventilation. But it made summer nights breezy and summer sleep with fireflies flickering, crickets chirping, and far away trains peaceful and sweet. Your days and nights may be difficult at times in the old house; I know they were often difficult for my parents and the family. But you have a treasure."

In my conversation with Bryan, I took the opportunity to ask about some of the details of the house, specifically the exterior. Bryan explained that the house was a light shade of gray when they moved in and a little deeper gray when they had it painted. The house did not have storm windows when he moved in with his family. There were screens with wooden frames that were painted black, and the trim was painted white. The porch railing that is now on the house was added in the 1990s.

Bryan and his sister atop shingles that were being put on the house in August 1967. Notice the house was gray and there were no railings like are now on the house.

David, Sagan and I have grown to love this house in the short two and a half months we've lived here. What makes us love it even more are the neighbors and friends we have gained. And what makes us love it most is to know how much love it has received and given over the past 100 years. I can say it no better than Bryan did...

"I look forward to see how you bring your own personality to the house and I hope your family loves your life there half as much as we did."

Thanks for sharing your family's story, Bryan. We look forward to sharing many more, and to meeting you some day!

Hitting a Brick Wall

Our house has three fireplaces - one in the living room, one in the dining room, and one in an upstairs bedroom. We also have brick in the kitchen that used to house the exhaust (or something like that) from the furnace in the basement or a stove. Or something. The brick in the kitchen is painted (insert a groan here...that may be a project for another day).

Upstairs in the sleeping porch, which as I mentioned before has officially become Sagan's playroom (again, a project for another day), the stack from the kitchen downstairs comes up through that room in a corner. We could see the brick at the bottom of the stack, but were unsure if the coating on top of it was helping keep it structurally sound, or if we could remove it. After speaking with a brick mason we determined that it was just to hide the brick and offered no structural support, so we decided to remove it.

So...first things first. David got a hammer and chisel and went at that stack. And, excitingly, there was brick underneath! The brick isn't in the greatest shape so needs a little bit of work, but we'll get to that. One day.

Exciting {albeit messy} progress!

Ta da! We still have some cleanup to do on some of the bricks, but the stack is mostly exposed!

Now, to the living room fireplace. I didn't get the best before photo to show how it was coming apart from the wall, but it was. It looked like the fireplace was not original - that these bricks had been added at some point. 

We talked to a mason who had done work in older and historic homes, and he agreed that this was a new front that had been placed in front of what was likely a larger firebox and a lot of brick. While we removed the sheetrock next to the fireplace where we will add built-ins, we decided to pull down the sheetrock around the fireplace as well. We have plans to eventually fame above the mantle and hang our TV there, so we needed the sheetrock to come down.

Again, there was a hard stucco-like surface. Maybe some kind of concrete board. Regardless, where that met the shiplap on the adjacent wall, there was a small gap where we could see brick was behind that hard surface. 

We contracted with a mason to tackle the project. We were afraid the brick behind this wallboard might not be stable, and didn't want to take any chance that the fireplace might crumble. After the first day of him working on it, we came home to this. I'll admit I was slightly nervous.

Crumbling bricks, ugly white firebox...we weren't sure how this would turn out!

 It took him two days, and we're so pleased with the results. He only had to replace a couple of bricks, he fixed the mortar, and sealed it so they wouldn't be crumbly. 

Muuuuuch better!

Now, this isn't how we plan to leave it. We plan to add a mantle. We had planned on building one, then thought we'd try to find an antique one. After visiting Hailey's Salvage in Nashville yesterday (and finding loads and loads of potentially beautiful mantles), I think we're back to needing to build one. Stay tuned...

We could spend hours here!

So many options, but none just right.

We really liked the details on this one, but the opening wasn't large enough to show enough of the brick around the firebox. So David drew plans and measurements to build something similar to this.

Tear Down the Walls...er, Ceiling

While we did tear down some sheetrock as I explained in my previous post, I've actually gotten a little out of order. The first "project" we started (notice I said started and not completed) in the house was upstairs in what has become Sagan's playroom: the former sleeping porch. The attic stairs were in terrible, terrible shape. When we were looking through the house before purchasing, my dad braved them, but we knew they would need to be replaced before any more use.

So, eager to do a project in the house, I harassed David until he bought replacement attic stairs so we could get started. The ceiling in that room was in horrible shape. I'm not sure if someone had tried to texturize it or if it had bubbled up years ago in the heat of summer, or really what was going on, but we knew it had to go. Eventually. 

Back to the project at-hand. David pulled down the old stairs, and as he did, he pulled a little bit of ceiling sheetrock down. And voila...wainscoting!! And not just any wainscoting - it was painted haint blue. Be still my heart.

So much for the one-room-at-a-time approach to fixing up our house.

Actually - speed up my heart. Once we saw what was under the ceiling, we chunked away more ceiling. And more. And then stopped. There was black dust all over the back of the sheetrock, and it worried us that it could be black mold. Sagan was in the house, so we stopped for the night, took her to Granna and Granddaddy's the next morning, and started back in on our project, armed with plastic over the doors, eye protection, and masks. 

After pulling down a few more large pieces of sheetrock, we realized that the black was either old ash or dust from the attic. Crisis averted.

We pulled down the rest of the ceiling. It's now a month or more later, and it's still exactly as it was when we finished pulling the sheetrock down, but we are excited about the much cleaner slate we have for that room upstairs once we work on it.

 

It was dark out, and the room was filthy, but you get the idea!

Let there be wainscoting...and haint blue!

Oh, and we have functioning, safe attic stairs. Hello, tons of floored storage in the attic!

Haint blue...years ago, people in the south painted the ceilings of their porches a light blue color to mimic the color of the sky. There are said to be several reasons for this one of which was that it kept wasps away. They wouldn't build nests on the ceiling because they thought it was sky. Key West is one of our favorite places ever, and the majority of the porches of the homes there have haint blue ceilings. While on a ghost tour for fun, the tour leader explained that the haint blue was thought to keep spirits away also, because they would be confused and think the blue was the sky. 

While we don't subscribe to the theory of keeping spirits away, we do love the idea of having haint blue on our porch ceilings, so expect that once we tackle the exterior of the house. But finding it here, in what used to be a sleeping porch, was very exciting for us!