Music Room Remodel

When we were deciding what we would do for our summer vacation, every idea Audrey and I came up with was met with an "eh" from John. Until Audrey said "How 'bout we remodel the music room?". Then John became interested! He just loves to have a project going. So, we took the last week of August off and started the remodel project:

What seemed a great idea when we first remodeled this room (pink wallpaper circa 1989) tended to look a little outdated in 2013! We started by striping off the wallpaper - not terribly fun, nor very quick. We did use some great product to assist but first had to remove the top layer (vinyl) so the product could absorb onto the paper backing and adhesive. Then we scrapped it off, but if we took too long we'd have to reapply. And it did not all come off the first go around.

We painted the upper half of the wall a sage green (Valspar #5005-4A Filoli Ballroom) which was a color listed on their Historic Preservation choices. Then we installed a board and batten design on the lower two-thirds of the room. Ended up installing wood on the entire lower portion as that meant we did not have to remove the wallpaper thoroughly on that portion. (It was taking a long time - we were now into mid-September). Then we installed new trim around the windows and doors.

Next up - the ceiling! This view shows what it looked like in August including the old stove pipe vent that was still there even though the stove was removed prior to us purchasing the house in 1988.

We installed antique copper style ceiling tiles (style CT-201 from Pro Ceiling Tiles) and a new copper ceiling fan we found online. The room is starting to come together at this point!!

John took the opportunity to re-work my closet. I store all my serving dishes in this closet. He added a lot of shelves to make the space very useful. Then added new door handles on the closet door and the patio doors. We also removed the folding doors that were between the music room and the dining room.

Last project was refinishing the wood floors. They weren't horrible, but did have some wear since the last time we finished them was probably 1990. Below is before.

And during. We rented a sander and took off the finish and stain down to the bare wood. Fixed some squeaks and filled in some gouges. Below are a few during pictures when we were staining the floor. After that dried, we varnished the floor with a high gloss. The smell was pretty bad. We kept the doors closed in the rest of the house, opened some windows (we are now into October on the remodel so was a little nippy) and Audrey's visiting teacher Mickey even lent us her air purifier to help with the odor.

And here is a view of the finished wood floors. All shiny!!

Finally, the finished room - only took 2 months!!

What a day!

Today was crazy! Because of student led conferences, Audrey had today off from school. Mariska & Audrey decided to visit their old school, Orchard Prairie. They had a fun time seeing their teachers. Here is Audrey & Mariska with their Kindergarten teacher, Mrs. S.Later that afternoon we received a call from the new owners. They wanted to know if we could stop by and show things like where the sprinkler lines were and other house related questions that John would know since he did the work. Their voicemail said "We absolutely love the house and are so excited. We are honored and privileged to be moving in to it. Thank you very much for choosing us to be the ones to move in. We are really, really happy." And you know what? They were just as sweet and nice and gracious when we met them. Yeah! Someone who will love the Lacey House! On our way home, we stopped by my mom's house. Audrey & Mariska were going to spend the night. Audrey pulled me aside and said she was not feeling well. Her stomach was hurting and she was pale. We decided to take her home. Maybe a mile down the road she started getting much worse. We stopped by the Urgent Care Center but they had closed, so we kept going straight to the Emergency Room. We checked in at 8:30pm. Audrey was cold, clammy, breathing very shallow and in a ton of pain. They took her back and tried to take some blood samples. I watched and had never seen anything like it. She was so stressed from the pain that her blood literally would not pour into the tube. The nurse was pressing the vein trying to push blood into the tube and it would very slowly drip. Looked like it was in slow motion. She finally said they would have to work with the sample they got because she was not getting any more. She had to put an IV into these same veins, so it was pretty painful. Audrey was trying to be brave but as soon as they put the IV in she turned to the nurse and said "WHAT are you doing to me?" After awhile they wheeled her in for scans & then returned us to her room. The doctor came back and said "We know what is wrong with you" and went on to say she had a cyst on her left ovary that had burst. No wonder she was in so much pain! During our 4 hour hospital visit, I did ask Audrey if I could take a picture (always thinking about scrapping) since I had the camera in the car. She was on morphine and said no. Come to find out later, she just did not want me to leave the room and would have been fine having John go get the camera. I did sneak and take a picture of her the next day when she was sleeping. She slept pretty much the entire day and was pretty wiped out from her ordeal.

Good Bye Lacey House !

Boy I'm having mixed feelings right now. The Lacey House project has been such a huge part of our lives the past 2 + years. So I'm kind of sad, quite happy and in a bit of shock. But I'm very excited that a buyer loves the Lacey House! That was really important to me after all the work we put into it. And it really sounds like they do love it. The couple have 4 kids (one about 14) and this is the first house they have owned. They (evidently) were doing spins and dances in the front yard when they found out their offer was accepted. They were so excited to put the initial offer down that the wife was getting sick to her stomach because she did not want anyone else to get an offer in before they had a chance to submit theirs. We actually did not even think the house would close as fast as it did either. Just got the call this morning to sign papers this afternoon & hand over the keys. Tomorrow morning they sign and then the house is officially theirs. It will be a relief to not have two households to maintain, two lawns to mow, two driveways to shovel and two sets of taxes / insurance / garbage / utilities to pay. But it is still kind of sad...

OFFER !!

I hope I don't jinx anything, but we got an offer on our Lacey house today and we accepted their terms with no bantering back and forth. Hope rest of closing goes as smoothly.

Think HAPPY THOUGHTS!!

PS - Any one that has been meaning to take a tour, we probably should schedule it now before it belongs to someone else. Let us know!

Fun Day

Someone in New York wanted pictures of our Lacey House (no, we have not sold it yet) so John & Audrey met me over at the Lacey House after work and we video-taped the house thinking this would give them a better idea of the layout. After we got done with that we decided to go out for dinner. So we all piled in my car and headed towards Division and Noodle Express. After we got our dinner to-go, Audrey offered to treat us to Coldstone. Who is to argue about having dessert first? So we headed for ice cream (thanks Audrey!!). Afterwards, since we were past the Division Y, I decided to go the back way home so drove past the old Kaiser Trent plant and then headed a little south to pick up Freya St. We were in view of Mount St. Michael's so I asked John and Audrey if they had ever taken the back way up to Mount St. Michael's (can you say switchbacks?) and they had not. So we headed up the hill, past the church, past some farm houses and then past the cemetery. I said "Hey, let's stop and say hi to dad", so we did. Then we drove past Audrey's grade school, Orchard Prairie, and commented on what a good experience it was when she went there. Then we headed home. We pulled into the driveway.... and that is when we remembered the truck! We had left it on the north side!! We stopped at home to eat our dinner, check our phone messages (yeah, the truck I hit only had $5 damage) and then later headed back out to get John's truck. Whoops! Oh well, we had a great Thursday-evening-drive and fun family time : )

Haunted Mansion?

For anyone that knows John at all, you know he is a bit obsessed with fixer-upper houses and the potential to make them beautiful again (or for the first time)! We have looked at the most interesting houses over the years - one about 20 years ago that used to be a church. It had no running water or bathroom even, so quite a bit of remodeling would have been involved. Of course, we were very poor newlyweds at the time so did not pick up that little gem. On Saturday I found a posting for a historic house for sale and we decided to check it out. We went with the Hartman's. It was getting dark and it was starting to rain. Ok, now you have to make the haunted house sound effects... oooooh. It was a fun way to spend our evening. Afterwards we showed the Hartman's our finished Lacey house (as they had seen the way-before Lacey house) and then headed to Mama Mia's for dinner.

Lacey - Original Owners!

We got the most awesome phone call this week from the grand-daughter of the original owners of our Lacey house. She wondered if she could come tour the house. Enthusiastic yes!! So we set up an appointment for Sunday afternoon. We met there and she had brought her husband, her friend and her cousin (who also wanted to see how the house had changed over the years). What a delightfully fun experience. They were so gracious and so nice. They even brought pictures! This is the picture of the original owners of the home. His brother actually came up from San Francisco and built the home in 1911.This picture shows the dad of the lady we met on Sunday and the mother of the cousin. The porch in the background is the Lacey porch! And the next pictures are of the two girls we met on Sunday standing in front of the Lacey porch when they were visiting grandma's house. Grandpa had worked for the railroad and the had actually rented out the bedrooms on the 2nd floor to earn extra money. So the girls don't remember much about the upstairs except the front bedroom, which was grandpa's room. The bathroom upstairs was not a bathroom, but just a storage room. On the main floor they showed us where grandpa would sit in the front parlour and listen to his radio in the evenings. And the bedroom on the main level was grandma's bedroom. The bathroom on the main floor used to have a claw foot tub. Wish that would have been there when we bought it. The house currently sits on a full lot and 1/2, but used to take up another 2.5 lots. They used to have a chicken coop on the property also. It was fun to get to visit with them and to finally find the history of this home.

Listed the House

I don't think we were cut out for the For-Sale-By-Owner stuff. Even though I think our flyers were top notch. And our yard sign was pretty nice. But the only people that called us were real estate agents trying to get our business. We listed with an agent on Monday 9/8 and "then" the calls actually started happening. I actually got a phone call from someone in Tennessee who had seen my ad on Craigs List. She called right when everyone from the Book Club began arriving and ended up talking to me for about 15 minutes. She then proceeded to call my real estate agent, so seemed kind of serious. We've not heard anything since, but it did shock me that someone actually called off a free ad on Craig's list...

For Sale !!

We finally put the sign up today - yeah! If you know anyone that is interested in a SEVEN bedroom & Three bath home, send them our way. We even created a website for them to check it out.

www.laceyhouse.blogspot.com

John took this picture from the top of the garage roof. Crazy boy!

Kitchen - Lacey

John completely gutted the kitchen and started with bare walls and floors. That is, except for the one built-in cupboard. That stayed intact and that is what he based the two new built-in's he made, as well as the cupboard fronts. He wanted to stay true to the 1911 style of the home, but include newer amenities (like the dishwasher). Hopefully this picture gives you an idea of what he did.

Lacey - Bamboo (finished!)

John, with help from Shaune, got the bamboo floors done today. It really looks awesome! They extend from the entry hall and include the floors in the front parlour and the dining room. Nice job honey!

Lacey - Bamboo

John started installing the bamboo flooring this week. It is looking great! Cannot wait to see the finished product. It will be in the entry way, the parlour and the dining room.

Lacey - Front Porch & Parlour Window

Below is the picture of the front parlour "during". You can see the two tiny windows but you can also see the outline of where the original window used to be. Evidently when this house was a tri-plex, they had erected a wall between those two windows to make the parlour into two bedrooms. That way each room had a window. Here is the picture from Monday when John started to remove the windows in preparation for the new window that we had ordered. And after the new window is installed. Looks like there is nothing there, doesn't it. We stayed and worked quite a few hours after this and every time we walked in the room, we had to stop and stare... And of view of the new exterior shot of the front porch with the large window installed.

Lacey - Porch

Below is a picture of the front porch on the Lacey house. The railings are done and don't they look good? On Saturday we went and got plants to put in the urns so that the house has more curb appeal. Hopefully they won't die, I'm not a particularly good gardener...
Next up - see those 2 tiny windows to the right of the picture on the front porch. That will be restored to one big picture window next week. The window was on order and should be in anytime.

Lacey - Shed/Garage

The shed/garage at the back of the property was kind of sad looking when we first purchased the Lacey house. It was also full of a ton of stuff. After a few truckloads to the dump, we were able to clear it out. But it still looked a bit pathetic. Below is what the garage looked like on Friday. John had installed windows to make it more of a shop. When in the shop, underneath the windows, John installed a long work bench. Above the windows we will put a row of cupboards that used to be in the basement. So the space will be easy for the new homeowners to use as a shop or garden shed & also to store tools. Plus, they will be able to work there and see the little kiddos in the backyard playing. Audrey had a great idea when they were working on the trim to duplicate the trim-work from the house. All the trim has that little topper so John did that on the shed too. I think the garage looks quite cute now!

Bamboo!

We told you earlier that we had hoped to re-finish the wood floors in the living room, parlour and front entryway of the Lacey house. In fact, John had rented the sander and spent about 15 hours doing just that. Well, unfortunately, they were too far gone and would not have looked good. So we thought and thought and got just a teeny bit discouraged. Ok, a lot discouraged. And then I suggested bamboo. John looked into it and found some. The bamboo is tongue and groove and installed just like our oak hardwood floors. It is actually just as tough too. The planks are finished, so after dropping a few bucks (quite a few), we will have a lovely bamboo floor in the Lacey house. Evidently you have to let it "sit" in the new environment after you open the box so that it will not contract or expand after you have installed it. John will install it sometime next week.

Painter Chick

So, my little painter chick, Audrey, was out on the front porch painting one day when someone stopped by. He told her she did good work and "Would you like a job?" She basically told him she was working for her dad and would be starting school soon, so "no thank you". But we were very proud that her hard work was noticed by someone besides us. She has been a HUGE help on the painting of the house, especially the trim and detail stuff. She has a set of painting clothes that she wears and I kidded her the other day that all the pictures I take look the same!

Lacey - Kitchen

OK, I've been a little too tired to update my blog as we've been working our tails off to get this house finished before summer ends. The kitchen is probably my favorite room. When we first purchased, it was probably my least favorite room. Might have had something to do with cleaning up others messes? Below is what the kitchen looked like after the renter departed. Nice, huh? One of the areas that John has spent a ton of time on are the kitchen cupboards. The kitchen did have a built in china cupboard and he has added two more built-ins to match. He also made all the door fronts on the cupboards in the same style. Here is an example of what one corner used to look like and what it looks like now: Below is another picture of the kitchen. This showcases the island and counters that John built. I especially liked the kitchen lights we chose. We still have some touch up painting to do, but the kitchen (except the original built in) is all new. We put in new faucet, sink, counters, door fronts and tile floor. Also installed a dishwasher (none before).

Lacey - Dining Room

Here is the BEFORE picture of the dining room. Had cream colored carpet that was ruined by the tenant with the two Rottweilers, three cats and her cigarette smoking habit. You can see where her throw rug saved the cream color in the center of the carpet, but it was literally black along the edges. Funny, the rental contract called for no pets and no smoking. The ceilings were painted a really dark burnt mustard orange and the walls were a beige/yellow. Afraid I have not found a picture showcasing this ceiling color in my archives. Sorry. Some items that were fixed in this room were: Widening the doorway between the dining room and kitchen (so the folks in the kitchen don't feel left out); Changing the old apartment entry door to just an entry way; Fixing a couple of broken window panes; and removing the bedroom door (as the layout of the dining room had the bay windows on one wall, pocket door on the next wall, two doors on the third wall and a doorway on the fourth wall. Way too many things on the walls leaving no blank wall space for even a picture). The main floor bedroom had two doors, so now it has one that goes into the hallway near the main floor bathroom. DURING picture. We just hauled away the last of the old carpet last week (it was really handy to use as a paint tarp) and we were able to see that the wood underneath might be salvageable. The edges looked like the linoleum floor had been adhered there, so we were hopeful it would eventually come off. John spent time with solvent working on that. STILL DURING picture. This was after John spent 15 plus hours sanding the floor with various sizes / grits of sandpaper. This picture is funny to me as the walls are actually a light beige, but in this picture they look yellow, and almost the original color. They are not. Next step: stain and varnish the floors. The floors extend from the dining room into the front parlour and into the front entry hall so when they are done, it will look marvelous!

Lacey - Front Porch

To get the TRUE picture of what has been changed on the front porch (and how much work has been put into it), I thought I'd post this picture of what the porch looked like days after we bought the house in June 2007. Below is a collage of things that Audrey & John have been working on. Some of the items that have changed: the OSB sheeting that used to be the flooring on the porch was replaced with 6" tongue and groove; cement cores were poured underneath all pillars so that the weight of the house was not resting on the porch; all the pillars were wrapped with smooth sheeting & trimmed out (see detail); the old 2x4 with 1x1 post railing was replaced with a new railing (slats, trim pieces, router details, etc). We still have the second coat of paint on the rails and the deck wash & seal to do next week. But I think it looks much better!