Posted by Ted on October 21st, 2006
Okay… no… we’re not dead. That would be a crying shame right after finishing our kitchen, I think. We merely took a very lengthy hiatus for a while to allow ourselves and our bank account time to recoup after that adventure before tackling another room… or rooms, as the case turned out to be.
As Thanksgiving was approaching, we thought it would be a great if we had the rest of the living areas at a presentable state. The living room wasn’t pretty, the entranceway had a perfectly hideous floor, the bannister was falling off in the stairwell, and the upstairs needed a coat of paint too.
Jeez, I don’t even know where to begin…
THE LIVING ROOM:
The biggest challenge in this room was probably the lovely artistic border that I believe we’ve mentioned earlier on this site. Shannon did most of the work on that beauty whilst I ran around the room replacing outdated and probably dangerous electrical outlets and switches. She mostly used the big bad scaper that was heavily employed in the Attack on the Kitchen to varying degrees of success.
She also used a handy product called the Paper Tiger which was basically rolled around over the wallpaper to score it lightly so that another product, called Dif could really get in under the paper and let her scrape it off easily.
Let’s see… other stuff in the living room… patching the holes in the stucco ceiling from about 15 hooks up there. (why? who knows…). We used a product that we can’t recommend enough. It’s called simply Stucco Patch and is made by a company called Homax. Their website doesn’t do it justice, but it patched those holes in the stucco so well that we couldn’t tell the difference between the patched areas and the original stuff.
Incedentally, painting stucco sucks. I’ve done it twice now and I don’t recommend it.
I also replaced the piece of lumber in front of the sliding doors. It was cracked and broken and looked awful. This was a pretty big challenge all on it’s own as I discovered that the wood had been notched out to accomodate some insulation and the concrete door sill under it. I wound up just replicating the piece of wood by cutting and notching a piece of cedar planking to fit.
Oh yeah… we painted the room too (see photos below!)
|
                 
|
THE ENTRACEWAY:
In the entranceway, the biggest goal, aside from painting, was the gawd-awful floor. Somewhere down the line, we’re planning on re-tiling the floor in here with a nice stone tile, but as a super-cheap stopgap, we yanked out the quarter-round, bought an indoor/outdoor mat, cut it to fit, and replaced the quarter-round over it! Frankly, I think it looks great for a $40 solution!
We also pulled all the old sealant out of the long tall window in here and replaced it. It was all moldy and gross.
|
           
|
THE STAIRS:
I don’t know if I’ve ever really talked about the stairs, but when we first got in this place, they had carpet on them.
Really stinky old mouldy carpet that had mystery stains on it, and horrid old under padding under it that had pretty much been compressed into powder. I won’t go into it, but I spent an entire day removing the underpadding step-by-step and actually had to sand it off in places.
Ayway, they look much nicer now. that the rises have been cleaned and painted. Also Shannon deserves a lot of praise for managing to paint all the way up to the ceiling in there with nothing but a big heavy extension pole for help (I was at work).
Oh yeah, and now the bannister isn’t a deadly hazard.
|
      
|
-Ted.
Posted in Entraceway + Living Room + Whole House
October 22nd, 2006 at 11:01 am
Wow !! you guys have been busy. The place is looking great. Keep up the wonderful work, I cannot wait to come and see it with my own eyes.
October 22nd, 2006 at 12:23 pm
Wow, what a difference! Looks fantastic. You can tell how much hard work was put into this. Can’t wait to see it!
Love C
November 12th, 2008 at 10:26 pm
8t6p0ogo3d4puijj