Dining Room: Complete!

This just in: dining room completed! I received an email from Mom this morning bearing photos of the cheap-o chandelier I bought on ebay dangling from the *ahem* near perfect ceiling in the dining room. It really pulls it all together. Let's view the progression of this room from grimy apartment bedroom (remember I found syringes in the carpet!) to glamorous dining room:

Before:

Demo of 80's closet addition:Demo completed, patching plaster:
Scraping loose paint from ceiling: (It's the best ceiling in the house now)
Walls are primed and painted:
Cheap replacement woodwork is sanded, primed, and painted:

Ceiling and walls painted, capstock on window trim, crown moulding in place, and dining-approved lighting:Finished dining room:
I always liked this room. There is so much natural light and the green of the trees in the backyard looks so nice. I bet you can see the new light fixture through the archway when you come in through the front door. It'll knock those house-buyers right on their butts the minute they come in!

The Realtor came over and had a few suggestions, but it doesn't sound like listing is too far off. The carpet needs to be removed from the stairs (done- Dad and my brother took care of it, my younger sisters pulled up staples), This fixture needed to be put up (done- thanks Dad) bathroom tiles need to be finished (my brother pulled up the old ones, new ones coming soon), and a broken window upstairs needs to have the glass replaced. Mom and my older sister painted the doors upstairs and started painting the trim in the South-East bedroom. It's really turned into a family project! Thanks for your help everyone, much love!

Gather 'Round Everybody, Pics from NoDak!

So, while I've been playing around in New York, my parents have been putting the house back together. They sent pictures!!! I was so excited to open that email. Ready? Here we go!

The living room and the stairwell got their coat of khaki and are looking pretty good. Do you remember the hole in the wall at the top of the stairs? How about the paneling? Nope, me neither.The dining room has the new crown moulding and trim painted white. So crisp, clean.
The cabinets are now updated with a clean coat of white paint. Maybe the new buyers won't notice how small the kitchen is when everything's bright and clean? But where are the doors?Oh, there they are. They're upstairs waiting for some new hardware.
Even though I told Mom not to waste money on little details that won't up the selling price, she couldn't leave the front of the house without some color. I guess there's a flowerbed out there now. I bet it looks more like a home now. Thanks Mom!Well, that's all for now. The family's out of town for a bit so I'll have to wait until they get back before I can call the realtor. I'm going to have her go over to the house when Mom or Dad is there so she can see how things are going and what needs to still be addressed. I wish so much I was there until it went on the market. I mean, this was my project and I just left it for everyone else to finish. I hate not finishing what I started!

Crazy Crazy! Gotta Get Going!

Oooo! Life's getting crazy! I have less than two months to get everything straightened out here in Fargo. I'm starting a big push to get as much done with the house as soon as possible.

You'll have to forgive my lack of photos (camera's at my Fraternity house) but I've actually gotten some stuff done! I painted the trim in the dining room (except for the trim that I haven't replaced yet: crown moulding, baseboards, cap around doors/windows) and I started stripping the paint off of the banister.

Yup, I broke out the flame-thrower! Yesterday I accidentally took one of those Sunday afternoon naps that goes a little too long. What was intended to be an hour nap turned into a 6 hour slumber. One of those times when you wake up and the sun's just gone down, but your body says 'Good Morning!' I pulled paint off of the newel post and the first four spindles. I will still need to get some citristrip on there, but for an initial stripping I think they look pretty good. Here's a before:
I'll make sure to post a picture of the progress as soon as I can.

I'm going to get a Realtor over here this week to give me an estimate of what I could get for the house if I decide to sell it this summer. I'll get an idea of what would need to be upgraded to get my money back out of the deal. Then maybe estimates from contractors? I'm not sure what I'll do yet but I'm trying to keep my options open.

Gah! I wish there were three of me right now!

Dining Room Woodwork = Primed.

I stayed up and primed the woodwork. Photos:
Enjoy.

Dining Room: Trim Prep 2

Tonight I sanded down the woodwork in the dining room to get it ready to be primed. I filled the nail holes (which hadn't been filled for 23 years) with joint compound. Yeah, wood putty would have been better, but the Depot is really far away and I'm just painting the wood anyways. Go ahead and call me lazy... I am.
I'm leaving tomorrow at noon for a executive retreat for NDSU's Inter-fraternity Council where we'll be trying to figure out how to make that organization better. I was just appointed to the vice president position and I know we're going to need to put a lot of work in this weekend to get a head start on the semester.

The retreat is in a cabin in the woods. Yeah, that'd be one of my regular hangouts. NOT! Although I'm really not that enthused about hanging out in the wilderness for a weekend, I am excited to get out of Fargo for a couple days.

Classes start Tuesday. I'm ready to be done with this holiday break. Overall, it's fallen pretty short of my hopes, so It'll be good to get back into my regular routine.

Downer of a post, huh? At least the dining room will be done-ish soon.

Dining Room: Trim Prep

Happy 2008! First post of the new year; excited?? ...not really that cool of a post. sorry.

Tonight I started the prep work for painting the trim in the dining room. The main boards of the trim are going to be saved, but the moulding that rides along the edge of those boards is too small and needs to be removed. You know I like breaking things, so I had fun with that. Here's a photo of the old trim, and a photo that shows the size of the moulding that should be wrapping around the large boards.
Old trim piece left, new -correctly sized- trim piece right:
All I'll need to do now is give the wood a light sanding and I can get a coat of primer on there. Then paint. I'll put on the new trim pieces later, once the larger boards are all done. I just don't think I'll have time to get to bustin' out the miter saw during break. The same goes for the crown moulding. It's so frustrating that I'm not getting done what I wanted to get done.

I'll be gone all weekend for leadership retreats for two different student organizations, so anything that's getting done over break is getting done before Friday. aka: dining room is it. No living room, no stairwell.

Paint! The Dining Room has Paint!

There's nothing more satisfying than rolling some clean, new paint onto an old wall.

I started with the ceiling, like you're supposed to, rolling on the white paint with my roller attached to a broom handle. It was going really well until the roller pad started to shift off of the roller. I thought I'd push the pad against the ceiling to get it back onto the roller. *SNAP* Broke the broom handle. Roller hits the floor. Good stuff huh? Clean up on aisle 4!
After I finished painting the ceiling (and floor!) I started on the walls. I picked out this khaki/tan color for the living/dining areas and even though I was concerned it would be too dark, I'm actually really happy with it.

Progress pic:
Finished product (just imagine crisp white trim, chair and crown moulding):
If you've read previous posts, you'll know my problem with the trim. It was all replaced in this room back when it was converted to a duplex. The wood is inferior in quality and I wanted to make sure it wouldn't look too bad if it was painted. I painted a little swatch with ceiling paint to see how the wall color would look with white trim.
I'll have to take a sander to the trim's varnish first to make a surface the paint will adhere to. I like the wood with the khaki, but it'll be more cost effective to just paint it rather than replace with good quality wood. The living room retains its original fir woodwork, so I'll be able to have the nice wood with the khaki there. Compromise, right?

There are a couple areas on the walls that need another coat of paint, but after that I'll be able to attack the trim and finish up. I'm thinking that room will become the living room while I redo the real living room next.

I'm almost at the end of winter break and I'm nowhere near as far as I had hoped to be. I guess that's just an old house for you. It eats your life!

Dining Room: Texture and Primer

I found a great new (to me) product that I'm so excited to share! I discovered these cans of aerosol orange-peel texture. The size of the texture is adjustable so you can make anywhere from small to medium to large splatters. There are two different kinds, one that shoots out white texture, or one that shoots out blue texture that turns white when it dries. I could see paying the extra fifty cents for the blue stuff if you have vision issues, but I really didn't see the need for it myself. I just thought I'd try it because it looked like a fun gimmick. It did work nicely for taking pictures. I don't know if you could have seen the white texture as well as the blue against the off white walls.

The only drawbacks were the price and the smell. They were a bit more expensive than sand texture would have been, costing about $13 a can, but so far I only had to use 2.5 cans of it. It's SO much easier than the sand texture, so I was happy to pay it. The smell was the other issue. I would have liked to be able to open up a window but I didn't want to let in the winter so I just tolerated the fumes.

Here's a photo of the giant crack I repaired on the North wall:I decided it would be a good idea take an action shot. I hope you like it; I over-textured that spot just for your benefit.
After I finished the texture, I primed the walls and ceiling. The ceiling hadn't been primed yet in that picture.
I just finished painting the ceiling, and I'm really pleased with how it turned out. I'm probably going to paint the walls now.

Painting Prep in the Dining Room: Motivation

Now, this is what I call motivation!
My roommate, after hearing me complain about the perils of sanding and how much I didn't want to start it again tonight, placed a delicious Summit Extra Pale Ale under my sander in the dining room right across from where I was sitting and watching tv. Mmmm... of course to get to the goodness I had to put that sander in my hand. It worked! I hate sanding joint compound, but my little treat for subjecting myself to such mindless and torturous labor has been Summit EPA every time so far. Why would this be any different? (only a couple, Mom!) For those of you who aren't anywhere near the Minneapolis/St. Paul or surrounding areas, Summit is a brewery that was started in St. Paul MN by a guy who grew up in... where... Wahpeton, ND!!! That's my hometown of about 8500 people. I'd support his efforts even if the beverage was gross but luckily for me it's SOOOO good. It's actually my favorite, and you'll find me ordering it quite frequently. It stays pretty local, but if it makes it up to me I'm sure it has to have a pretty good radius out of the Twin Cities. I know my MPLS readers get it, but do you get it in Wisconsin Jeff? Kelly in IA? If so, try one for me!

Anyways, back to the dining room. I finished sanding the walls and ceilings tonight. I used some drywall sand paper which has a kind of grid shape. Much like a window screen. Using this works really well because the open squares allow the dust to fall out and not clog the sand paper. The disadvantage of using this kind of sandpaper is that it leaves some ridges in the joint compound. I'll have to go back with a wet sponge and smooth out the ridges tomorrow.

I finally bought some tape and hung up some tarps over the entrances to the dining room. Dust control, woah! Finally I'm able to do some sanding without everything that's ever come into the house being covered with three inches of dust. Here are a couple photos of the tarps up. Boo dust!
Finally, when I finished sanding I was so excited to be done, I made a dust-angel. I feel like it's in the holiday spirit. Enjoy!

Merry Mud-Mess!

After a great Christmas with my family, I returned to the house of dust this evening and got back to work on the dining room. More mud was the call of the day. I re-mudded the patches on the ceilings and walls to prepare them for their second sanding tomorrow.

Ceiling:Walls:

I'm going to cry tears of joy when I get to priming. Paint? I'll just pee with excitement. I just want to get this room done.

I know the living room will be much easier than the dining room. The stairwell? The tears there will NOT be ones of joy, but I'll be so happy when that's done. It's really the ugliest part of the first floor right now. Like a giant zit on your senior picture!

Just Call Me Dusty

After work today I decided to sand down the dining room ceiling and walls.

As it turns out, the only thing more miserable than sanding walls is sanding ceilings. Yuck.

I need to go back and hit a couple areas again with mud, then do a second sanding. Texture, primer, paint, then done. I say done in very relative terms.

I need to go buy some tape ASAP because it seems there is none to be found in the whole house. I have tarps I wanted to tape over the openings to the room, but I couldn't find any tape. As a consequence there is dust all over the kitchen and living room now. Not nearly as much as the dining room though. Please see photo below (note the dust in the air floating through the house):I made the mistake of sitting down and leaning back on the couch without changing clothes first. Nice huh?
Tomorrow will be entertaining a trip to 'the Depot' as well as some Christmas shopping.

Painting Prep: Living & Dining Rooms

Well, I finally got around to starting the work that needs to be done in the dining room.

I, like most American 22 year old male college students, spent my Saturday night scraping loose paint off of a dining room ceiling. Oh, what an adventurous life I lead!
Look at that mess!
Check out how big that pile of paint chips is! (note feet for scale) (fyi, size 10) I also finished scraping off the residual joint compound from the walls and ceilings where I removed the extra walls. Here's a photo of the living room ceiling, ripe for sanding. The job got a lot easier once I started spraying water on the walls and ceilings before I started scraping. The joint compound became much softer and easier to scrape off.

Step 1: Spray water onto unwanted joint compound.Step 2: Scrape your heart out.Step 3: Repeat.

Woah, tangent! OK, back to the dining room. Today, after one of those five hour Sunday afternoon naps, I made a trip to 'the Depot' for some more joint compound. I patched up the holes in the ceiling left from the paint that chipped away. Now all I need to do is sand, re-mud where necessary, sand, texture, prime, then paint. Is this considered the home stretch yet? I filled all of the nail holes in the walls, but I still need to repair two big cracks. I just want to paint already! I've had the dang paint for months, gah!

I'm kind of up in the air about what to do with the trim in the dining room. The trim was all replaced (poorly) sometime before I got here. The wood is stained, but it is of an inferior quality. You can see stain on the oak flooring in all of the dining room pictures from when the p.o. stained the inferior wood. Yet another reason to thank the p.o.! The windows were painted at some point, but I can tell the wood was originally stained like the living room. So what do I do? Should I (a.) paint the inferior wood white like the rest of the house, or, (b.) use the inferior wood elsewhere in the house and replace it with better wood stained to match the living room. This option would require me to strip the windows.

Either way, the picture rail needs to be replaced. I've already removed it all from the walls. This piece shows the original stain color. There were a couple chunks of it missing from where walls went in during the duplex-ing process. I'm planning on using the old stuff I removed somewhere else in the house, but I'm not sure that I want to use the same picture rail back in the dining room. What if I was to switch it out for some crown molding? Would that be a bad idea? I just think that the crown molding might look more finished than the picture rail. The picture rail was about a quarter inch down from the ceiling which I didn't think looked very good. That little quarter inch gap lead my roommate to say that I should 'replace that crappy crown molding'. If I was to put the picture rail back up I think I'd pull it down a half inch so you can tell it isn't just 'crappy crown'.

Decisions, decisions. Let me know, loyal reader, if you have any opinions. I'll have plenty of time to think about it all while I'm mindlessly sanding ceilings and walls. Good times.