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The final base color for the house. Those with an astute eye for color will notice it's a lot more subdued than the orange primer.
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Another, larger shot of the house with the new color. The trim will be painted a richer, darker yellow (near brown), and the shutters and doors will be painted barn red (matching the beautiful landcruiser parked out front).
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Well, we primed much of the house this weekend, suffering through the noxious fumes of the Kilz primer. You can still see the color variations of the old walls through the primer, but the final coat of paint should take beautifully to the primer.
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The Kilz oil based primer we used is some potent stuff. It's clearly a top notch primer. If you plan on using it, USE A RESPIRATORY MASK. Even with a top quality mask, I managed to get a bit loopy off the fumes after a few hours of painting. Without a mask, figure on an hour before you pass out.
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A shot of the upstairs hallway, now primed ceiling and walls. The floor contractor is due in today at 2pm, so I wanted to splash paint before the floors get refinished - not after.
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A shot of the bedroom wall, also primed. You can see the vents, still visible in this room. We are going to frame out a closet along that wall, but wanted to wait until the floors got redone. It'll be easier to finish the floors without the closet walls in the way.
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Upstairs in the attic. We've begun to drywall over the damaged plaster. We weighed the options of replastering vs. drywalling before we started this work. As it turned out, some of the areas were quite damaged and plastering just didn't seem to be a workable option.
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A detail of one of the damaged areas. The drywall will not only make things more aesthetic, but it will also keep the crumbling plaster from falling onto the floors in the future. Once the seams are taped and spackled, you won't even be able to tell it's been redone.
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A good shot of our cleanup efforts for the floor contractor. All the items in the attic got stacked on the railing to keep the floors clear.
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The bathroom now serves double duty as a storage closet. Since the floor is tiled, the flooring guy won't need to go in there. (except for the obvious)
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The laundry closet is ready for finishing. This is a decent shot of the plumbed works behind the shower and prepped for the clothes washer. This closet is right next to the bedroom, and right at the base of the attic stairs. No need to run through the entire house with a basket full of clothes anymore.
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Looking towards the back down the upstairs hallway. You can still see some blemishes on the wall, even after the priming, but they should be minor repairs.
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The kitchen corner. The inside of the window is finally prepped properly. We will finish the rest of the kitchen out when the cabinets arrive in two weeks.
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Since we tiled the main entry way before all the work was done, we layed down some plywood sheets to protect the floor from heavy traffic. As you can see by the color of the plywood, there's a lot of dust and dirt tracked through this hall that we wouldn't want ground into the tile and grout at this point.
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Gratuitous photo of my dog. He likes the recent improvements. At least, that's what he's been telling me.
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A close-up of the now grouted front hallway. I had to re-lay two of the tiles, and while the mastick was wet, someone stepped on them. Can you guess which two they are? (sorta like a home improvement where's waldo)
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The back screen door is awaiting paint. In the meantime, it leans against the wall in the front hallway. Again, since the floor guys are redoing everything wood, we need to stack stuff out of their way.
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The living room closet. Just stuff it in there. It'll fit.
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Some floor patches in the kitchen. We used some dowels to patch the round pipe and knot holes in the floorboards. You can see one in the center of this photo. It's the light colored circle on the floor.
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A detail shot of the living room patch. This patch was a bit more difficult because we had to leave the space under the wall open for the vent return. You can also see a few dowel patches near the corner of the wall.
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The back porch. Everything but the kitchen sink. Oh, nevermind. The grate leaning against the wall was the one that used to reside in the living room floor. It's cracked slightly, but I've had requests to reuse it as a tabletop. We'll see.
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Work site. Scrap wood has been divided into three piles: trash, donations to a neighbor, and old floorboards. Trash is obvious. The donations pile is plywood and 2x4's for a neighbor who makes birdhouses. The old floorboards will potentially be used to make a table. We'll see.
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The floor contractor showed up today and got started refinishing the floor. The difference is truly amazing. The old wood is absolutely gorgeous. This is a detail shot from the third floor. All that's been done so far is some sanding. I can't wait to see them completed.
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The big sander, resting in the bedroom. This is the sort of machine you could take home, start up, and sand a hole straight through to the basement before you even knew it was running. In the hands of a professional, this machine does wonders as the bedroom floor demonstrates.
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