Starting on the Nursery

We have three bedrooms upstairs, and one of them has been used as the guest room thus far. Now we are transforming it into Nolan's nursery.

We had two major projects in the room: exposing the shiplap ceiling and closing in the door that exists between the room and the sleeping porch.

Exposing the Shiplap Ceiling

From our experience with the ceiling in the sleeping porch/playroom, we knew that exposing the shiplap in Nolan's room could prove to be a big undertaking. But never ones to shy away from extra work (ugh), we thought we'd give it a shot anyway. Our biggest concern, again from our previous ceiling experience, was the potential for coal dust to seep through the shiplap. That concern was very valid, as evidenced by my soot-covered husband and dad as they worked to tear down the sheetrock. The sheetrock came down easily, as did the cheesecloth and wallpaper that was over the shiplap. As did the coal dust.

A little bit of cheesecloth, a little bit of paper, a little bit of sheetrock, a lot of coal dust

This was a very messy job!

We immediately knew we would need to cover that ceiling and install our own shiplap. We installed a foil insulation to provide a barrier between the attic and the room, and to seal the coal dust so it wouldn't filter through the new boards.

We knew we wanted to stain some wood to match the shiplap throughout the house, so headed to our local lumberyard. We had no idea that they had some old wood on hand, but when we found these old floorboards, we knew we had just what we needed!

The planks on the left are the raw wood we got from our local lumberyard.

David has stained and polyurethaned the boards. We're letting them air out in the garage, and plan to rip the planks down into three boards, mill a lap onto either side of the board, then install on Nolan's ceiling this weekend!

Removing the Door

There was a door that connected Nolan's room to the sleeping porch/playroom that we just didn't need. The hall right outside our bedrooms leads straight to that room. We've never used it; in fact, the guest bed and nightstand sat directly in front of it. So we closed it in. David removed the door and frame, attached new studs, and sheetrocked over the space, then mudded and sanded and mudded and sanded and mudded and sanded. As for the playroom, right now it's just open studs where the door used to be. When we tackle that room, we will add shiplap there to match the rest of that room. That's another project for another day!

Nolan's nursery as our guest bedroom, with the door to the sleeping porch on the left.

Studs in place and ready for the sheetrock

The doorway patched up and ready to paint

Painting
Nothing makes a room feel better than a fresh coat of paint. It's an instant facelift and room brightener. I've mentioned before that Bri Moysa with Emerson Grey Designs designed Sagan's nursery, then several spaces in our old house, and now several in our new (old) house. I struggle to make decisions on decor without her help! So as soon as we knew that baby #2 was a boy, we requested Bri's help with designing Nolan's nursery. More details on that to come, but for his walls she chose Benjamin Moore's Seattle Mist. It's the perfect neutral for his room, and makes it feel so much lighter and airier.

I've sung its praises before, but Sherwin William's Pro Classic trim paint is amazing. Painting the trim is the first thing we do in a room, and it's amazing what an instant and dramatic impact it has. When I know we will be priming and painting the walls, I paint the trim and even up onto the wall to make sure any stray wall color is completely hidden.

I love the bright white (left) we have chosen for the trim throughout the house

The lighting in this picture is terrible (while the ceiling is down, we are using a couple of shadeless lamps to light the room) but the paint in Nolan's room is finished!

We have a few more projects to tackle in Nolan's room, then we can finally start placing furniture and art. This mama is ready to start nesting in there. We can't wait to see the room start to come together!

Built-Ins, Crown & Baseboards

The past couple of weeks have been filled with working on the house. A lot! It's insane and exciting how much progress we've made toward finishing the living room and on the nursery. A couple of highlights are below:

1. Living Room Built-Ins
Next to the fireplace in the living room, we will place two cabinets with drawers, and then above those will be shelves lining the exposed shiplap to the ceiling. In order to finish the baseboards around the living room, we have to get these cabinets in place. In order to install the crown molding around the living room, we have to get these cabinets in place. So David has tackled those.

We started with standard builder's grade cabinets from Lowe's. They were a bit too deep, so David cut the backs off of them. We also wanted to build them up in height so the baseboards could wrap around the front of them, so he attached the cabinets to each other and then built a base on which they could rest, raising the height.

He also added trim on either side to extend the built-ins to fill the space. This weekend Dad helped David get the cabinets moved into the living room, then David set them in place, leveled them, and attached them to the walls.

Sliding the cabinets into place. They haven't been painted yet; just primed.

We didn't want to go with the standard grade doors and drawer fronts that came on the cabinets. We'd looked into buying custom fronts, but they're so expensive that we looked into some alternatives. One such was buying a router bit that he could use to make the cabinet doors look like those in our kitchen. He finished the doors last night, and I love how they turned out! Next up we need to sand, prime, and paint!

David made the cabinet doors for the built-ins...can't wait to see them installed!

Prior to placing the cabinets in place, we ran wiring to above the mantel which is where we'll hang the TV. The Xbox, cable box, and all that fun stuff will sit in the cabinets, and the wiring runs through the wall to get to where we'll hang the TV. Progress!

2. Crowning the Windows and Doors

Have you ever found something you really like, can't find it anywhere locally, try to find a suitable replacement, and had no luck? That was us with this piece of trim. Check out Windsor One trim if you are super nerdy and want to see some beautiful stuff! Their catalog is what David based the window and door trim in the living room off of. It's gorgeous! And what makes it really gorgeous is the top piece of header crown. Which is nowhere to be found locally. Or anywhere in the four-state area. Trust me - I called every dealer and distributor. I ended up calling Windsor One direct and had the most helpful gentleman give me the name of a couple stores that he knew would have it in stock and would work with us. I spoke to a nice gentleman at Horner Millwork, and for a very nominal shipping charge, we received six 8-foot pieces a couple of days later from Massachusetts. I'm sure he thought we were nuts, but we love the finished product. 

So now that we've installed it and seen how it's the perfect cap to our new window trim, how will we get it for the rest of this old house? The fine folks at Windsor One have offered to help us work with their local-ish sales team and distributors to find someone who will get it for us without charging us the not-so-nominal shipping price of $250+ that we first ran into (Horner shipped it to us for $40, so much more reasonable)!

We haven't painted the window trim yet, but love the new crown piece we added to the top!

3. Began Installing Baseboard

Trim might be the bane of our existence. David is great at it, but it's tedious work! As you may recall, we took up a couple runs of shiplap around the bottom of our living room walls, allowing us to seal with spray foam insulation and caulk, and allowing the electrician to run wiring to install new outlets. We put sheetrock back over that months ago. Fast forward to a couple weekends ago when we wanted to install the new baseboards. And couldn't. Because we couldn't for the life of us find the studs. Stud finder wouldn't work. Measuring from the windows or known studs wouldn't work. So we got smart. We pulled back off those pieces of sheetrock, cut them down into small strips, and reattached those strips at each stud (had to do this to ensure the wall depth was consistent with the remainder of the wall). And voila! We were able to easily see the studs and attach the bottom piece of the baseboard. Quirky? Sure. Successful? Absolutely!

Our baseboard is a little complicated. David got a router...need I say more? :) The baseboard is actually three separate pieces that attach to one another then attach to the wall. David ripped the main board, then milled two different pieces of trim with the router to create this unique profile. It's so pretty, nobody else will have anything like it, but it stays true to the style of the house. Once we finish the built-ins, we can finish installing the baseboard throughout the room. Like the windows, it will need to be painted once we have it installed.

We love the detail of the baseboard, with its three parts.

Here you can see the the bottom board, the thin piece that sticks out, and then the top piece that rests against the wall.

There are many more projects we've been working on - stay tuned for more updates as we work quickly on Operation: Finish Two Rooms before Nolan Arrives!

Window Work

Well, it's been a while since I've posted, and it's about three months until Baby Nolan should arrive. Cue: FREAK OUT! After working so much on the house before Sagan's birthday party, we were both ready to take a little break from our projects. A "little" break turned into a few months, but I'm happy to report we are back at it and hard at work to get the living room (and the nursery!!) finished before Nolan's arrival.

The living room...here is what we have had left to do:

• baseboards
• crown molding
• windows (re-run sash cord that has broken, reattach weights, replace sills, and replace trim)
• finish trimming out fireplace/mantle
• mount TV above mantle
• build out cabinets and shelves next to fireplace
• hang chandelier
• place rug and furniture and RELAX!
• (I've probably left something out...)

We decided to start with the windows. The trim has been off of them for months and months! We had planned on replacing the weight/pulley system with springs so we could insulate in the openings around the windows, but decided if we could just use caulk and spray foam to stop any airflow, that would suffice. I insulated around the windows while David worked on making new sills and trim for each window.

We've delayed the project for a while because we had some big decisions to make - however we do the trim on these windows is how we'll eventually do the trim on all the windows around the house. So, the first window took us a bit longer than the rest should. Two of the weights on the first window we worked on were detached, so we had to reattach them. It was a simpler process than I expected, albeit a little stressful! We had to remove the bottom sash, so David first had to pull off the parting bead. Once we got that off, the bottom sash came out pretty easily. Unfortunately, it doesn't move up and down very well, so we used a planer, a putty knife, and some elbow grease to remove the paint from the track the sash is supposed to move up and down on. Made a HUGE difference!

Next, strung the cord through the pulley system and one of the weights, then tied a knot at the weight and at the appropriate length within the window box.

Stringing the sash cord through the pulley system.

We did this on both sides, then put the sash back into the window box and pushed the knots and cords onto each side of the sash.

We measured and marked carefully to make sure the cord was long enough to allow the window to move up and down as it should and to prevent the weight from hitting the top or bottom of the frame behind the trim. 

Once we had the cord attached at both sides of the sash, we made sure it would move up and down freely, then reattached the parting bead.

Bottom sash, weights and the new sill and bottom trim all in place!

Then David measured and cut the rest of the trim and attached it. And voila! We have our new windowsill and trim in place and a functioning window!

Next we had to tackle the double windows on the front of the house. These proved to be more difficult because the weights were detached from the top sashes, so we had to remove both the bottom and the top sashes. By the time we got to the second window of this double set, we felt like old pros (HA!).

We had to remove the storm windows off the outside of the house to cut around the top sash, which had been painted shut. David says if we ever sell this house, we will put in our contract that you can't paint the windows shut! (Suffice it to say this was a tough task...)

With both the top and bottom sashes removed, we were able to plane and scrape the sides so the sashes could easily move up and down on their tracks. Unfortunately (probably many, many years ago), the windows had been painted shut and the tracks had been painted - a big no-no when it comes to keeping the windows functioning properly.

This is what it looks like behind the trim - with the weights and sash cords. When we removed the trim off the double windows, we found that four weights were detached, but two were completely missing. We put out an APB for 7-pound weights, and fortunately we have great friends who are renovating another old home in Murray - who just happened to have two 7-pound weights on hand! Thanks Josh and Ashley!!

After all the blood, sweat and tears, we finally have both windows functioning properly!

This is an exciting sight for us...TRIM on the windows!! 

This project went much more smoothly than we anticipated, but was still pretty demanding. We didn't do everything that we'll eventually have to do to the windows (sand, paint, reglaze, etc.) - but at least they are functioning and we now have templates for the windows in the rest of the house.

And, not to be forgotten...we got the trim around both doorways as well!

I can't wait for this trim to be primed and painted to see how it makes the transom stand out.

Next up: cabinets, shelves, baseboards (which have already been milled and primed!), and 10 million other things. But...yay for progress!