An update... 6 months later!

Ok, so we have officially been neglecting this blog. It seems like we have slowed down our maddening pace on the renovations, but we are still chugging along. We have a couple finished rooms now. Our living room and dining room are now "live-able" and "dine-able". We still have the office and back hallway to finish downstairs, but for now we have moved our efforts to the 2nd floor. We have the master bedroom about 90% right now. The floors have been sanded, filled, stained, and poly'd. The walls and ceilings patched and painted, recessed lights installed and speakers in the ceiling. We still need to paint the hearth and install an additional electric outlet in the floor, then we can move in.


The upstairs hallway has been sanded and filled. We installed some molding/trim in the hall last weekend. We still need to go back and re-patch some of the walls. Yes, I said "re-patch." We made the mistake early on of using drywall mud on the plaster walls. Folks, don't ever do this! It does not work! It has already started cracking. We have discovered that the best thing to use is a combination of real plaster and a product called Durabond.

Our next step will most likely be to renovate the upstairs bathroom. We are getting really tired of trekking downstairs to the only full functioning shower. We are planning to do some demolition work and remove a closet in order to expand the bathroom. I have a feeling this may be our largest expense to date. We are planning on keeping the fixtures and laying some tile. Megan has drawn up some plans that include constructing some built-in shelves and moving one of the radiators. The plans look nice, so we will see if we can execute them.

We are also about to endure another summer without central air conditioning. We bought a high powered attic fan to alleviate some of the heat for now and we will be installing a few window AC units to make life a little more comfortable. If we make it through this summer without central AC, we will probably attempt to get that installed before next summer. It will be a large expense, but should help the value of the house if we do it right. We got a quote on Geo-thermal with the small, high velocity, pipe ducts. It was not cheap!

We need to do some small exterior repairs in the near future. We have a gutter pipe that is not draining properly and causing some minor leaking into the wall of the back hall. I think the leak has caused some erosion of mortar around some bricks. This will most likely require some re-pointing. We will probably also try to do some exterior painting this summer or fall. We recently stripped and refinished our front screen door. It is beautiful oak with brass hinges and knobs. I will try to post some before and after pics soon. The front door is next on the refinishing list. I think we are staring to master the art of refinishing wood!

So, that is the state of affairs right now. Hopefully, by this time next year we will be finished with the core of the house and moving on to making the attic into live-able space. New pictures coming soon!