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I choose to believe you were incoherent with admiration. Good call on the priority 1 dishwasher, have you worked out a new/future kitchen layout yet?
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Sep 15, 2012 11:59
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You are doing a fantastic job on your house. I feel for your ripping out the paneling and putting in the dishwasher, there is nothing like the thrill of opening up a wall or even a faucet in an old house because you never know where you will be stopping. I bought a house a bit over a year ago, and every time I tried to change a seal or a stop a dripping faucet, I've had a headache. Each time I was feverishly praying that I could stop before I had to start ripping out the walls too. Oh, as a temporary wall covering I'd suggest either stapling in a printed cotton cloth or going to the thrift shops and seeing what partial rolls of wallpaper you can find. You won't have to worry about splashing your Finnish flag with mayonnaise. Thrift-shop rolls of vinyl wallpaper makes really cheap shelf and drawer lining too.
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Sep 17, 2012 03:08
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Zoot Suit Mahoney posted:Is this the biggest project you guys have undertaken? A couple friends and I might be doing the same thing soon (but on a muuuch smaller scale). It's a lot more fun that I thought it would be. It's by far our biggest project. It is a ton of fun and it feels great knowing that all this hard work will pay off. A word of advice: I sure hope you are very good friends because teamwork and collaboration on a project like this can make or break a relationship. Make sure you are communicating with each other and if you feel even slightly bit irked, whether it's from who does the most work to what the final design will be, address it right away so it doesn't build up and eventually explode. Rodnik and I knew beforehand that we work really well as a team so this hasn't been an issue for us, but I know some people who attempted some home renovation and by the end, couldn't stand each other. Even though it's fun, it does add stress to your life, and you've got to have good communication for things to go smoothly. Cakefool posted:I choose to believe you were incoherent with admiration. Not yet. We found this stove on Craigslist and brought it home, we will be designing the kitchen partially around this. (It has four legs that is stands on but right now it's sitting in our entryway.)  The kitchen space is quite small so our design is going to have to be clever. The pantry does add some extra space and works fine for us, but looking ahead to selling the house, we have to think of something that would work for other people. We were thinking of doing a small fridge and putting it under a counter and having a freezer in the basement, but most people these days wouldn't like that. We'll do more thinking in the future when the kitchen project is approaching. Rule .303 posted:Oh, as a temporary wall covering I'd suggest either stapling in a printed cotton cloth or going to the thrift shops and seeing what partial rolls of wallpaper you can find. You won't have to worry about splashing your Finnish flag with mayonnaise. Thanks for the suggestions. Rodnik and I don't mind living in a shithole for a while, so the flag will come down when things get messy again and probably won't be replaced by anything.
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Sep 17, 2012 05:53
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Koivunen posted:Not yet. We found this stove on Craigslist and brought it home, we will be designing the kitchen partially around this. (It has four legs that is stands on but right now it's sitting in our entryway.) That stove is awesome, really beautiful. I hope it is in good working condition.
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Sep 17, 2012 06:32
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Zoot Suit Mahoney posted:M Agreed. Also this looks like it'll be a nice place when you get it finished. That nicotine film on the windows is grrooosss. Smokers are gross. toby fucked around with this message at 00:32 on Sep 19, 2012 |
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Sep 19, 2012 00:30
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toebe posted:That nicotine film on the windows is grrooosss. Smokers are gross. You have no idea man   That's where a picture was hanging. You're lucky, Koivunen, you only have a light coating in your house. To clarify: this was my grandfather's house after 30(?) years of 2 people chain smoking nonstop. Pepperoneedy fucked around with this message at 04:40 on Sep 20, 2012 |
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Sep 20, 2012 04:35
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Grave $avings posted:To clarify: this was my grandfather's house after 30(?) years of 2 people chain smoking nonstop. drat. The only way I'd ever buy a house that bad is if I planned to gut it to the studs.
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Sep 20, 2012 04:48
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Grave $avings posted:You have no idea man Bleehhh that's so disgusting. As we finish rooms I have to rewash stuff because I've realized I didn't get it all off the first time. I'm pretty tired of dealing with the nicotine, but at the same time, it's part of what reduced the house value to about $40k less than the surrounding houses. I'll deal with some washing up if it will save me forty grand. I've been using rubber gloves for everything, but part of me wonders if I washed the walls with my bare hands if I would kill myself from a transdermal nicotine induced heart attack. Not willing to find out.
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Sep 20, 2012 08:37
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Koivunen posted:Bleehhh that's so disgusting. Augh! That picture! The family living in this (1925, yay hardwood floors and horsehair plaster walls) house before us were pot smokers and I'm pretty sure I got a contact high from washing the walls without gloves. The front bedroom was especially bad. The 'white' walls were BROWN. The brick in the fireplace was coated in tar, the grout is utterly black (I'm assuming it used to be off-white or grey, but no amount of washing has helped it so far), and even after scrubbing it took 2 coats of Kilz primer to cover the stains. I washed the windows five or six times before the paper towels stopped turning brown. Ew. We also keep finding burned-down incense sticks stuck in nail holes all over the drat place. I thought I'd gotten them all after we moved in, but last winter I found another one in the basement door frame. I hate smokers. And you don't want to see our kitchen. That stove is really cute though! I'd love to have one like that! We went more modern with black appliances because there was no stove and the fridge was moldy when we moved in, and we were in a hurry to get something 'nice'... and now I wish I'd thought about the kitchen redesign before we picked them out. Oh well!
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Sep 20, 2012 17:19
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A very short update: Tomorrow I'll find out if I can resume life as normal after my injury at work nearly six weeks ago (which I fully expect I should). We have been slowly hand-planing the picture rail, which is not fast work. If we don't have the living room finished by Sunday night, we will both put an extra $100 into our joint savings account. Hold us to it! Sherwin-Williams was having a paint sale the other day so we got paint for the entry way, dressing room, and dining room. I can't wait to see these colors on the walls, they are bold but match with the entire house's decor. It will be some time before we are able to have the paint on the walls, but after seeing the colors we have now, I am super excited. We will finish the living room by Sunday, and if we don't, we are both out $100. Our next project will be the entry way. It shouldn't be too hard, just some minor patching, some detailed ceiling scraping (thanks to popcorn texture), and that's it. We haven't agreed upon if we want the red/maroon/burgundy color (technically "Red Theatre") to be only the entry way, or if we want it to extend to the back wall of the stairway, of it we want the entire upstairs hallway to be this Theatre color. I think we should do the downstairs entryway and the north wall this color, but do the rest of the stairwell and upstairs hallway a lighter color. Rodnik thinks we should do the entire entryway plus the stairway and the upstairs hall this color. I think it will make the hallway feel claustrophobic. The hallway is maybe three feet wide at best. When there was the dark brown paneling the halls seemed very narrow, but now that it's torn down and a gross light cream color, it feels a lot more open. Having a maroon hallway wouldn't be the worst thing ever, but there's not a lot of natural light that reaches the upstairs hallway, and I want a lighter, neutral color to open it up and make the three feet seem wider than it is. I feel like if it's all Theatre Red (like the original house was) it would just feel too narrow. When we've taken off all the paneling on the walls, the paint has chipped off as well. Underneath this nasty neutral color, there is maroon. Originally, the house had a maroon entry way which extended up the staircase and into the upstairs hallway. It matches with the colors we chose in the bedrooms and it's a very nice color. Rodnik's argument is that it was the original color in the house and it's a bold, rich color and would bring the entryway, staircase, and upstairs hallway together. My argument is that it is too dark and would make the upstairs hallway feel very narrow, and I think it would look fine if we did the entryway and the North wall the maroon color, but did the staircase and upstairs hallway a lighter color to open it up and reflect more light. If you can see the original pictures and draw up a picture of the layout of the house... what do you think? I might do a Youtube walk-through of the house so that followers of this thread can get a better feel for the layout of the house. Mine and Rodnik's parents didn't get a good feel from the pictures alone, so I'll see if I can do something about that this weekend.
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Oct 5, 2012 08:38
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Grave $avings posted:You have no idea man
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Oct 7, 2012 15:28
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 Exciting Update!!! We have (nearly) finished the living room! We can actually live in it! As you may remember, this is what it looked like before:   And during:  Looking exhausted and scrubbin dat nicotine.  Bleh.  Plastering (see previous post).  Primed (see previous post). Here is our final result! The only thing left is we bumped into the walls in a few places and have to touch up the paint, but that won't take more than half an hour. We also have to get actual curtain rods which will fit on the inside of the window frame, right now we have just tacked the curtains to the top. Also, the red is from our apartment, we will probably go with a more neutral color like beige or dark brown curtains. Also going to order some picture rail hooks and hang up some pictures. Besides all that, we have another complete room! In the future (like, way-future), we will strip all the paint from the windows. At that time, we will stain the picture rail and crown moulding the same color as the windows. That is a project for another time, though.  With flash... It's still pretty dusty since we are working on the front entryway now.  Without flash. We will be reupholstering the foot stool (which we got for free at an auction) and probably adding a coffee table in the future. Picked up the clock at a different auction for $30.  Badass "family seal."  We got the couch and chair on Craigslist for $400. We will reupholster them in the future so they match, but the fabric is fine for now. They had been in the same family for three generations. Sorry about the hookah (no not really). More good news! I am currently sitting at A DESK! This beats sitting on a mattress on a floor by a long shot. My grandpa made the desk for me when I was 10. It doesn't exactly match our decor, but it's sentimental. The upper shelves wouldn't fit with the picture rail, so that part is upstairs and is being lived in by our cats. If you'll see the prints on the wall, there's a third larger one to the right. They are Chinese prints made in the 60s, got all three for $5 at an auction. (We like auctions if you can't tell). Our next project is the front entryway. We're nearly done chipping off all the layers of paint. Original color was maroon and cream, and there used to be a picture rail aligned with the top of the window and door frames. We will be painting it a similar maroon color, "Theater Red." 
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Oct 22, 2012 04:00
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that couch & chair are loving rad
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Oct 23, 2012 06:19
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When you're all done that house is going to be amazing. I'm incredibly jealous right now, to buy something like that here would cost many times more than you paid.
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Oct 23, 2012 11:45
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Just love the trim in that place. . . not so much the nicotine coating. You're doing an amazing job, and although I'm not a fan of the colours you've picked (just personal taste) it's miles better than what was there to begin with. Keep the updates coming! I love a success story. I really wish that Holmes would take on one of these jobs instead of fixing stupid rich people's idiot mistakes. Then again they probably figure nobody would want to see poor kids get much needed help on their first home rather than McMansions getting new marble tile.
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Oct 23, 2012 16:35
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Blistex posted:Just love the trim in that place. . . not so much the nicotine coating. You're doing an amazing job, and although I'm not a fan of the colours you've picked (just personal taste) it's miles better than what was there to begin with. Keep the updates coming! I love a success story. Watch "This Old House"? I've been watching it since I was like 2 years old. Hopefully some of it has rubbed off. Yeah, nobody likes the colors when they see them in pictures or have them described. We have heard plenty about it. When you see it in person it's really quite nice though, it feels very warm. I did notice after we painted though, that with the white trim, we look like the inside of an Irish Pub...neither of us are Irish.
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Oct 23, 2012 16:44
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What's up with those bizarre wall extensions? How come you didn't sledge them out? The room looked great primed.
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Oct 23, 2012 22:27
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Thanks for the comments everyone. Like Rodnik said, the colors actually look a bit different in person with natural light. Just like our bedroom looks BRIGHT BLUE in these pictures, it's really more subdued and calm. Originally I just wanted to do the entire living room an olive green but Rodnik insisted on doing the orange with a picture rail. It's grown on me, and I quite like how it turned out. If we get sick of it in the future we can change it, after all it's just paint.cowofwar posted:What's up with those bizarre wall extensions? How come you didn't sledge them out? Wall extensions? Do you mean the woodwork that divides the two rooms that the pop bottles are sitting on in the original picture? We actually really like that feature because it's original to the house (and common in homes built in the early 1900s) and beneath the white paint is quarter sawn oak. We will be stripping the wood work in the future to fully restore the house. It's very much in the style of arts and crafts, and we are trying to keep that look throughout the house. We don't want to live in a boring-rear end house with no defining features, drywall, central air, and white walls. If that's your style that's fine but we like our house with character. (To be honest I can't tell if your comment was just a troll or if you would seriously knock out the original woodwork and paint everything white.)
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Oct 23, 2012 23:23
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Koivunen posted:We don't want to live in a boring-rear end house with no defining features, drywall, central air, and white walls. If that's your style that's fine but we like our house with character. You've done a lot of great work (I used to work as a detailer and would get to clean nicotine off the interiors of camper vans). That said, I think the wall extensions are ugly and a tripping hazard and should be removed.
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Oct 24, 2012 18:07
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This is my dream for some day. I really, really want an under-priced ratty old Victorian or Craftsman with the original windows and woodwork in it so I can fix it up and have an epic, epic house. I'd just like to say, thank you so so much for keeping the original windows! They are beautiful. It's interesting to learn how these century-old houses actually utilize better thermal management mechanisms than a lot of newer houses. I just moved from a mid-century duplex to an upstairs unit in 1901 quad. Survived August without air conditioning just fine, thanks to the high ceilings, a crapton of huge (original) windows providing ample ventilation and natural light. Previous house was unbearable sans AC. In general, it always makes me happy when people care about preserving the nice, original aspects of their house, because there are too many other people in the world that have no problem completely desecrating beautiful old houses for the sake of modernization/re-purposing. Every time I walk past that house (and a wrecked Victorian nearby with tiny little replacement windows and bricked-in former windows), I get super angry. So yeah, thanks for properly fixing up and restoring your cute house. Also, what's with the 70's and horrible veneer paneling? I don't understand why anyone ever thought that was aesthetically better than the original plaster or a nice wall paper.
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Oct 24, 2012 19:54
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It is really nice to see your progress and you've gotten a hell of a lot more done than I have in the same time with my place which is completely boring modern house inside (white walls, off white carpet, no trim on the windows, etc). I'm not crazy about the green/orange colors but I'll trust you when you say they look better in person. The thing that is bothering me are the picture rails. They seem to blend in too well but not completely. Have you considered painting them white to match the other trim or some other color to provide more contrast and separation? I don't mind the wall extensions but if the wood floor doesn't extend under them then it could be a problem removing them. Even if it did extend under them it may not match the rest of the wood from being covered up. On the other hand if it didn't extend then you could do some sort of accent in darker wood or tile to fill in the space.
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Oct 24, 2012 21:31
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cowofwar posted:We purchased our house based on the face that it is an old house from the 1800s. It has a history similar to your house where previous owners have taken the easy route and painted all the beautiful hard wood trim around windows and the 7" colonial baseboards. I am currently stripping all the paint off the baseboards in the dining room with a long term goal of restoring all the hard wood trim downstairs. I'm glad you are taking the time to restore your original woodwork. It's a ton of work but will be completely worth it in the end. However, I really, really hope you didn't knock out any of your original woodwork because you thought it was ugly. While it is a matter of taste (and we think our extensions are awesome), the fact of the matter is, they are original to the house and knocking down original woodwork is just as bad, if not worse, than painting all the woodwork white. Once it's gone, it's gone, and there's no going back. It also kind of blows my mind that you have an old house that you're taking time to restore, but you would knock down the most arts and crafts feature of our house. If you type "arts and crafts interior woodwork" into GIS, the very first one that pops up looks exactly like our woodwork. As for a tripping hazard, they come up to my thigh, so unless you're blind or extremely drunk, there's no reason to be tripping over them.  This is the very first GIS result for arts and crafts interior woodwork. Anyway, getting off my soapbox... Something that's interesting is that we believe there used to be pillars sitting on top of the extensions that were removed. There is one mystery pillar in our basement that would fit perfectly on top of those extensions. Also, it's rather odd to see the base without a pillar in true arts and crafts style homes. There aren't any bumps or ridges on the base or along the room frame, but who knows what we will find when we strip the paint.  This beautiful pillar with original veneer was tucked away in the old coal room, now toilet room, in the basement. We don't know where it came from. We think it may have been between the base and the room frame, but the pillar has a bunch of nails sticking out of the top, and there's an inch of unvarnished wood at the bottom, so we're not sure. Also, there's only one, so what would have happened to the other three? In the far future when we are finished with everything, one of the final touches that we will do is add pillars. It will look so cool, I'm really excited about it. Authentic You posted:This is my dream for some day. I really, really want an under-priced ratty old Victorian or Craftsman with the original windows and woodwork in it so I can fix it up and have an epic, epic house. If you're willing to relocate, Duluth has a ton of ratty old houses in need of some TLC. I'm glad there's another person out there who recognizes the beauty and practicality of keeping original windows! When it comes time to sell this house, I almost want to be the realtor myself to talk about that with potential buyers. We would hate to have sunk so much effort into keeping everything original and then have someone come replace the perfectly fine windows. Ugh, that house you linked is awful. The houses on either side of us were built at the same time as ours but all have new white windows and vinyl siding. The neighborhood we are in used to be a really run down, shady part of town, but the city (I think Housing and Urban Development) came through and helped "restore" most of the houses, which included putting in new windows, new siding, repairing foundations, placing sump pumps, etc. While it was done with the best of intentions and it did help make the neighborhood more family-friendly, lots of the houses look awful. I really think ours is a diamond in the rough. Yeah, we don't know why anyone would put paneling up either. When we ripped it all off, it did hide some big cracks in the plaster and peeling paint, but that is fixable. Paneling everywhere? In every room? Overkill. Not to mention drop ceilings everywhere as well. Some more good news! I went to an auction over the weekend and picked up a kickin rad new (old) sink for when we remodel the kitchen! That's right, it's a cast iron farm sink that is in excellent condition. Rodnik and I have been looking at farm sinks, but they were selling for between $400 and $1200 depending on their size and condition. Guess how much I paid for this? Go ahead, guess. $2.50. Yep. Two dollars and fifty cents. I was the only bidder. There are some tiny, minor scratches on the lip of the right side which can be easily repaired. Otherwise there are no cracks or flakes in the porcelain, no staining, nothing. Nearly perfect condition. I am still riding the high from finding this and getting it for such an unbelievable price.
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Oct 24, 2012 22:14
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SCORE! Fantastic deal on the sink. We have a fancy salvage yard near us and those sinks usually go or $200-300 As an aside, after just stripping almost an entire house's woodwork of paint, my advice....don't. It is unbelievably time consuming and messy. There are many methods of removal (infrared, chemical, heat gun, mechanical) but they all suck. I felt like chemical sucked the least though. If you are determined (which I have a feeling you are), I'm happy to lend my tips if you like 
dwoloz fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Oct 24, 2012 |
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Oct 24, 2012 22:19
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Cpt.Wacky posted:It is really nice to see your progress and you've gotten a hell of a lot more done than I have in the same time with my place which is completely boring modern house inside (white walls, off white carpet, no trim on the windows, etc). You replied while I was writing my last reply. The picture rail and the crown moulding is currently raw, unfinished oak with no staining or coloring. In the future, we plan on stripping the paint from the window frames, baseboards, and dividers. Once all the paint has been removed, we will then stain all the woodwork, including the picture rail and moulding, the same color. Until that happens it's going to look kind of weird, but we can live with that. The wood under the extensions is a different color. When we first bought the house there was a dip in the floor which caused a gap under the extensions, and the wood is very dark. We have since raised the floor with jacks and can no longer see under there, but we are keeping the extensions anyway so it' a moot point. Edit: Argh! Another reply while I was replying. dwoloz posted:SCORE! Fantastic deal on the sink. We have a fancy salvage yard near us and those sinks usually go or $200-300 Wow, your house looks gorgeous. Do you have any after photos yet or is it still a work in progress? So far we have stripped about 1/4 of our dining room using heat guns. However, it leaves paint flecks and it's impossible to removed paint from the fine details like where the wood recesses. Unfortunately we will have to use chemical means to get all the paint off which means the varnish/veneer will most likely come off as well. You are right, we are very determined. It would be great to hear some of your tips when you have the time. Koivunen fucked around with this message at 22:27 on Oct 24, 2012 |
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Oct 24, 2012 22:20
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Koivunen posted:
Haha I didn't scroll down to that text below the picture at first and for just an instant I was astounded that you had somehow transformed your house overnight.
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Oct 24, 2012 22:58
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Nice find on the sink! I didn't realize they could be so expensive.. Now I understand why my dad finds and keeps random old sinks... and other parts of houses, which he then puts in new houses.Koivunen posted:If you're willing to relocate, Duluth has a ton of ratty old houses in need of some TLC. I'm glad there's another person out there who recognizes the beauty and practicality of keeping original windows! When it comes time to sell this house, I almost want to be the realtor myself to talk about that with potential buyers. We would hate to have sunk so much effort into keeping everything original and then have someone come replace the perfectly fine windows. I'm in Pittsburgh, which has plenty of neat old houses. There are lots of neat old houses here in neighborhoods that started out super affluent with gorgeous, high quality houses, turned bad and crime-ridden over the decades, and are finally becoming not lovely again. A friend of mine bought a gigantic Victorian for 100k that has original everything, including a 7-foot-tall Art Nouveau stain glass window in the stairwell. He lucked out because it had been inhabited by some little old ladies for 50+ years, so the house handily avoided being hosed with in the 70s. It had some major issues, which was why it was has cheap as it was. The trick here is finding the houses that haven't changed owners a lot (it's all too common that they try to 'modernize' stuff to make it more attractive to buyers). My dad has been nagging me to buy my ratty dream Victorian for a while now (despite the fact that I'm way too poor), and advising buying an extra big, extra ratty one with tenants already in it. So many houses here have been chopped up into apartments, which makes them even more insane fixer-uppers, but way more affordable through rent income. And when it comes to original windows, I think I get it from my dad. We remodeled our 100-year-old house a while back. It was a near tear-down because it was so flimsy and rotten and not much of it was salvageable, but since we were 'just remodeling', my dad didn't have to adhere to the 90's building codes, and built new all-wood single-paned windows that look like they were built in 1900. He even scrounged up old counterweights and chains for them. But yeah, my family's neighbors managed to turn a neat old shake shingle house with diamond paned windows into a cookie cutter tract house (thank god a number of the original windows are still there). It doesn't look bad, necessarily, just really bland and.. like a contemporary tract house, complete with a wood-shingled tract house chimney. They even pulled out the neat old brickwork in the yard and replaced it with a perfectly suburbanite windy flagstone path. I don't get people's tastes sometimes. So yeah, keep up the awesome work.
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Oct 25, 2012 01:38
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Authentic You posted:My dad has been nagging me to buy my ratty dream Victorian for a while now (despite the fact that I'm way too poor), and advising buying an extra big, extra ratty one with tenants already in it. So many houses here have been chopped up into apartments, which makes them even more insane fixer-uppers, but way more affordable through rent income. We were going to do this, and we found a pretty great place for 130K that was a gigantic victorian with a huge turret with a sunroom overlooking the lake on the top floor, but it being our first house buying experience, we thought the prospect of fixing that place up a bit too daunting. If home prices stabilize at this level I could see us buying a huge drafty Victorian in the next four years. I hope you end up finding your dream place.
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Oct 26, 2012 20:34
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Rodnik posted:We were going to do this, and we found a pretty great place for 130K that was a gigantic victorian with a huge turret with a sunroom overlooking the lake on the top floor, but it being our first house buying experience, we thought the prospect of fixing that place up a bit too daunting. If home prices stabilize at this level I could see us buying a huge drafty Victorian in the next four years. I hope you end up finding your dream place. Where I live you can't even get a lovely mobile home for that price, I would kill for a real estate market with prices like that. 
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Nov 2, 2012 00:44
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Woo woooo we are making progress on the entry way! All the plastering is done. We discovered it used to be maroon and beige-ish with a picture rail along the window line. Previous owners have put about a billion coats of paint on it (realistically, about ten to twelve), and the paint was flaking and bowing and cracking, so we scraped off all the paint we could and re-plastered the entire room. Two and a half coats of plaster later, and we are satisfied. We finally found a product that we are happy using, it is pre-mixed Sheetrock brand all-purpose joint compound. This is different than the other joint compound that we were using and much different than the powder joint compound as well. I can't tell you exactly, chemically, and astronomically, why this is a superior product, but we bought a big five gallon tub of this stuff and it takes 24 hours to set. It's also easier to work with and easier to sand. This is opposed to the 15 minute set time of the gallon joint compound and four hour set time of the powder stuff (which required drill-bit mixing). It costs the same as the powder stuff, and is by far superior. Tonight we primed the entire room, walls and ceiling. Before: A total construction, mid-plastering zone. I can't wait to get all this crap out of the way and have a functioning entryway.  After: Primed beauty, an aerial view. I can't wait to get this painted.  We should have it painted by the end of this week. We had some unexpected stresses come up (death of a cat, new job position) that may delay progress, but so far so good. Pictures to come.
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Nov 5, 2012 11:59
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Few questions: How much brighter has your place gotten after cleaning the nicotine off the windows and cleaning up? I remember that a lot of my place before I started painting was some manner of off-white and after painting it real colours it seemed that much brighter. Do you have any plans to refinish the floor? I had oak and maple flooring in my place and after renting one of those huge orbital sanders (not a drum sander) and removing all the old finish and wax, replacing it with polyurethane and and giving it a few coats, the place was 30% brighter (at least), but more importantly, the floor looked amazing. How are your windows holding up? I notice you have lots of original windows. Are you going to replace them (eventually) with more modern ones, or are you going to stick with the wood sliders? I'm slowly replacing all my old wood sliders as they are impossibly for my wife to open and close and they do let a little bit of cold air blow in (I use removable draft seal). Keep up the great work!
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Nov 5, 2012 13:56
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Blistex posted:How are your windows holding up? I notice you have lots of original windows. Are you going to replace them (eventually) with more modern ones, or are you going to stick with the wood sliders? I'm slowly replacing all my old wood sliders as they are impossibly for my wife to open and close and they do let a little bit of cold air blow in (I use removable draft seal). Just because the windows won't open easily doesn't mean they need to be outright replaced. The usual culprits are a century of paint gumming things up and old, painted-over chains and pulleys. Take the windows apart, replace the chains/cables, strip the paint, and then repaint. Install some threshold stuff on the sill. Now you have a good-as-new window without having to buy new windows and upset the original state of the house. I do hope those old those old windows of yours are going to salvage so someone else can put them to use in a restoration project.. (if I end up having to buy an old house with replacement windows, I'll be reverting them to old-style wood windows, either by finding or recreating them). The OP did say earlier they would not be replacing the windows. Then I came in and was all happy about it.
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Nov 5, 2012 20:51
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Blistex posted:Few questions: Nnnnnnooooooo  Stop what you're doing right now and don't replace any more old windows. Old wooden sliding windows literally never have to be replaced, and their quality is far superior to any window you can get on the market today. The saying "They don't make them like they used to" is so true for old windows. If they are stuck, they can be fixed. Broken pulleys can be repaired. We have a few windows that won't open right now but we will be fixing them next summer. Some of our windows are a bit drafty but we are remedying that by covering them with plastic in the winter. If you insist on replacing them still, get double paned wooden windows. They are a bit more expensive than vinyl windows but they last at least twice as long if they are properly maintained. They look exactly the same as your original windows but have two glass panes instead of one. If you have a contractor replacing your windows, find one that specializes in historic homes and not just someone who works on tract houses or McMansions. Vinyl windows wreck an old home. Walk down a historic part of your town and look at the old houses that have vinyl windows, and ask yourself, "Do I want my house looking like this?" It will cost you some money to either fix your original windows or replace them with identical newer windows, but it will pay off in the long run. Authentic historic homes are disappearing and being renovated and "modernized" (read: wrecked). When you go to sell your house in the future, the effort of keeping original fixtures or replacing them with things that look original will be noticed and appreciated, and you can get more money for your house. Earlier in the thread there are some links on why you should keep original windows and a few examples of chewed up and spat out old houses with horrible windows. Definitely take a look at those articles and do your own research, but keeping original windows is a must. Ok, stepping down from my soap box... The place looked entirely different from before we started cleaning off nicotine to after. It was absolutely disgusting. It smells a lot better too. The house hadn't been lived in for about a year so it didn't smell like cigarette smoke, but it was very stale and almost sickly-sweet smelling. Hard to describe. Once all the nicotine was gone, the place looked so much brighter and happier, and it didn't stink. Lots of good things come from cleaning. We do plan on refinishing the upstairs floor. We accidentally wrecked the floor in our master bedroom by trying to mop with wood cleaner. We're certain the upstairs floor hasn't been touched since the house was built, and there was kind of a wax coating on top of it that the wood cleaner removed. You can see exactly where we sprayed the cleaner, there are huge dots everywhere. Rodnik also tried removing some dried paint from the floor in the guest bedroom and ended up taking off the finish completely, so there are a few big bare spots there (currently covered by a rug). That will most likely be the very last thing we do, though. Refinishing floors is an enormous project that requires a ton of free time. We will not being redoing the downstairs floor (at least, we don't plan on doing it, but that could change). Previous owners already refinished it and really messed it up. They used one of those circular sanders but weren't very careful with it and left circular gouges and burn marks all over the place that can never be fixed. I'll have to take a picture and post it, it's really a shame. It is really dirty from years and years of foot traffic, and although we've mopped probably fifteen times, there is still grime being lifted. I mean it's clean, but there's stuff really ground in, if that makes sense. They also chose a stain/finish color that is several shades lighter than upstairs. I am motivated to do some painting tonight before I have to go to work, so our Theater Red will be going on the walls very soon!
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Nov 5, 2012 23:01
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No, these suckers have to be replaced. I know what people are taking about when it comes to old windows and insulation factor and charm, but these are on their last legs and all that would be salvageable are the panes of glass, and even they would have to be sanded and then buffed. They are vertical sliders, but there are no pulleys in them. They are literally chunks of cracked and rotten cedar that a guy put panes of glass into. They are neither wind/waterproof and look pretty bad. This isn't old-world craftsmanship I'm talking about, just old. They will be replaced with double-paned vertical sliders that will be as close to the original "idea" that the guy that made the current windows had, and will have large brickmould around the outside that will be in keeping with what is in there now. They're going to be custom made so that the sill and frame on the inside will remain, as they are actually still very nice.
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Nov 6, 2012 00:11
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Blistex posted:No, these suckers have to be replaced. I know what people are taking about when it comes to old windows and insulation factor and charm, but these are on their last legs and all that would be salvageable are the panes of glass, and even they would have to be sanded and then buffed. They are vertical sliders, but there are no pulleys in them. They are literally chunks of cracked and rotten cedar that a guy put panes of glass into. They are neither wind/waterproof and look pretty bad. This isn't old-world craftsmanship I'm talking about, just old. Oh thank god. For a minute I thought you were one of those  types that would rip out old windows and put in white vinyl instead.Do you have any pictures of the new windows? I'm curious to see what they'll look like.
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Nov 6, 2012 03:34
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The two that I have replaced so far were not original, but instead the crappiest late 70's sliding pane windows. They were basically panes of glass that slid in plastic runners. They were replaced with modern double-pane vinly horizontal sliders. There's 6" brickmould around the outside of them which really closely matches the wood trim that was there. On the inside they were just framed with simple $3.99 mahogany trim painted a pastel blue. There are two more (one in each bedroom upstairs) that need to be replaced that are those crank-out windows that were all the rage in the 90's. The seals have gone in them and each one has a broken crank for 1/2 of it. They will also be replaced with horizontal sliders as there is no period correct way to replace them. When I get to the vertical sliders (all on the first floor) I'm replacing them with modern vertical sliders. I'll post pics whenever I get the cash and do it, but I'm getting a new vehicle on Wednesday, as the old Cavalier isn't really cutting it anymore. I've been refinishing the house in a manner that keep the 1920's county home spirit alive, but in some cases concessions have to be made. For example, when I get the cash, all the wood siding is getting ripped off as it is at the end of its lifespan due to approx 80 years of neglect, and replacing it with the closest approximation I can get with vinyl. I'd love to replace it with wood, or that cement-board that looks just like it, but I'm not a millionaire and that poo poo is freaking expensive. I've been looking at ways to use vinyl corners, channel, vertical siding, and regular siding to keep the look of my house as close to original as possible, but like I said, money is a factor. Anyway, I don't want my "old home heresy" derailing this thread. I'm glad that you're saving as much as possible. Blistex fucked around with this message at 04:11 on Nov 6, 2012 |
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Nov 6, 2012 04:08
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Aw, I was going to suggest you go with the cement board, I've seen a few homes done with it and it really does look excellent. I even prefer the 1940s-70s asphalt shingle siding next to vinyl, that is how much I hate it. We live in Minnesota so there is no shortage of lumber around here and if you were to side your home in pine or cedar it isn't that expensive. How much would it cost for pine siding by the foot there? And hey don't worry about being a heretic, there isn't really a thread dedicated to fixing up old homes so post as much as you want here.
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Nov 6, 2012 07:20
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My dad has a sawmill, and we have an extensive workshop, but can't fabricate the style of siding that is currently on my house ourselves. The only kind of local wood siding available that won't break the bank is pine or cedar beveled slabs, which I really don't like the look of. The current wood siding is 6" cove, and I've found that Kaycan makes a variety of vinyl that is spot on in look and even available in the same (non faded) colour, and the wood grain stamped into it isn't bad either. Also, I don't want a natural/stained pine or cedar exterior. I like our blue that we have and while vinyl might not be the most "green" option, painting and scraping isn't going to reduce my carbon footprint by much either. What really pisses me off is that my current neighbor used to rent my house a few years ago and he told me that the previous owners had the whole exterior of the house scraped and repainted, despite it being pretty obvious that the current wood siding was on it's very last legs. Apparently (he didn't give me a figure, but used to be a contractor so knows his poo poo) they spent enough having it scraped and painted to have it covered in vinyl, all the old windows replaced with high quality new ones, and possibly even the roof re-shingled. He said it probably would have been the same amount to put the cement-board on the outside and have enough left over to do a window or two.
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Nov 6, 2012 14:21
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If you find something you like the look of, then that is all that matters. Around here pretty much every house that has gone over to vinyl has chosen grey-blue or tan siding and it's tiresome to look at. Another complaint I have is that if its improperly or cheaply installed it looks warped and and wavy. Maybe the contractors in our area just do a terrible job. I'd kill for a woodshop or any workspace at all. Its not easy getting materials into an already cramped basement.
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Nov 7, 2012 00:01
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Rodnik posted:If you find something you like the look of, then that is all that matters. Cheap vinyl, even when properly installed looks warped and wavy because it's super thin. It's the kind of stuff that shatters when a snowball hits it, or starts to droop if you BBQ within 30 feet of it. Contractors love to install it because they cut costs, and most subdivisions are wall to wall cheap stuff.
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Nov 7, 2012 00:18
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Blistex posted:Cheap vinyl, even when properly installed looks warped and wavy because it's super thin. It's the kind of stuff that shatters when a snowball hits it, or starts to droop if you BBQ within 30 feet of it. Contractors love to install it because they cut costs, and most subdivisions are wall to wall cheap stuff. Well that is at least refreshing to know. Kind-of.
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Nov 7, 2012 10:49
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