Lots Going On Around Here!

new sconces in the parlor, installed by Colin

I cleaned the heck out of this mantle and hearth... not a whole lot of difference visually but at least it's technically clean

 new chandelier in the main hall, also installed by my dear husband

replacement tread (the first stair) in progress

second coat of stain in progress

window scroll gets paint

We are also getting gutters today but I forgot to take a picture... that's what tomorrow's for--all the things I didn't get to today! ;)

Paint Almost Done

We are having a baby in exactly one week so all the work is wrapping up, scheduled to be complete first half of the week. Here's the front progress:

The construction fence is gone and we're a little sad, because now we have to look at all the trash people leave us at the bus stop... wah. ;)

Screen Porch Progress

Today the back porch got screened in! In the first picture you can see the paint progress. The second picture shows the screen done at the end of the day but the thin pieces of wood over the screen staples haven't been painted yet. Also, there are two doors (even though you can only see on in the pic).

Ceilings Finished!

We opted not to have every crack caulked in order to maintain the aged look that comes from being 100+ years old. The rooms are so much brighter and it feels really good to have this done!

dining room

parlor

And here we have 2 of 4 sconces up in the dining room:

Ceiling Work

A couple weeks ago we decided (after stumbling across some extra cash) to have the original beadboard ceilings finished before Baby Sam arrives. Because, you know, there's not enough going on around here...

Let me tell you about the beadboard ceilings: we "preserved" the original ceilings in the parlor and dining room to help keep the historic feel in the front of the house. I would have loved to have preserved the beadboard ceiling throughout the entire house except that it was ALL in terrible shape... there were layers and layers of drywall, random pieces missing, etc. The plan was for me to tackle the two ceilings perhaps during the major reno (before we moved in) but that didn't happen, and I certainly haven't gotten to it since. 

Here are some before pictures. They are very disorienting but at least I documented it before the work started. :)

dining room

parlor

We hired painters directly for this; specifically Graduate Custom Painting and they have been phenomenal. They are extremely thorough and the quality of work/level of detail is truly exceptional. They started Wednesday of this week and will be done Saturday afternoon. The ceilings tested positive for lead paint so they are using the highest level of caution for this job and have completely sealed off that part of the house in addition to taping off all the walls, etc. In this situation, we can't really remove the lead paint, so they are using a special primer to ensure the best encapsulation. It's taking a lot of work to remove the thousands of extra nails left behind, not to mention filling in drywall screw holes... I never could have done what they have done!

So it's not done yet but here are a few "during" pictures. They will do more caulking and another coat of primer before the actual ceiling paint goes on. 

parlor

dining room

Gables and the start of window accents

The windows are starting to get their first coat of accents 

Since we decided to go with the more bold Colonial Yellow (instead of Belvedere Cream), I suppose I could have gone a little darker on the gable color (Empire Gold) to have a stronger contrast. Nonetheless, I still like it and think the colors will blend much nicer when all the trim gets the off-white paint.

Siding gets a lot of paint