76. Downstairs

It's been a couple of months now, but I wanted to share this picture from September 11th.  I remembered to bring a flag with us that weekend, but forgot to pick up a flagpole and bracket.  While I was making coffee, Dave snuck out and rigged up a piece of wire so we could hang it up anyway.  It was a beautiful morning, and we were grateful.

The kitchen has really been coming along, and it is so nice to finally have some color in the house.  It began with this "alcove" just to one side of the back door in the kitchen that has always been a little awkward.  It's kind of shallow, and we've been leaning brooms and mops and kicking off shoes there since the beginning.  My idea was to put some kind of broom closet there, where we could hide the vacuum and maybe even our little barbecue grill as well.

It was Dave, of course, who came up with the idea to put a pair of doors there, so the thing could open up completely.  I love it because it looks almost like a paneled wall!  Right there I've captured the moment when he puts a level up to his work and usually just shakes his head, because it's perfect of course.  We put up shelves already, and plan to put up some pegboard to hang stuff on. I'll wait to show you the inside once it's finished and painted.

Right behind where Dave is standing is a pair of windows that we decided to save.  As I've said before some of the windows in the house are just getting sealed up but these are a couple of the lucky ones.  I put a new sill in a while ago, because the old one was almost non-existant.  We had to remove one piece of trim to get at the sash weight - it needed it's rope replaced.  The others were still fine, and all the pulleys worked ok.  The lower windows came out and got stripped and repainted, along with the whole frame.

Here Roscoe is giving Dave a hand with a little carpentry work on the back porch.  When you need a sawhorse, apparently a boxer will do just fine!  He stood there through 5 or 6 cuts, watching the kitty in the neighbor's yard I imagine.

Here's that end of the kitchen, as it stands right now.  The windows have been put back together, and they open and close just like they are supposed to.  Note the closet doors have some pretty cool handles on there now.  The icky wall and door jamb have finally been primed... yes you guessed it, the next step is paint, and I have picked a color though I won't reveal it just yet.  Also please check out the little vintage Cosco step-stool I picked up at goodwill!

It took me a long time to decide what color I was going to paint the cabinets, but when it was finally time to do the work, this is what I chose.  Each week I would take a couple of cabinet doors home to work on in the studio.  The door on the right has been primed and painted with a flat "Beach Grass".  On the left you can see I've applied a water-based stain they sell for $8 a tube at Home Depot.  Once I got it home I realized it was just acrylic paint, so don't make that mistake!  It gets rubbed on and wiped off to add an aged feel.  When that was dry I went over it with a good urethane varnish.

Along with that I began installing the tile back splash and bar top. Here's the first rows.  The tiles are lovely to me - irregular and chunky and hand made, but I can see why an installer would DREAD this job.  No two are exactly alike in size or thickness, and none of them are square.  It really felt more like an art project than a tile job, but hey, I like that sort of thing.  Dave is surprisingly supportive since he likes things that line up nice and neatly. I worked hard to make sure it wasn't too wacky when it was done

The tile is installed here, and you can see the 'before' color of the cabinets, which was just a bit too ordinary for my kooky taste.

And now for the color I promised.  The cabinets are all painted and the tile is done.  Ain't it purty?  You can also see the nice wooden edge that Dave made for the bar top which I painted as well to match the cabinets.

Here's the view from the kitchen sink, looking out across the dining room. The sun streams in at morning time, it's really wonderful.  We are planning to get a lot of painting done over the holidays - so be prepared to see the kitchen and guest room 100% done very soon!

75. Upstairs

I don't want to hear about it... I know it's been almost three months.  Let's see... since August, we've been to New York and Connecticut and back.  Dave has changed jobs three times (through no fault of his own - his company got bought out and bought out again).  I have joined Etsy and am now the proud owner of an online shop called Heartkeyologie.  Needless to say it's been a little nuts around here but dare I say things are settling down?  Probably not!

Of course we still run to Daytona as many weekends as we can, and it's actually relaxing getting over there and working on projects.  I know I love it, but I still have a certain amazement that I have found a partner that loves it just as much.

This episode is going to be about some stuff we've gotten done upstairs, and post number 76 will be about the downstairs.  We are really getting into the cosmetics now, and there's lots to tell about.  This is the little hall closet upstairs.  The original door had been cut along the bottom by the previous owners to fit the "new" slope of the floor.  I like closets, especially linen closets and pantries, not to have doors - they stay neater that way.  So that door is at home now, waiting be repurposed into something else, maybe a headboard or display cabinet.

When the center of the house sank years ago, a lot of the plaster was damaged, as is evidenced by the condition of the back wall of this closet.  Since the other side of that wall is open to the crawl space and the top of the closet is just under the roof, we decided to fir the wall out and add 3/4" insulation board.  It made a noticeable difference in heat gain as soon as we installed this.

Here the bead board paneling is up, and you can see the Dr Seuss quality of the shape:  that is not an optical illusion.  The shelves were original and Dave did a great job reinstalling them at dead level, and that's all that counts, right?  I thought I had a picture of the closet after it was painted and the shelves were refinished... but I can't find it so you'll just have to wait for that one.

 We decided it was finally time to do just a little work on the master bedroom.  I wanted to get a guest room ready, so that was first priority, but since we are trying to wrap up any woodwork before the painting starts, this had to be done next.  The windows on the north wall had obviously had some leakage - no surprise considering there were 1/2" gaps in places before we sealed them up.  The paneling someone put up over the stucco in the 70s was beginning to delaminate and buckle.   Frankly I was afraid the whole wall would have to be rebuilt and dreaded this undertaking.  We were pleasantly surprised that the paneling came off and the wall underneath was pretty solid - barely even cracks in the stucco.

As we worked our way around the room, we left the paneling that was still good - it will be fine once painted over.  We cut it at about 36" and installed wainscot below to replace it.

While Dave was working away on that I had the heat gun out and stripped the window sills to prep for paint.

Here the window frames have been all painted nicely and I've placed two color swatches to try to imagine these color on the walls.  Please ignore the horrible brassy ball door knob, that's gonna go!

In closing, I'd like to introduce you to Crabby, a shy visitor that dropped by one night.  She scuttled across the path as I was picking up some things outside after dark, and scared the crap out of me actually (she's about 6" wide).  I thought "poor thing, how will she ever find her way back to the beach without getting run over by a car?"  So I captured her in a bucket and we planned a walk to the beach.  Fortunately, Dave had the brilliant idea to look her up on the internet for identification and we found out she is a blue land crab and is not interested in the water except at mating time.  They dig little holes and live in the yard!  I haven't seen her since, but she taught us something new about our lovely Florida native wildlife.

74. Guest Room is Looking Great!

Well another month has flown by!  My niece got married a few weeks ago, and that took us to Detroit for one weekend, but we did have a couple of others to get a few things done on the house.  With only two days at Grandview at a time, we are still making great progress.

This used to be a double bench seat next to the fireplace, with a  storage area inside.  The right half was eaten up with AC ductwork from the basement to the second floor and the left side had been used for firewood I guess - it was pretty rough inside.

(I did like the little brass handle used on the bench seat though, and I salvaged the one from the right side to use somewhere else.)

Here you can see the inside of the bench, all trimmed nicely with some leftover bead board paneling.  I decided against the firewood idea, considering we had a termite "episode" recently, requiring me to get the house tented and fumigated at the cost of around $1200.  So when winter comes we will buy just what firewood we need, and use the space more efficiently for:  TOOLS!

That brings me to the next item,  lovingly referred to as the "tomboy's pantry" which up until now has been filled with every tool in the book, as well as caulk, paint, and scraps of trim etc.  Not any more!  It's finally received it's own caulk and paint, and the shelves are on site and ready to paint.  I have a novel idea for this pantry - I think I'll store food and kitchen stuff in it!  I already have the tiles to do the floor... one day soon.

I've been heavily occupied in the garden lately, since August is probably the month when you see the most growth out there - desirable and otherwise.  

This gives Dave a chance to finish up all kinds of little trim projects inside the house, which are his favorite.  This where the side of the tiled fireplace meets the chase I built to cover the duct work.  I had no idea what do do here, and actually considered just caulking the crack and letting it go.  After about a thousand mitered cuts, Dave had it nicely finished out with cove molding... sweet, huh?

Another project left unfinished by me... the base around the bar.  He wrapped that up nicely as well.  Sometimes I think this house is going to be so beautiful and classy when it's done, I won't even fit in here!

Now we are up in the guest room, preparing to replace two more windows.  There were 30 year old aluminum windows in here, that were cracked and fell apart when you tried to open them.  I guess those replaced the original cute crank out ones like those in the laundry room long, long ago.  Here we have removed the wood someone put in over where the old hinges were.  Makes me sad that I can't have those up front but the originals are long gone.

After lots of caulking and adding some new wood, and more caulking, here are the new windows installed.  Yes, the center post looks crooked - it will get a little rebuild so that won't be so obvious.   It was amazing as soon as we got them in how tight the room felt - you just get used to hearing everything that's going on outside, and now it's peaceful and quiet.  I am looking forward to doing the same in the master bedroom eventually.  Only 13 windows to go!!

The guest room... all that's needed in here is to paint the trim and it will be the first completely finished room in the house.  We rearranged things to make a sitting area by the windows - it's really quite comfortable, and I hope you get to see it in person some day!


When you do, you will have to take an evening walk to the beach.  We enjoy those - heading down around sunset or after, when things cool down.  Out along the water's edge, we listen to the ocean, as we pass the Ocean Deck and all the hotels filled with people who actually have to leave in the morning!  Then it's on to the boardwalk for a little salt water taffy.  We haven't yet tried the Ferris wheel or go-kart track but I know one day we will.