Making This House a Home...
by
Lori Jackson
$2500
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We live in a house nearing its one-hundredth birthday. It is a modest little home, the victim of lots of god-awful remodeling decisions made over the course of a century. We are both teachers, so our projects are timed around summer and Christmas breaks. Our summer project was replacing a removed wall and recreating a separate living room space. Gone are hideous paneled walls that had been wallpapered--grooves and all. Also on the 'hit list'--awful stained baby blue carpet and windows framed with ranch style mopboard.
Complete inventory of work undertaken:
1. Removed old carpeting and pad.
2. Stripped old wiring and rewired the room, adding two additional outlets.
3. New sheetrock on walls.
4. Window trim replaced and matched to original.
5. Tore out strange baseboard and mitered new boards to match old trim.
6. Built wall and created a wall of built-ins.
7. Redirected air intake.
8. Painted (and painted and painted).
9. Installed drapery hardware and hung new (old) drapes.
10. Replaced cheap vent covers with antiques that match the age of the house.
Complete inventory of work undertaken:
1. Removed old carpeting and pad.
2. Stripped old wiring and rewired the room, adding two additional outlets.
3. New sheetrock on walls.
4. Window trim replaced and matched to original.
5. Tore out strange baseboard and mitered new boards to match old trim.
6. Built wall and created a wall of built-ins.
7. Redirected air intake.
8. Painted (and painted and painted).
9. Installed drapery hardware and hung new (old) drapes.
10. Replaced cheap vent covers with antiques that match the age of the house.
Reading the history of the house, it is clear that there was once a wall here--nothing fancy, but with a large centered opening. Because we will be moving the kitchen to the space behind the wall, we choose an entry to the right of middle. We started with two existing bookcases. Before any of this started, my husband rewired the room, putting an end to a mishmash of poorly installed very old wiring (not quite knob and post, but close).
The wall itself was framed with 2x6 studs. One piece of good news, and the remodeling decisions of the last fifty years have rarely brought good news, was a solid header installed when the wall was removed. The air intake on our central hc was on the wall to the right of the doorway, so it would be redirected in the bottom of the bookcases on the right.
The floors were sanded and refinished. The doorway had to be blocked to keep nosey animals off the floor.
We set about restoring the framing around the windows to match what little original trim exists on the first floor of the house. (And this wall is yellow now.)
My husband took this task very seriously--and I am thrilled with the results.
Once the carpentry and the floors were done, it was my turn to step in with the paintbrushes. I have used latex throughout the house, but like oil on anything that comes close to furniture. Obviously, it slows the process down considerably with drying time and light sanding, but I am delighted with the results.
Although it is hard to see, a trim was added to the front of all shelves to unify the piece and wed old and new.
We wanted the vent work to match the age of the house--and it is pretty clear from the vent work that this is where we started. Cast iron registers were easier to find than I thought they would.
My son and I stumbled across two pairs of custom made 94-inch lined drapes that were just the ticket for classing it up. Best part--$12 for two pairs!
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Wow, that's a lot of work, but it definitely paid off. It looks so much better and all that extra storage and place to display special bits makes it so worthwhile.
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